Enhancing Employee Engagement Through Whole-Person Management

BY Katie Chambers | April 14, 2025

The best way to find out what employees want is to ask, but the next step is not always straightforward. “Employee surveys can reveal a lot about what people need, but translating that feedback into action is really hard,” said moderator Rebecca Knight, contributing columnist for Harvard Business Review.

Whole-person management is revolutionizing the employee experience by recognizing the importance of addressing all aspects of an individual’s performance and well-being. What are some effective strategies and initiatives used to enhance the overall employee experience? Experts during a panel discussion at From Day One’s March virtual conference discussed the different areas of the whole-person approach: financial, emotional, familial, and more, and offered tools and strategies to bring value to employees while mitigating costs. 

Keeping the employees involved throughout the whole process, not just the initial inquiry, can be effective. Amina Lobban, head of culture, engagement & HR business excellence at Takeda, shares that her organization’s Mexico site had a relatively low well-being score, so it immediately took steps to get them more engaged with each other in ways that were most fun and meaningful to them through what they called “a people squad” with various interests that showed up in surveys.

“They formed a volleyball squad. They started yoga. They started doing celebrations for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day–all these different days,” Lobban said. “Their well-being score went up by 12 points, which is remarkable. It was an employee-led solution. When you involve the employee in ‘What is it that you want?’ versus telling the employee, ‘This is what I think you should have,’ that's when you see success.”

Working Across Departments

Rebecca Tinsley, VP, talent engagement & culture at Teradata, and her team have found success by working across departments, pairing benefits, well-being, and talent development to form one cohesive strategy. “We’re analyzing trends in learning, program participation, engagement survey and we’re also looking at benefit awareness and usage,” Tinsley said. “What that’s allowing us to do is to tailor programs to different employee segments based on what they’re directly telling us, or what they may be indirectly telling us through some of the feedback.”

Panelists spoke about "Enhancing Employee Engagement Through Whole-Person Management" (photo by From Day One)

This has led to new initiatives like their mid-level management program that blends leadership training with well-being support for some of the stresses that naturally come along with the role. Or financial wellness sessions that are integrated into career development programs. “I like to think of it as a mix between growth and balance,” she said. “It’s helping our people feel empowered to thrive in all different aspects of their life.” This holistic approach values both an employees’ personal and professional life and recognizes the impact of one on the other. 

Providing Rewards With an Eye Toward Cost 

“Compensation is a huge part of feeling valued and supported at work,” Knight said. Rewards programs can help your compensation model go the extra mile, especially when corporate budgets are tightening and “employees are struggling to afford life,” said Aaron Shapiro, founder and CEO of Carver Edison. His organization struck the balance when it launched its cashless participation program, which helps employees increase their overall compensation through stock purchases.

“Employee stock purchase plans were actually America’s first modern financial benefit written into law in 1964 as part of Johnson’s War on Poverty, almost 15 years before the 401(k) came into existence,” he said. “The number one wealth creator is equity ownership.” 

And the statistics are indicative of this type of program’s success. “87% of employees using cashless participation at public companies, ranging from small NASDAQ biotechs all the way up to the Fortune 500, said that cashless participation is a more important financial benefit than other benefits at their company because it gives them the flexibility to build wealth while at the same time freeing up disposable income,” Shapiro said. 

More Than Just Job Titles

An inclusive culture can be valuable to employees and make all the difference for acquisition and retention. “Sometimes the benefits are not even something that we need to spend money on. Community doesn’t require investment,” said Fatma Ghedira, head of community at ThinkHuman. “Sometimes it’s just employee-led ideas that really feel valuable to them.”

“A strong culture is really what determines whether employees feel valued,” Knight said, and “whole person inclusion” can make employees feel respected, safe, and ultimately more engaged. “Shared values and beliefs need investment over time,” Ghedira said, for employees to feel the true impact. Culture has become a buzzword, and Ghedira warns employers to take an intentional approach as they set out to define their workplace values.

Leaders should understand why they are developing a culture, whether the goal is engagement, performance, or something else. HR can help coach leaders on how best to communicate culture to employees. “If we do not know how to communicate the vision, and how to communicate conflict or feedback, then there is no way of actually creating the way we relate, which comes down to behavior and how we interact with each other,” she said. 

Part of a “whole person” approach is systemically encouraging employees to take breaks and practice self-care. This includes instructing managers to respect boundaries around breaktime and role-modeling behaviors, Lobban suggests. This is especially pertinent for remote workers who, thanks to technology and the blend of workplace and home life, feel like they are “always on.” Innovation like delayed delivery on emails to respect time zones and office hours can be helpful. 

