Employee engagement strategies and practices

Globa
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Employee Engagement:
Strategies & Practices
An i4cp Report
Strategy Leadership Talent Culture Market

Employee Engagement: Strategies & Practices
The five domains of
high-performance organizations
About i4cp
i4cp focuses on the people practices that make high-performance organizations unique. Years of research
make it clear that top companies approach their workforces differently. At i4cp, we work with our network of
organizations to:
 Reveal what high-performance organizations
are doing differently.
 Identify best and next practices for all levels
of management.
 Provide the resources to show how workforce
improvements have bottom-line impact.
Through our exclusive, vendor-free network – in which peers
collaborate to drive strategic research and share tools and
insights – i4cp provides a unique, practical view of how human
capital practices drive high-performance.
Visit i4cp.com to learn more.
About this report
Having an engaged workforce has a high correlation with market performance. This fact drives high-
performance organizations to manage engagement much the same as they measure and monitor
financial and operational performance. By combining data with on-the-ground initiatives from some of
the world's top organizations, this report clearly shows where the critical connections between employee
engagement and business performance should be made. It also provides actionable strategies for
implementing the practices that will put your organization on the road to a more engaged and
productive future.
About the Market Performance Index (MPI)
i4cp’s Market Performance Index, or MPI, is based on self-reported ratings of organizational
performance in four key areas—market share, revenue growth, profitability and customer satisfaction—
as compared to the levels achieved five years previously. The average of the four ratings determines
MPI score.

Contents
Aligning culture, strategy and performance ...................................................................................................................1
Promote a culture in which employees understand organizational goals and are empowered to
achieve them .......................................................................................................................................................................2
Trust is the foundation of engagement at 3M..........................................................................................................3
Measure the impact of engagement on the business...................................................................................................4
Rio Tinto links engagement to business results ......................................................................................................6
Include engagement in managers’ performance reviews............................................................................................7
Jack in the Box links engagement to profits.............................................................................................................8
Ensure prompt, focused follow through by managers ..................................................................................................9
Conclusions and recommendations.............................................................................................................................. 10
Recommendations for conducting employee engagement surveys ................................................................. 10
10 Steps for increasing employee engagement ................................................................................................... 11
Authors and contributors ................................................................................................................................................ 15
References ........................................................................................................................................................................ 15
©2013 Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)
Use of all results, analysis and findings requires explicit permission from i4cp.

www.i4cp.com Page 1 | Proprietary
Time-to-full-productivityEmployee Engagement: Strategies & Practices
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Aligning culture, strategy and performance
i4cp's research on employee engagement confirms that in high-performing organizations (HPOs) engagement
is much more than a periodic survey followed by activity-planning. Engagement is about aligning culture,
strategy and performance, and re-thinking the ways in which these connect. It is the result of a series of
activities that need to be embedded into every step of the
employee life cycle process from the employer brand
portrayed, recruiting and onboarding, to leadership, learning
and development, and reward and recognition. A critical
element of this alignment is a culture that makes engagement
the responsibility of frontline managers and top leadership
rather than an activity wholly owned by human resources.
Having an engaged workforce has a high correlation with market performance. HPOs excel at practices that
increase engagement—far out-performing lower-performing organizations (LPOs). These practices include:
 Maintaining cultures in which employees understand organizational
goals and are empowered to achieve them.
 Measuring the impact of engagement on the business.
 Including engagement in manager performance appraisals and
development plans.
 Emphasizing prompt and focused follow through on engagement issues
with frequent and regular communications on the impact to the business.
i4cp’s 2012 survey on employee engagement revealed that 35% of HPOs actively measure and regularly
monitor the impact of engagement on the business and act quickly to respond compared to 21% of low
performers. HPOs manage engagement much the same as they measure and monitor financial and
operational performance. The most commonly used metrics for analysis are customer satisfaction, profitability
and revenue growth, with HPOs much more likely to use these metrics in all three areas.
HPO's describe difficulty defining engagement across global workforces, identifying the right metrics to use in
different markets, sustaining focus on engagement during difficult periods, and effectively tackling the action-
planning element—much the same as LPO's. However, HPOs persevere through these issues to realize results
by recognizing that not following up in meaningful ways can be more counter-productive than not surveying
employees at all.
Some organizations have yet to begin to connect operating and financial information with employee
information. The good news is that it can begin with small, incremental steps working with basic metrics that
can be refined over time. Making those critical connections between employee engagement and business
performance may be challenging at first, but prove well worth the investment.
Engagement is about
aligning culture, strategy and
performance, and re-thinking the
ways in which these connect.

