Bottoms-Up
Creating an Employee-Driven
Approach to Total Engagement
Presenters:
Autumn Manning
CEO & Co-Founder of YouEarnedIt
Background in Behavioral Psychology, Talent
Management and Organizational Development.
YouEarnedIt awarded “Best Places to Work 2016” by
Austin Business Journal
Kathy Smith-Willman
Senior Director, People & Talent, Bazaarvoice
16 years of experience in education, entrepreneurism and
human resources. She is responsible for the company’s
employee relations, internal communications and all
engagement and culture initiatives.
Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?
And today’s employee demands a truly engaging
experience to stay long-term.
Source: “State of the American Workplace.” Gallup, 2013.
Engagement ≠
Showing Effort
Engagement! So, what is it?
CONNECTIO
N
MEANING
IMPACT
APPRECIATI
ON
Industry-Wide Challenges
Enabling employees to own their own engagement
and performance
Articulating ROI at the executive level
How to measure the value of bottoms-up engagement
programs
Knowing and figuring out where to start
“
In an era of heightened corporate
transparency, greater workforce mobility,
and severe skills shortages, culture,
engagement, and retention have
emerged as top issues for business
leaders. These issues are not simply
an HR problem.
“
Global Human Capital Trends 2016, Deloitte US
Case Study: Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice provides brands and
retailers solutions that connect
them to consumers through
online ratings and reviews,
curated social content and
targeted advertising
1,000 employees and growing
Headquartered in Austin, TX
with offices worldwide
Has won “Best Place to Work”
in every size category (small,
medium, large)
Bazaarvoice: HR Challenges
A lot of disparate programs
Lack of global visibility
Little cross-functional team recognition
Lack of participation in programs
A great deal of top-down administrative effort
Growing pains associated with company expansion
No data or analytics to back up program’s value
Program Evaluation: Recognition
Problem: Managers wanted a way to reward employees
for their hard work and empower employees to
recognize and reward each other.
Top-Down Solution: Managers would send HR who
they wanted to recognize and HR would provide them
with an American Express gift card.
Outcome: All the tracking was done manually which
became very laborious as the company grew. There was
lack of visibility and participation – only the manager and
the recipient (and HR) knew about the recognition.
Program Evaluation: Wellness
Problem: Employee wellness was important to the
founders of Bazaarvoice. They wanted their employees
to be healthy as individuals and as a team.
Top-Down Solution: Employees were given “wellness
dollars,” a total of $500: $250 to use for themselves and
$250 to use as a team on anything related to their wellbeing and health.
Outcome: A lot of administrative work for HR. The
money was spent improperly, using wellness dollars for
events such as “spa days.” Overall goal was to change
behavior and there was no data or analytics to support
this.
Program Evaluation: Community
Problem: Employees were passionate about helping
those in need and the company wanted to encourage
and support employees in those passions.
Top-Down Solution: Employees were allowed to
choose cause of their choice, fundraise to make a
donation through the company, request a donation
match and the HR department would send that to the
foundation or non-profit.
Outcome: A lot of administrative work—tracking,
sending to payroll, managing expenses, getting
approval. The process became hard to manage.
Creating Total Employee Engagement
The ideal program for Bazaarvoice:
Bringing together 3 disparate programs into one
platform
Raising the accessibility and visibility for recognition
Earning wellness dollars instead of just giving them
Incorporating community more broadly and visibly
Providing administrators with insights, data, and
analytics for company goals
Selling it Internally
The team put together a comprehensive deck around
the three areas of importance: Wellness,
Recognition, Community
R&D team test-drove YouEarnedIt before introducing
it company wide, and they loved it
Hosted several employee meetings to explain what
would happen and when
Showcased how things would change and the new
benefits
Reaching Bottoms-Up Employee
Engagement
Results: Employee-Owned Engagement
Employees are recognizing other employees within
their own teams, cross-functionally and globally on a
daily basis
Participation has skyrocketed thanks to employees
earning their wellness points
Data and analytics help change behavior and inspire
more employees to be happy and healthy
Increased visibility all the way up the line to the CEO
and executive team
ROI of Employee Engagement
Community: Almost one-third of the company
participated in “b:generous” and charitable giving with
their earned rewards points
Recognition: 75% of employees sent peer-to-peer
recognition in 2015.
Wellness: Participation in the company’s corporate
wellness program rose to 70% after one year. Health
risk assessments increased dramatically—from less
than 10
to over 100 year-over-year.
4 Successful Efforts Other
Companies Are Doing
(And you can, too)
Meaning: Wellness at Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice encourages their
employees to not only be
healthy, but do so as a team.
They incentivize group physical
activities like 5k races or
intramural sports.
They’ve also tapped into
wellness benefits many
companies offer (e.g. gym
discounts, health risk
assessments) and tied them into
their recognition and rewards
initiatives, causing awareness
and participation to take off.
Impact: Leave It Better with YouEarnedIt
YouEarnedIt gives back to
the community with indepth service projects once
a quarter and one big
project a year.
Core Value: “Leave It
Better”
Not only in our work, but in
people’s lives. One of the
things our employees want
is to leave a mark; to
impact the community. This
is a way we do that.
Connect: WAS Week at Santander
Simple, Personable,
and Fair
Santander turns an entire
week into a focus on its
associates and employees.
Appreciation: Employee Spotlight at MXM
MXM, a major marketing
agency, sends out a weekly
“Spotlight” called MXM Star.
MXM Star always ties back
to employee recognition,
employees living out values
and key behaviors, and
CTA’s to encourage more
feedback to happen.
Questions?