Increasing Engagement Through Accessibility and Creativity 

Managers are often on the frontlines of encouraging culture, boosting morale, and explaining benefits, but don’t necessarily have the training to take on the whole-person approach themselves. Tinsley’s organization has systematized this through management training sessions, quarterly check-ins, and creating toolkits and conversation guides. Digital solutions, like Teradata’s “People Hub,” can also provide a one-stop location for employees to easily access vital information about their benefits offerings on their own.

Employers will need to remain nimble in their strategies to adapt to rapidly changing times. “I would encourage employers to think about how to be more flexible, be more creative, [and] to come up with solutions to help address some of the challenges employees are seeing on the affordability side, but also that shareholders are demanding from a cost perspective,” Shapiro said. “Now is the time to think in a slightly different way and take some new approaches to some of these historical problems.”

Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

(Photo by jacoblund/iStock)

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Developing an Employee-Experience Strategy for Your Organization

The statistics are grim: a recent Gallup survey showed employee engagement is at a near-all time low, while the share of workers who want to switch jobs is at a 10-year high. “Why is it so darn hard to fire up the team these days?” asked moderator Callum Borchers, columnist at the Wall Street Journal during a fireside chat at From Day One’s March virtual conference. Fortunately, some companies are finding a way to break through the doldrums with innovate their engagement strategies.Global Head of Employee Experience Jason Simmonds and his team at Morgan Stanley, a global financial-services firm with 80,000 employees across 41 countries, has developed a comprehensive employee-experience program, covering resources that improve employees’ careers, the workplace, and well-being. Among the upgrades: improving the onboarding process.Responding to Changing TimesThe social contract between employer and employee has shifted dramatically since the onset of the pandemic, Simmonds says, as workers came to expect greater mental health support and increased their focus on their families. “Employers reacted in kind, providing more generous benefits [and] flexible working arrangements, investing in products and tools that ultimately provided more to employees,” he said. Gen Z has also entered the workforce within recent years, and their unique values are beginning to impact demands on benefits. They prioritize mental well-being, social impact, meaningful work, and flexible working options—having never known anything else—leading to tensions as “return to office” mandates increase, Simmonds says. HR professionals are even starting to see “a managerial gap,” as balance-focused Gen Z hesitates to take on higher level positions due to the anxiety that can come with the job. Callum Borchers of the Wall Street Journal spoke with Jason Simmonds of Morgan Stanley (photo by From Day One)While the “talent wars” of the immediate post-pandemic period might be over, with a 26% decrease in open positions and layoffs on the rise, employers still need to take engagement seriously, Borchers says. To put it bluntly: In today’s job marketplace, if an employee is unhappy, they will leave. “Ultimately, if you want to attract, retain, [and] develop talent, and differentiate yourself amongst your peers in this quite increasingly competitive landscape, employee experience is really central,” Simmonds said. “Most people agree that their employees are their greatest assets. So how do we invest in them? How do we make sure that they're providing the best outcomes for the business and for their team?”Shaping an Employee-Experience StrategyMorgan Stanly experienced major growth during the pandemic, including two major acquisitions and record revenues. They also guaranteed no layoffs during that time of global crisis. The bigger challenge came, Simmonds says, coming out of the pandemic with a newer, bigger workforce. “50% of the firm was hired in the last five years,” he said, and the organization needed a strategy to help transition those newer workers into a hybrid or fully in-person working model. During the pandemic, the organization had already amped up its benefits offerings, without the official title of “employee experience strategy” per se, including better mental health resources and expanded paid parental leave. “And then also we did a lot of investment in reimagining and redesigning our workplaces, [so] that when we bring people back into the office, we provide a flexible working arrangement that fosters collaboration, that fosters innovation,” he said. The company launched a branded employee experience program called “My Experience,” focused on three pillars: career, well-being, and workplace. “The importance of the ‘my’ part is that we wanted to create more ownership and connectivity between the experience and our employees,” Simmonds said. Within each pillar are sub-pillars like “financial” and “family,” so that employees don’t need to “doomscroll” through a roster of benefits options before they find what they need. The “My Workplace” pillar of the program also comes with its own app for better access and a chatbot to efficiently understand HR policy.Prioritizing the Communication of Resources While the launch of the program did mark the addition of several benefits options, the rebrand also served as a way to refresh and better communicate the ample offerings that Morgan Stanley had already had available for quite some time. Simmonds says this employee-centric rebrand led to an uptick in awareness of and engagement with the program. His team also relied on employees themselves to be ambassadors for it. “What better way to market our employee resources than to amplify the voices of employees who have used it?” he said. “We’ve been starting to highlight employees who’ve gotten out of debt using our financial wellness resources. We highlight employees who survived cancer, leveraging our relationships with cancer research hospitals. And even if you're not in that situation, I think it makes employees very proud to work at a firm that has these resources.” Onboarding is also a crucial part of the employee experience, and it too hinges on communication. Having all the employee resources consolidated in a single, easy-to-understand package helps keep new workers from getting overwhelmed and empowers them to better understand both their role within the organization and what the company has to offer them. Morgan Stanley has a digital onboarding process that relies on fun and informative videos. “It brings the experience to a 21st century, and it creates better connectivity with our firm leadership”Of course, adding employee benefits costs money. “How do you achieve an employee-centric culture in a bottom-line driven business?” Borchers asked. One way a good experience program can offset costs is through retention, since replacing employees is expensive. “90% of employees decide to remain with the company in their first three to six months,” Simmonds said, so the sooner they understand and enjoy the experience program, the better. Simmonds says that happier employees often turn out to be better workers: “When we communicate through this employee-centric lens, it helps to increase engagement, increase culture, and ultimately increase business outcomes.” Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by Urbanscape/iStock)