Proprietary | Page 2 ©2013 Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) www.i4cp.com
Promote a culture in which employees understand
organizational goals and are empowered to achieve them
Employees in high-performing organizations understand their company's business strategy and operating
goals, and most importantly, what they need to do to contribute to their success. Equally important is that they
genuinely want—and are able to—take ownership of challenges and find solutions.
HPOs recognize the importance of creating and
sustaining an environment that aligns their business
objectives with a culture that empowers their
employees. HPOs also use employee surveys as only
one method of identifying how well they are doing.
Additionally, they monitor and manage performance,
individually and collectively, to ensure it is successful
and aligned to the key business performance
objectives.
Over two-thirds of respondents from high-engagement
organizations (HEOs) agreed to a high or very high
extent that there is a clear understanding in their
organization of what the company stands for, what it
wants to achieve and how employees contribute to
that success.
This reinforces the importance of clear and consistent
communication by all levels of leadership throughout
the organization. Messages employees receive about
the organization and their contributions to plans and
strategies are absolutely critical to engagement.
When asked about the extent to which they agreed with the statement that their organization’s leadership
helps employees see and feel how they are contributing to the organization’s success and future, over a third
of the overall (aggregate) respondents agreed to a high or very extent, but respondents from HEOs (47%) were
twice as likely to agree as those from LEOs (21%). This finding had significant correlations with both market
performance (r =.21**) and engagement (r=.42**).
High-Engagement Organizations (HEOs)
Respondents to the survey indicating >70%
of their workforce is highly engaged
(96 of 334 survey respondents).
Low-Engagement Organizations (LEOs)
Respondents to the survey indicating <30%
of their workforce is highly engaged
(94 of 334 survey respondents).

STRATEGY IN ACTION
Trust is the foundation
of engagement at 3M
3M differentiates between employee satisfaction and employee
engagement by looking at how the perceptions, behaviors and drivers
associated with each word differ. The company found that while engaged
employees are satisfied and demonstrate satisfaction behaviors as well as
engagement behaviors, the same is not necessarily true in reverse:
satisfied employees don’t always display engagement behaviors.
3M defines engagement as: “an individual’s sense of purpose and
focused energy, evident to others in the display of personal initiative,
effort and persistence directed toward organizational goals.”
With this in mind, 3M’s engagement model looks at conditions for
engagement that include engagement attitudes, engagement behaviors
and organizational outcomes. The basic building blocks of engagement at
3M are:
 Fair/consistent treatment leads to people
trusting their environment,
 Trusting one’s environment leads to a sense of safety,
 People feel safe to take action on their own
initiative, supporting engagement and innovation.
How does a global company ensure alignment worldwide?
Karen B. Paul, Ph.D., who leads Global HR Measurement for 3M, says that
the fundamentals of engagement are universal; the desire for meaning and
purpose in the workplace knows no borders; how the company capitalizes
on the fundamentals is local, and how these two facts are aligned can
produce engagement and financial success.
At 3M, employee engagement is definitely on the rise with consistent
increases on key measures—commitment, innovation, engagement and
risk-taking, even during a time of economic uncertainty. 3M’s research
validates the business case for employee engagement, finding that
engagement attitudes predict 3M plant absenteeism (short-term disability),
reduced benefits costs, evidence that lab employee engagement attitudes
are linked to innovation and profitability, and linking employee engagement
with customer loyalty and sustainability.
3M improves
trust by:
 Providing education and
training for supervisors
and managers;
 Promoting employees’
understanding and
involvement with 3M;
 Ensuring that
compensation is seen as
fair and equitable, and
opening the channels of
communication;
 Building accountability
and rewards -metrics, pay,
promotions and
performance
management;
 Focusing on interpersonal
elements such as
approaching one another
with respect and warmth;
 Expecting leaders keep
their promises, involve
people in decision-
making, distribute work
equitably, communicate
openly and demonstrate
concern;
 Emphasizing engagement
in all leadership classes
and through mentoring
initiatives such as
“Leaders Teaching
Leaders.”

