ACT I – Improving Employee Experience Made ACT I A Magnet For Top Talent
Client:
- ACT I
Impact:
- 12% increase in “employee trust in management"; 22% increase in employees’ sense of “special and unique benefits”; 25% reduction in its “retention at risk” employees.
ACT I’s Challenge
Known for taking bold, innovative actions to serve customers and employees, government services provider Advanced Concepts and Technology International (ACT I) sought to level up employee satisfaction to attract and retain top talent in all its markets. This need was heightened in the fiercely competitive Washington D.C. market, when Amazon announced its second headquarters literally down the street from ACT I’s headquarters.
Going head-to-head for talent against heavy hitters such as Amazon, ACT I dove headfirst into increasing its Great Place to Work™ score and achieving Great Place to Work™ certification within three years through a series of employee co-created innovations to increase engagement and satisfaction.
XPLANE’s Approach
Knowing they’d need to deeply engage employees to reach their goals, ACT I called on engagement and activation experts XPLANE to facilitate an all-hands-on-deck culture shift.
Leaning into the BAASE Model—Baseline, Analyze, Activate, Strategize, Execute—and relying on unwavering leadership support, co-creation, and people-centered design, XPLANE’s team worked with ACT I’s employees to identify and design solutions for objectives most critical to ACT I’s people:
- Create a fair sense of compensation and rewards
- Involve employees in decision-making
- Support work-life balance, and more
The Results
Within just one year, ACT I achieved improvements in every targeted area:
- 12% increase in “employee trust in management”
- 22% increase in employees’ sense of “special and unique benefits”
- 25% reduction in its “retention at risk” employees
At the end of two years, ACT I achieved its goal of “Great Place to Work” Certification with a 92-point score—a year ahead of their original three-year target.
“Employee satisfaction remains our top measure of success at ACT I. We know that if we deliver for our people, they will deliver for our customers. In the competitive markets we operate, it was important that we identified ways to both recruit and retain top talent. XPLANE helped drive and measure our success in Employee Experiences. And they helped us understand and build out an employee program that led to meaningful results in recruitment and retention. Today, we are Great Place to Work-Certified™ and continue to leverage the insights and expertise from XPLANE to enhance ACT I employees’ experiences.”
– Michael Niggel, CEO, ACT I
Lessons Learned: ACT I's Keys to Success
- Unwavering support from leadership
- Ongoing and frequent communication
- Using co-creation to design solutions
- All-company dedication to culture change
Let's talk about your goals and possible solutions.
Explore Further
Related Worksheets
Fresh from our hardworking problem-solvers and transformation gurus, our library of skill-building resources get people engaged and aligned around change.
Empathy Map
< Worksheets Play Empathy Map Design change in a people-centered way using the Empathy Map to surface valuable organizational insights. XPLANE pioneered visual Empathy Mapping as a technique for quickly capture the perspective of the customer. Empathy mapping for organizational
Employee Experience Journey Map
< Worksheets Play Employee Experience Journey Map A diagnostic tool that will help you visualize an employee’s current experience in your organization, the Employee Experience Journey Map includes “touchpoints” at which you can assess whether an employee’s experience meets their
Related Blog Posts
Expand your mind and supercharge your initiatives. Our blog is home to a stunning array of insights, tips, and tools waiting to be explored.
Make Your Workplace a Magnet for Top Talent
If you want to attract and retain top talent, it might be time to level up your organization’s employee experience. Here’s our five-step recipe for creating a workplace with happy employees who want to stick around.
Finally, a Tool That Can Help Improve Employee Experience
As talent pools evaporate and employees leave jobs in droves for greener pastures each year, employers are keen to cultivate compelling employee experience programs to attract top talent—and keep people happy at work. Here’s a tool—and a host of tips—for creating a winning employee experience.
Related Webinars
Bust through organizational barriers with approaches that work. Our expert-led webinars offer mighty tips and tools to get you unstuck and on the road to success.
Webinar Recording: Activating Employee Experience from Within: Five Steps to Improve Employee Experience
< WEBINARS Webinar Recording: Activating Employee Experience from Within: Five Steps to Improve Employee Experience As innovation, creativity, and insight become the primary basis of competitive advantage in organizations, attracting new talent and retaining experienced employees is a strategic imperative.
Webinar Recording: Strategy Activation: From Plan to Action, Bring Your Strategy to Life
80% of most strategies that are launched, fail. CEO Aric Wood discusses why that is, and also shares our proven methodology to help organizations get their people aligned, on board, and executing strategies effectively as a team—what we call “Strategy Activation.”