Katie Chambers April 08, 2025

Managers Are Overwhelmed. How Leadership Development Can Help Them

Shifting economic forecasts, mass layoffs, political turmoil, inflation, and exhausting news cycles have people feeling like they lack control. That troubled feeling is seeping into the workplace in the form of costly employee burnout.“Managers now really need support to address and handle the shifts and the impact on their teams, their functions, even, quite frankly, themselves,” said Rochelle Arnold-Simmons, the senior director of talent management at sportswear company Under Armor, during the closing panel at From Day One’s March virtual conference on employee engagement.Managers are taking on more responsibilities, and while their work is being supported by new innovations in HR tech, it doesn’t entirely solve the problem of being overwhelmed. Employers can step in to help alleviate their burdens, panelists said.The Problem of Unprepared First-Time ManagerIt begins with promoting and training the right managers.The first-time manager unprepared for the role is a major issue for employers. Managers often get the job because they were top individual contributors, “and a lot of times they lean heavily on what got them to that promotion in the first place, but being a manager is a totally different job,” said Derek Greenacre, head of talent management at commercial insurance firm AXA XL. Organizations, he said, need to do a better job of helping new managers “ruthlessly prioritize” what’s most valuable for the business.The problem is, executives don’t always bother to help. Executive coach Adam Weber gave this example: An executive team makes a big strategic change that affects everyone in the business, but they fail to give managers context or instructions on how to implement the changes. “As soon as they share this new bold initiative, their team asks the one question that the manager doesn’t have the answer to,” Weber said. “So the manager is in this really confusing spot: They can either fake it–and it’s really obvious to the team that they’re faking it–or worse, and more common is that they commiserate and join the team.”Executives need managers on board,  but without support, they set them up to oppose the change, even tacitly. “As leadership teams, we need to share as much context as we possibly can when big decisions are made.” Gather managers for a town hall and ask, “What’s the toughest question your team will ask?’” Provide answers to those FAQs. “Equip them to be an advocate for the company,” Weber said.Feeling Safe Enough to FailManagers must feel comfortable and confident enough to press leaders for more information. It helps to have a culture where senior leaders are already candid about the mistakes they make themselves, said Kavita Juvvadi, director of HR tech transformation at Amtrak. This sets the tone for a team “where there is no fear of retaliation or criticism, a culture where mistakes are normalized and treated as opportunities to learn from, rather than failures.” In short: psychological safety.Of course, ask any manager and they will tell you that their team is psychologically safe, but how do you really know? “If all the decisions are escalated to the top level, that’s an indication that people don’t feel empowered,” she said, “They may be afraid to make the decisions for fear of being wrong.”Developing Managers Within the OrganizationMore than 11,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day, which means employers are facing rafts of retirements and open leadership roles. Not only are companies losing years of institutional knowledge, they have to spur succession plans and prepare new managers to climb the ladder.This is especially true for industries like accounting and insurance, which over-index for older workers. This is what Greenacre is facing at AXA XL. To prepare, the company has invested quite a bit of money into building skill profiles for key roles. They then map them across the organization and say, “I know you’ve only thought of yourself in this particular product line, but have you considered other places where you might be able to almost cross pollinate the other?”Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the panel (photo by From Day One)One way to avoid new manager regret is to begin vetting and training them years ahead of time. This is why Juvvadi prefers to fill leadership roles internally, “because we have an opportunity to observe talent over a longer period of time,” watching those who “may not have a title but are problem-solvers, who naturally identify inefficiencies, who are action-oriented, who are early adopters of technology and innovation. Future leaders are sometimes hidden stars in non-traditional roles.”Arnold-Simmons likes to identify high-potential people early and invest in their careers, in part to retain them, with things like executive coaching and career development. “We look to see where our gaps are, and then find those leaders that we believe can accelerate.”Even if you’re not regretting the promotions the company has made and you’re satisfied with your succession strategy, don’t neglect your people managers. “No matter how big your company is, it’s better to do something than nothing” to help them do their jobs, said Weber. He recommended two things: First, create a one-page guide on what it means to be a manager in your organization” expectations for one-on-ones, how to give feedback to team members, and how to delegate tasks. And second, gather managers to problem-solve together. “Have one person show up with a problem and let people ask questions, then start brainstorming ways to solve the problem together.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by wenich-mit/iStock)