More than
1.5x
1.5x
4.5x
3x
Measure the impact of engagement on the business
Among those organizations that are measuring the impact of engagement on the business, more respondents
from HPOs (35%) reported doing so than those from LPOs (21%). Among organizations that are actively
measuring the impact of engagement on the business, the most commonly used metrics are customer
satisfaction, profitability and revenue growth, with HPOs much more likely to use these metrics in all three
areas.
Significantly more HPOs measure the impact of employee
engagement on key business performance indicators
*Percent of organizations measuring the business impact of engagement
Customer satisfaction
HPOs 83%
LPOs 50%
Profitability
HPOs 67%
LPOs 38%
Revenue growth
HPOs 63%
LPOs 13%
Market share
HPOs 42%
LPOs 13%
Source: i4cp's Employee Engagement Survey
While researchers and HR practitioners have been able to establish a relationship between employee
engagement and business performance in a specific context, developing an approach that can be applied
widely has proved elusive.
Hank Jonas, who leads Organizational Effectiveness at Corning says that it’s important to keep in mind that
making these connections is much more complex for some organizations than others. Companies that are very
singular industries, such as banks or retailers, that ascribe to the basic model of employee satisfaction drives
customer satisfaction—which in turn drives business results—are able to identify specific, consistent measures
of customer satisfaction. Others, by virtue of their industry and scope, don’t have that same ease; it would
require a very sophisticated process in order to establish those linkages Jonas says.
Some leaders may be hesitant or even resistant to the notion of tying employee survey data to hard business
data altogether because they believe that survey results are simply reactive. If business is good, the results will
be good and if the business is not doing well the employees will be unhappy—and this is what will be
represented in survey results.

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But companies can and should start modestly, says Jonas, if not by looking at hard business results, looking at
engagement scores by performance ratings or by talent designations—those are the things that will start to get
the attention of senior leaders. “When you’re looking at survey data that may be telling you that your most high-
potential people are less satisfied and engaged, that will pique some interest,” Jonas says.
Organizations don't always start with a major corporate-wide initiative measuring a multitude of metrics and
indicators. Most successful HPOs report a simple formula for success:
1. Start small
Work with individual business unit leaders to build curiosity, then interest, and
ultimately commitment for resources and action. Many HPOs report using simple
spreadsheets and/or database management vs. HRIS big-box systems.
2. Collect readily available metrics first
Compile available data for both HR and business unit performance. Limit your impact
to the business while gathering data.
3. Look for reasonable correlations
Don’t look for or conclude cause-and-effect at first; check your data before drawing any
conclusions or recommending action.
4. Ensure accuracy
Build rigor and validity in your processes. Challenge your own observations. Be your
own worst critic---it still won't be enough.
5. Establish a history
Extend your analysis retrospectively looking for patterns and trends. Structure your
collection with an eye to the future to prepare for an accumulation of data. Prepare for
organizational changes in structure.
6. Build momentum
Harvest and share success stories and seek endorsements from executives that have
found the data valuable.

