The Challenge
We engaged an organization of 3,500 employees experiencing ongoing workforce challenges impacting retention, engagement, and employee experience.
Leaders were navigating:
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Elevated turnover across key areas
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Inconsistent employee development experiences
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Limited visibility into employee growth pathways
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Gaps in leader recognition and engagement practices
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Retention risks impacting workforce stability and continuity
While leaders were committed to supporting employees, there was no standardized framework to guide engagement efforts, development conversations, or recognition practices across teams. As a result, employee experience varied by leader and department, creating inconsistencies in how employees felt supported, developed, and recognized.
The organization needed a more intentional strategy that addressed retention not as an HR issue, but as an employee experience and leadership challenge.
The Intervention & Work
To address retention drivers and improve employee experience, we designed a multi-pronged strategy focused on leader enablement, employee growth, and engagement practices.
Phase 1: Identify Drivers Impacting Retention & Engagement
We partnered with divisional leaders to understand workforce trends conveyed by data in PowerBI, engagement barriers, and opportunities influencing employee experience and turnover.
Focus areas included:
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Turnover hotspots and high-risk departments
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Employee development gaps
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Leadership engagement practices
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Recognition opportunities
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Workforce planning considerations
Phase 2: Develop an Enterprise Employee Engagement Playbook
We designed and launched an enterprise engagement playbook to create consistency in how leaders supported and engaged employees. The framework provided leaders with practical strategies to:
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Increase employee connection and belonging
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Improve engagement conversations
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Support team morale and recognition
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Increase consistency across departments
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Enhance leader effectiveness
The goal was to move engagement from an occasional activity to an intentional leadership practice.
Phase 3: Build Development Infrastructure & Increase Usage of Internal Recognition Platform
To strengthen retention and career growth, we evangelized training on navigating and using the internal peer recognition platform and introduced a structured employee development planning framework. The framework helped leaders:
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Facilitate meaningful career conversations
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Create employee growth pathways
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Support development planning
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Increase visibility into employee aspirations
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Encourage long-term career investment
This shifted development from reactive conversations to proactive talent strategy. The recognition strategy we designed reinforced positive engagement behaviors by emphasizing:
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Recognition consistency
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Visibility of employee performance and behavior impact
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Reinforcement of engagement behaviors
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Culture-building practices
The Outcomes & Impact
The engagement and retention strategy contributed to measurable workforce improvements, most notably by reducing turnover by 11.4% within two quarters.
Additional outcomes included:
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Increased focus on employee development
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Stronger leadership engagement practices
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More intentional recognition efforts
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Improved consistency in employee experience across teams as demonstrated in higher employee sentiments in the bi-annual engagement survey