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 04, 2025

Fostering a Workplace Culture of Purpose, Passion, and Play

While data and process are important elements of running a global business, Liz Ference, head of employee experience at Mattel, says “there’s something that’s really missed when we don’t [consider] the qualitative side of things as well.” There are key aspects of the employee experience that numbers can’t convey, which she discussed during a fireside chat with moderator Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review at From Day One’s March virtual conference.It can be easy to treat employee experience as a catch-all, so when Ference started in her current role she charted out the employee life cycle into a comprehensive experience map. This exercise helped identify important questions about how the company facilitates talent acquisition and management. It also led to deeper insights into employee programs and experiences that enabled her to see possible gaps while understanding the business levers available to influence change.The Company’s MissionMattel has shifted its mission from well-being and optimism to incorporate the themes of purpose, passion, and play, Ference says. This strategy encourages team members to balance efficiency and achievement with recognizing the value of their work and taking the opportunity to experience everyday joy. One way to do this is by bringing the magic of what they do to the center of their employee experience. This allows everyone—even team members separated from the company’s products—to boost their sense of purpose by seeing and participating in this positive collective experience.Given the business that Mattel is in, the company sees play as not only an important business lever but a basic human imperative, according to Ference. She acknowledges that it can be hard to find time to play in an overwhelming, deadline-driven environment, emphasizing the value of creating play opportunities that are authentic to your culture and business. “This is actually when we need to create the space for it more than ever,” she said. While Mattel has fun experiences built into its everyday culture—like a life-sized Barbie box for selfies or a giant Hot Wheels van that can be used as a meeting space—the company is also purposeful about creating occasions for teams to step away from deadlines and have fun or learn together.Signs and Impacts of BurnoutLeaders need to notice when their team is approaching burnout and offer support to get them back to a place of balance. Regarding burnout, Ference says, “[it’s] completely lost its original definition from the World Health Organization, and it’s kind of a synonym now for just being stressed out. But [that] speaks to how ubiquitous it is.” When in burnout, people may distance themselves from their work or distance themselves emotionally from their coworkers. You might notice that their days are full of wall-to-wall meetings, which means they don’t have time or space for deep-focus work, breakthrough thinking, or life outside of work.Nicole Smith of HBR interviewed Liz Ference of Mattel during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)“You can have the best benefits package in the world. You can have all of these community events, [and] development opportunities for your people. But if people are not prioritizing that space because they’re so rushed in both areas of life, then they won’t get to those things,” Ference said. She and her team try to counteract burnout by creating space for self-care, development work, and community.Embracing Inclusion and AuthenticityMattel has recently launched new programs to support employee well-being and personal growth. One is a global well-being platform, in partnership with Modern Health, which offers free therapy, coaching, and other resources. The second is a series of personal growth programs that employees have reported are life-changing experiences. Lastly, as people and relationships are one of the largest impacts on the employee experience, Ference says, they ensure that leaders and teams are empowered to make time for community and culture events.To ensure an exceptional employee experience across a large, diverse workforce, Mattel uses a global-to-local approach that relies on regional business partners to optimize broad benefit and community programs for local cultures before integration. The company also maintains its strong public commitment to inclusion. “We talk a lot about how our products and brands are a reflection of the communities that we serve,” she said. “If we didn’t walk that talk and have our employees bring their unique lived experiences to the creation process, our products and our brands would no longer be as culturally relevant as they are.” Mattel’s ten employee resource groups create a sense of belonging through frequent events, relevant speakers, and other community moments.Tools and MeasurementWith so much data to sift through, analyze, and interpret, Ference and her team have implemented a listening strategy. Among multiple platforms and sites that gather and organize employee experience data, one key piece is the company’s Global Pulse Survey. The quantitative employee responses to this survey help them understand whether an initiative is building engagement and going in the direction they had hoped, she says. By combining data across all touchpoints, they can identify and communicate action-oriented themes to improve the employee experience. The company reduces bias in its interpretation and application of these themes in part by embracing artificial intelligence for data analysis.In addition to her leadership role, Ference is a coach in the company’s executive coaching program. She helps leaders use deeper listening and feedback skills to shift performance management from an annual event to an ongoing coaching discussion that continuously empowers employees.When employees achieve balance and start to feel more empowered and flexible, leaders will notice them using their benefits and doing things that energize and refresh them, like taking PTO or engaging in development courses. Employees return revitalized and drive creativity and innovation by infusing their renewed passion into their work.Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by Aum racha/iStock)

Jessica Swenson April 03, 2025