Items with a strong, consistent
link to the performance measures
most important to Rio Tinto were
more meaningful than standard
conceptual measures of
engagement.
STRATEGY IN ACTION
Rio Tinto links engagement to business results
Rio Tinto has been conducting surveys of employees for quite some time, initially focusing on gathering input
and opinions regarding issues that affect the organization rather than employment. Culturally, there was a
sense that the contributions of people impact business performance, but the company’s leadership wanted to
make solid connections between employee engagement and performance of the business.
Rio Tinto’s approach to demonstrating that employee engagement is much more than an HR initiative to gauge
satisfaction began with the appointment of an advisor on employee engagement. A case study by Towers
Watson, Rio Tinto’s partner on the initiative, notes that Rio Tinto already had a broad spectrum of business
measures, and rather than adopt standard engagement measures, was eager to establish links between
employee engagement and business performance unique to the organization. This was achieved by using
linkage analysis to define the engagement measure. Towers Watson and Rio Tinto designed a wider survey
than usual to allow a broader field for correlation. The routine employee opinion analysis was completed
swiftly, but the linkage analysis demanded more complex and time-consuming statistical modeling. Rio Tinto
provided performance data based on safety, production and maintenance measures.
Six survey items emerged that showed strong, consistent links to the performance measures that are most
important to Rio Tinto’s plants and mines managers, far more meaningful than a standard conceptual measure
of engagement. From this, Rio Tinto had a key performance indicator (KPI) linking engagement to business
results. Towers Watson and Rio Tinto analyzed the underlying drivers—identified as leadership, external
reputation, and safety practices—to develop action plans for improvements as well as benchmark themselves
against similar organizations in Towers Watson’s database.

Include engagement in managers’ performance reviews
The role of the manager in employee engagement cannot be underestimated. Of course, the messages sent to
the organization by senior leadership regarding the importance of engagement are important, but frontline
managers are the linchpin for building and sustaining engagement. The study found that high engagement
organizations are twice as likely as low engagement organizations to include engagement measures as part of
each line manager’s performance review. With a correlation to engagement of 0.22**, organizations that fail
to tie engagement to performance measures are missing a key opportunity to improve engagement.
i4cp’s Talent Management in the Trenches report bears
out the importance of line managers taking responsibility
for managing talent, which also showed a strong
correlation to high performance. Context is a key point,
however, as it’s important to acknowledge that the work
environment, culture and company type can alter the
talent management activities of line managers.
Paul Humphries, EVP of HR and President, Medical,
Automotive, and Aerospace for Flextronics, noted that
the talent management priorities are quite different for
frontline managers in his organization. “When we think
of talent management responsibilities for our frontline
managers, we primarily think of employee engagement,
retention, attraction, reducing turnover, and trying to
provide a better work environment,” Humphries said.
Half of the survey respondents agreed that engagement is a reflection of how employees feel about their
relationship with their immediate supervisor, and far more respondents from HPOs agreed with this statement
than did those from LPOs. Managers who invest time in getting to know their employees and provide them with
regular feedback, coaching and development opportunities are more likely to have effective, highly engaged
teams that contribute to the success of the organization. i4cp’s report, Purpose Driven Performance
Management in High-Performance Organizations revealed that HPOs differentiate themselves by providing
supervisors with critical training related to performance management. This held true in every category of
training―giving/receiving feedback, conducting a performance appraisal meeting, maintaining ongoing
documentation, writing performance appraisals, providing motivation, developing goals. Tying engagement to
the performance measures of managers is not a common practice today (only 26% of companies reported
doing it) but it should become one for organizations serious about increasing engagement among the
workforce.
Incorporating action planning into the performance management process makes sense as it establishes clear
and specific accountability. Organizations can help managers by focusing on key insights garnered from the
engagement survey rather than bombarding them with a massive dump of data. By identifying key drivers that
managers can focus their time and energy on in terms of relevant and specific actions that will improve
engagement, organizations have a better chance of gaining support from managers and with it, meaningful
change. This can be facilitated by assisting managers in ensuring that their direct reports have line of sight to
the organization’s purpose and goals.
Includes engagement as part of each
manager's performance review
HEOs 40%
LEOs 19% 2xAgrees with the statement:
"Employee engagement is a reflection of
how employees feel about their relationship
with their immediate supervisor"
HEOs 65%
LEOs 40%
1.5x

