Like many companies, Thomson Reuters regularly conducts employee surveys to gauge levels of engagement and their impact on business results. However, its one thing to measure engagement and quite another to actually drive it.

Last year, we saw an increase in engagement levels other companies did, too. But Thomson Reuters increases were aligned with the two or three areas we decided to work on, says Christine Sheedy, Senior Director of Organizational Development for Thomson Reuters.

Thomson Reuters employee survey results were even more impressive given their timing: Roughly a year after a complex merger, when engagement scores typically drop, Thomson Reuters employee engagement scores improved on nearly every front over the previous survey in 2008:

The company achieved 90% positive scores on employees understanding of how their unit/department contributes to the business, willingness to give their discretionary effort and motivation to help Thomson Reuters succeed.

Results of key engagement drivers such as executive committee leadership effectiveness and senior management interest in employee well-being and management style also improved.

Even the employee response rate jumped an impressive 10 percentage points from the previous year.

Organizational Development Drives Employee Engagement

at Thomson Reuters

A Case Study

Last year, we saw an increase in engagement levels other companies did, too. But Thomson Reuters increases were aligned with the two or three areas we decided to work on. Christine SheedySenior Director of Organizational Development for Thomson Reuters

What sets Thomson Reuters apart is its organizational development (OD) team, which collaborates with HR partners and business leaders across Thomson Reuters 55,000-strong workforce in over 90 countries to carefully analyze employee survey fi ndings, pinpoint specifi c areas that need improvement, and develop and implement concrete plans.

We look at the human side of change. If youre going to make wholesale changes, you need to ensure that the people who are impacted are ready to do things in a new, different and better way, Sheedy explains.

So at Thomson Reuters, rather than taking the traditional one-off tactical approach of addressing survey results with a heavy focus on employee communications, OD helps key business leaders develop a people-oriented, holistic strategy and implementation plan to drive lasting change.

As part of this process, OD provides HR leaders with proactive tools and training, including online tutorial presentations and Q&A offi ce hours to help them understand the specifi c goals of the survey as well as how to analyze the results and make valid comparisons against previous years fi ndings, high- performance norms and other critical benchmarks. They also coach business leaders to understand the importance of encouraging survey participation through Engagement 101 presentations. As part of this effort, business leaders are also prompted to align their efforts with frontline managers who can have a huge infl uence on participation rates by helping them understand the impact of employee engagement and the overall rationale for conducting the survey.

The OD team also focuses on several critical follow-up steps from identifying key priorities, and developing and implementing action plans, to effective facilitation. Our goal is to give our HR business partners the tools they need to lead a strategic discussion with their business partners, says Sheedy.

The role of Thomson Reuters HR professionals has dramatically shifted over the past 10 years from benefi t administrators to strategic partners, Sheedy notes. Our Human Resources Business Partners (HRBPs) are expected to work with business leaders to understand their strategy and challenges, and ensure they have the people capabilities in place to meet their goals.

Prepare key stakeholders at least three weeks 1. ahead of launching an employee survey. Explain why the survey is important and how they can benefi t from understanding the results; prepare them to encourage employee participation, answer questions and take action steps to address areas that need improvement.

Make sure frontline managers are on board.2. Executives and HR partners usually understand the importance of employee engagement, but sometimes frontline managers can lose sight of it and may not even understand why youre conducting a survey.

Communicate the results.3. Find ways to share the survey results with every segment of the employee population.

Dont wait to take action.4. If you want to drive lasting results, dont wait until three months after the survey results are in to take action.

Keep it simple.5. Focus on the two or three areas where you can make the biggest impact. Keep action steps simple and measurable.

Communicate the action steps youve taken.6. For example, if survey feedback indicated that a team wanted improved career development tools, Refer to the feedback when you launch these tools. Remind people that the survey can have an impact throughout the year if you tie it to key initiatives introduced in response to the feedback, says Christine Sheedy, Senior Director of Organizational Development at Thomson Reuters.

Six Tips:

How to Leverage Employee Surveys

to Increase Engagement

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To make this happen, OD provides HR leaders with key information that helps them understand how survey results shed light on which managers are more effective and which locations are more or less engaged, and allows them to develop action steps focused on the specifi c areas they want to improve.

Beyond the businesses, OD has worked with HR to improve its own function as well. For example, the results of a 2008 survey revealed that employees in the Thomson Reuters HR Markets Division did not feel connected to the HR leadership team, which had received low engagement scores related to communications. To turn things around, HR enlisted ODs help in putting together a short-term impact team to examine the problem, come up with solutions and create a time frame for implementation.

The ad hoc solution team was comprised of both senior executives and junior-level employees from the HR team, from both remote and large global locations. We put together a broad scope of people because we wanted them to look at the issues from varied perspectives, says Sheedy.

The team explored the root causes of the survey fi ndings and, after several meetings, developed a plan to improve HR leadership visibility, create a better sense of community within the overall HR function, increase participation in meetings and develop clear communications focused on key actions.

The plan hinged on specifi c actions to encourage face time for HR leadership and HR professionals during on-site visits, whether formally at lunches and town hall meetings, or informally at after-work functions and networking events such as a newly created HR Careers Day to instill a sense of team spirit and pride. Going even further, one of the HR leaders extended his reach

by initiating large-group quarterly meetings that encompass non-direct reports and, in fact, anyone with management responsibilities.

The team also increased visibility, communication and HR participation by expanding the use of videoconferencing, creating new formats and time slots for global calls, and placing greater emphasis on clarifying the context of specifi c strategies.

The results of these combined efforts, Sheedy reports, showed up in Thomson Reuters 2009 employee survey results, which indicated an eight-point improvement in the HR Markets Divisions communications scores, along with a four- to fi ve-point increase in overall employee engagement.

Any time something needs to change, OD tries to get involved and support the change process, Sheedy concludes. As she sees it, employee survey fi ndings often open doors for intervention and problem solving. For instance, sometimes surveys reveal that a team is not working as well as it could be. In that case, Well do some team-building workshops. Our goal isnt to teach people how to be part of a team. Instead, we help people gain insights about their individual style of working, and everyone elses, so that the team can do a better job of managing confl ict and improving their working relationships, she says.

In a nutshell, organizational development ranges from diagnostic work through process design and execution of major change initiatives. And by addressing peoples readiness for change, organizational development helps increase employee engagement.