STRATEGY IN ACTION
Jack in the Box links engagement to profits
Jack in the Box Inc. has conducted annual employee surveys for nearly two decades,
following the familiar cycle of conducting a survey each year, summarizing and
sharing the results with the organization. Mark Blankenship, the company’s SVP and
Chief Administrative Officer, arrived to find that the company ascribed to the service
profit chain model* for operating its restaurants. The concept at the heart of this model is that if restaurant
managers excel at hiring the right employees, those hires will provide superior service to guests, resulting in
happier (and loyal) guests, who would then be more loyal to the brand. This idea of hiring the right employees,
treating them well, training consistently and paying above average—all of which leads to high levels of
customer service, loyalty and retention—was, as Blankenship wrote in HR Magazine, “ … the belief system or
logic chain. We put language to that effect in our annual reports” (2012).
HR measured employee satisfaction and engagement through the annual survey and “demonstrated
relationships between satisfaction with the boss, benefits, training, turnover and so forth, but that's where HR's
analytical connection to the business stopped,” says Blankenship, who was intrigued that HR professionals did
not engage in connecting the "people" data to the financial and operational data, nor did leaders in finance
and operations express interest in that same people data as an integral, strategic element of their analytical
work. “After all,” says Blankenship, “they measure every aspect of restaurant and business performance.”
Blankenship moved to assemble the restaurant performance data and connect the organization’s people
metrics and business performance, the beginnings of what became “a strategic shift in decision-making,"
Blankenship says. The data told a story—restaurants staffed by happier employees had happier guests and
correspondingly higher sales and profits. “We learned that the manager controlled much of what we saw as
employee satisfaction but that ‘happy employees’ were only part of the equation that led to our current ‘people
equity scorecard.’”
The organization began to change the way business was discussed—based on the data and process—and they
added quarterly internal service surveys to follow-up the annual survey. The quarterly surveys defined eight
dimensions: communication; feedback; interpersonal treatment; leadership; physical environment; rewards
and recognition; staffing; training and development. Blankenship says that the quarterly follow-up surveys
measured the performance of restaurant managers, which were a component of the manager's performance
review. “We used those results to inform our restaurant operations team about what was really driving
employee engagement and performance. To their surprise, it was less about pay—despite entry-level wages
associated with the quick-service restaurant industry—and more about consistent staffing, training and
feedback.”
Jack in the Box was able to refine its people data down to eight dimensions of service and had employees rate
their managers on these eight dimensions. This information was then shared with the restaurant managers,
which enables them to assess their own performance. After a year of sharing this feedback with managers
quarterly, the company made this process part of a manager’s regular performance review in order to hold
them accountable.
*For complete information on the model see, The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty,
Satisfaction and Value, by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr, and Leonard A. Schlesinger, Free Press, 1997.

Ensure prompt, focused follow through by managers
It may seem simplistic, but the fact is that many organizations falter merely by failing to follow-through in
meaningful and visible ways or by depending on HR alone to drive execution. The onus here is on the leaders
of the organization to set the tone—engagement becomes relevant in an organization in which the senior
leaders understand that engagement drives business results and view it as a business imperative rather than
something that should be invested in simply because it is the right thing to do.
It stands to reason that employees who have
participated in engagement surveys and observed real
action come out of the result of those surveys beyond
the presentations of the results and discussions about
change strategies will be more engaged. Our survey
found that 38% of the respondents agreed to a high or
very extent with the statement:“My organization’s
leadership helps employees see and feel how they are
contributing to the organization’s success and future.”
Among those, the respondents from HPOs were much
more likely to agree (50%) than those from LPOs (24%).
The imperative for companies today is to act, but
differently than they have in the past. Managers must
focus on employees, individually, as the key to improving
employee engagement throughout the enterprise. By
leveraging universal motivators—autonomy, mastery and
purpose—to make mutually rewarding progress, each
manager can readily create natural win/win outcomes.
To do their best, managers need: leaders to set the stage and lead by example; HR to facilitate the ongoing
process; and finally, upper middle managers to become subject matter experts, who competently advise
leaders and mentor managers on an ongoing basis.
Moreover, sustainable cultures of engagement are built on solid foundations of trust and engaged employees
are those who have confidence in their senior leaders. Leaders earn trust by being visible, communicating
clearly and often about company values, and walking the talk. Cultures in which employees are motivated and
engaged are likely those in which leaders communicate effectively with employees about performance goals
and expectations. They are also visibly invested in employee engagement and demonstrate their commitment
by taking swift, decisive and transparent action on what is learned from employee surveys.
Most respondents to the survey reported that their
leaders demonstrate investment in employee
engagement, and respondents from HPOs were much
more likely (76%) to say this than LPOs (59%).
Respondents from high engagement organizations were
twice as likely (89%) as those from low engagement
companies (46%) to report that their leadership
demonstrates investment in engagement, which had a
0.34** correlation to engagement.
Leaders demonstrate investment in
employee engagement
HEOs 89%
LEOs 46%
2x
Agrees with the statements:
"My organization does an effective job of
taking meaningful action following
engagement surveys"
HPOs 31%
LPOs 14%
"My organization's leadership helps
employees see and feel how they are
contributing to the organization's
success and future"
HPOs 50%
LPOs 24%
2x
2x

Conclusions and recommendations
Employee engagement has a high correlation to market performance. Increasing it is worth the investment and
the effort required. High-performing organizations cultivate high engagement among their employees. And
companies with highly engaged workforces generate better financial and customer satisfaction results than
those with less engaged employees. Our study reveals that companies should take four key steps to ensure the
value of their employee engagement survey efforts:
Recommendations for conducting employee engagement surveys
Recommendation Action Benefit
Tailor your approach Connect engagement activities to the
business strategy and identify linkages
between engagement data and
business outcomes.
Builds the business case for employee
engagement.
Involve top leaders Engage senior business and corporate
leaders in conversations about
engagement data and improvement.
Builds leadership commitment to and
involvement in employee engagement
activities.
Communicate results quickly Hold town hall-style meetings with
senior leadership presenting scores,
areas of strength, areas for
development, and discussing action
plans being created.
Acknowledge the input of employees
and communicate in a concrete way
what changes the company will make.
Develop a consistent message and
theme that communicates the value
and business importance of
engagement and the organization’s
commitment to employees.
Demonstrates the commitment of
senior leaders to employee
engagement.
Helps to shift the view of engagement
from the focus of an annual survey to an
integral part of the culture of the
organization.
Take action Respond to employee feedback by
taking action on items as quickly as
possible and communicating about it.
Recognize and reward engagement by
emphasizing when it is done well and
celebrating successful efforts.
Sends the clear message that” we
heard you said, here’s what we did
about it.”
Sets the tone for and reinforces the
importance of engagement to both
employees and managers alike.

Engagement is the result of a series of activities that need to be embedded into every step of the talent
management process. Our survey of close to 200 organizations and discussions with i4cp’s Employee
Engagement Exchange members identified 10 key steps that organizations can take to increase employee
engagement:
10 Steps for increasing employee engagement
Recruiting
1. Design/ enhance your employer
brand around key engagement
drivers.
Build an employee value
proposition and workplace
environment around attributes
that most engage employees.
Creates a culture that
continually engages
employees and helps improve
internal employee referral
rates.
2. Hire people that are more likely
to “fit’ your organization (from a
values/culture) standpoint.
Embed values and behaviors
into candidate identification,
interview and assessment
practices.
Acclimates new staff more
quickly into the organization.
Onboarding
3. Focus onboarding process on
assimilation.
Implement process to ensure
managers meet with new staff
on start dates, have working
environment prepared
(including technology) and are
assigned “buddies” to help new
staff with acclimation and
introductions to key people in
the organization.
Accelerates time to full
productivity and reduction of
learning curves for new
employees.

Leadership
4. Give workers line of sight from
the work they do to the bigger
strategic goals of the
organization and or business
unit.
Educate workers on the
business; make company
performance data available,
identify drivers of performance
and show how what employees
do affects them.
Conduct town hall or group
meetings in which senior
leadership discusses strategy
and other issues.
Creates a greater sense of
ownership among employees
and establishes transparency
between executives
leadership actions and
objectives.
5. Involve employees in
organizational strategy.
Establish an Employee Council
to increase communication with
front-line staff.
Create a venue for employees to
submit ideas on internal
improvements to a panel of
peers who discuss and
determine the feasibility of the
idea and the potential impact to
the organization.
Builds ownership of strategic
goals among employees.
6. Focus on developing better
leaders and managers.
Make the provision of
developmental support such as
training, coaching and
mentoring to line managers a
priority.
Train frontline leaders on the
following: giving and receiving
feedback, conducting
performance appraisal
meetings, addressing employee
performance issues, and setting
the goals the employees will be
measured against.
Ensures that engagement is
treated as a process by
leaders rather than an event.

Appraisal
7. Hold leaders accountable for
engagement.
Walk the talk. The tone of the
culture is a foundation set by
the leadership upon which
employee engagement is built
(or not). If the conduct of the
organization’s leadership is in
conflict with the messages
being sent to the workforce,
investments in building
engagement with employees
will be wasted.
Tie engagement scores of direct
reports and or business units to
appraisals and rewards.
Builds trust among
employees and reinforces the
importance of engagement
with and by leaders—“what’s
measured matters.”
Learning
8. Provide ample learning options
and opportunities.
Establish development plans
and career paths for all job
roles.
Offer a mix of classroom, online
and experiential learning.
Provide career development
support including online portals
and tools and coaching and
mentoring.
Builds commitment to the
organization as a place to
learn and grow.
9. Use social and collaborative
tools.
Implement a social media rich
intranet to facilitate quicker
communication, information
sharing, collaboration and
connecting team members to
'communities' they have
interest in.
Provides a vehicle for
organizational transparency
and messaging. Also,
reinforces key engagement
drivers as well as surfaces
issues that may soon (or
already does) impact
engagement.

RewardandRecognition
10. Prioritize and communicate on-
going employee recognition and
rewards.
Institute programs such as
“spot rewards” where managers
can reward employees who go
above and beyond.
Spotlight employees (e.g. in a
company newsletter) that
consistently demonstrate
organizational values and/or
came up with a new idea that
improved company
performance.
Use social media to recognize
employees publically. For
example, posting a
“congratulations” to their
LinkedIn page. Tie to key
performance indicators.
Makes employees feel valued
and appreciated. Also,
increase morale and instills
greater organizational pride.

Authors and contributors
Analysis and input was contributed by Tony DiRomualdo, VP of research and Kevin Copestick, Director,
Member Exchange Programs.
Andrew Dixon is i4cp’s research coordinator and contributor to this report; managing the survey
implementation and conducting the data analysis.
Eric Davis, i4cp’s senior editor, provided editorial oversight, graphic design and proofing for this report.
i4cp’s Employee Engagement Exchange
This report and the associated survey are products of i4cp's 2011-2012 Employee Engagement Exchange. The
group was comprised of representatives from the following organizations:
Abbott Labs
Alere
Choice Hotels
Grainger
Hertz
ING
Jack in the Box
New York Times
RBC Dexia
Sony Pictures
Entertainment
Toyota
Zebra Technology
We extend our gratitude and appreciation to the many contributors, whose dedication to the study of employee
engagement made this research project possible.
References
Blankenship, Mark. (July, 2012). “Happier Employees + Happier Customers = More Profits: HR Professionals at
Jack in the Box Restaurants use Metrics to Make the Connection.” HR Magazine. www.shrm.org
Blankenship, Mark. (October, 2012). "How to Use the People Equity Model to Better Understand Business
Performance." 2012 HRPS Strategic Talent Management Forum. HRPS. Chicago. www.hrps.org
Institute for Corporate Productivity. (2012). Talent Management in the Trenches. www.i4cp.com
Towers Watson (2011). “Towers Watson and Rio Tinto: Providing a Rock-Solid Link Between Employee
Engagement and Business Performance.” www.towerswatson.com

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