The Secrets to Finding and Retaining Top Talent at a Time of Digital Revolution
BY Jessica Swenson March 18, 2025How can technology organizations attract and keep talent in an industry where employees have countless mobility options?Dan Domenech, interim chief people officer and chief talent officer for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), spoke about some of HPE’s best practices for recruitment and retention at From Day One’s Houston conference. Sean McCrory, editor-in-chief of Houston Business Journal, moderated the conversation.Even with its enviable attrition rate of 3–5%, HPE’s innovation and growth mean that it is constantly hiring technical, sales, and customer experience roles across 40 countries. Open roles often receive hundreds of applications, even in niche business areas. There is typically a 50/50 ratio between internal and external hires, says Domenech.By embracing technology, the company has boosted its hiring capability and improved the candidate experience. In conjunction with a world-class talent acquisition team and external recruiting partners, HPE pairs the Phenom platform with a robust customer relationship management platform, an application status call center, and chat bots to provide a hyper-personalized digital experience for all stakeholders, says Domenech. Leaders also regularly review candidate feedback data to ensure an exceptional talent acquisition experience.One of CEO Antonio Neri’s top priorities in 2025 is internal mobility. Ten years ago, companies eliminated formal performance ratings to favor more frequent, informal performance management conversations. Unfortunately, this strategy did not give employees what they needed. HPE introduced quarterly success plan conversations to provide regular feedback, assess progress, and learn more about team member aspirations and development plans. The company leverages technology to support this process as well. Employees enter their existing and aspirational skill sets into HPE’s Workday-based career marketplace and use AI tools to be matched with mentors, learning opportunities, and new roles, says Domenech.Sean McCrory, editor-in-chief of Houston Business Journal, interviewed DomenechAnother priority for HPE is leadership development. They ensure that leaders know what is expected of them through a clear framework they call the Four E’s—engage, empower, evolve, and execute. Domenech also revealed a personal passion for promoting psychological safety in the workplace, which was identified in a recent Google study as “the number one characteristic of high-performing teams.” As HPE evolves its leadership model, the company ensures that leaders listen to the employees’ voices, are inclusive, and consider the team members’ best interests in their decision-making processes. Despite the recent trend of companies reversing course on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, Domenech does not anticipate any changes to HPE’s practices. Recently recognized by JUST Capital as America’s Most JUST Company (for the second consecutive year), HPE is a values-based organization that will continue to be unconditionally inclusive of its employees’ diverse backgrounds, ways of thinking, and contributions. “We know that we’re better together,” Domenech said. “We need those differences to thrive and provide that innovation and service to our customers.”A key consideration of HPE’s potential merger with Juniper Networks—beyond the typical risks of any merger—is the integration of Juniper’s 10,000 employees. HPE leadership is already planning how to onboard leaders and assimilate cultures, including an exhaustive culture study. The data shows that the individual cultures are more alike than different, enabling them to integrate the additional talent into existing HPE operations, capitalize on each company’s strengths, and maintain their values-based approach.The advent of AI technology in the organization prompted HPE to establish a governance council that ensures ethical, responsible AI use. Additionally, Neri wants all HPE employees to have what he calls a “minor in AI,” and Domenech’s team has been a key part of this initiative, he says. They collaborated with internal partners to facilitate AI education throughout the enterprise. They are now building a comprehensive training suite to provide more specialized knowledge to technology-focused leaders and teams.With a strong commitment to flexible working arrangements, HPE led by example during the pandemic by shifting to a remote model for anyone whose work didn’t require them to be on-site. The health and safety of on-site teams was paramount, and remote teams were provided the tools they needed to be successful outside the office. HPE has maintained its commitment to flexibility despite Neri’s belief that in-office innovation and collaboration are unmatched. He recognizes that the balance and autonomy afforded by flexible work is crucial to employee satisfaction and retention.When asked for one piece of advice for business leaders who want to retain and engage their existing workers, Domenech replied “It all starts with culture.” He encourages sustained focus on a mission-based culture that makes people enjoy coming to work, feel confident that they will have growth and development opportunities, and know they are a part of something great.Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photos by Annie Mulligan for From Day One)
Beyond Quotas: Increasing Employee Engagement With Your Favorite Function—Sales
BY Jessica Swenson March 06, 2025“What if I told you that your company already has a massive untapped sales force?” Alexandria Warren, VP of solutions consulting at Velocity Global, launched her thought leadership spotlight From Day One’s Houston conference with this question.Research shows that organizations with revenue-focused cultures experience significant increases in sales productivity, profit margins, employee engagement, and cross-department collaboration. By putting the customer’s experience and the company’s revenue goals at the center of everything, you enable all teams—not just sales—to reimagine the impact of their daily work, creating an environment of empathy, innovation, and retention.Sales teams used to rely on in-office camaraderie to celebrate their wins and commiserate over their losses. Today’s hybrid and remote environments remove that built-in connection. Combine that with a sustained pressure to perform, and you get a sense of isolation that reduces resilience and can lead to burnout. Additionally, companies have historically limited revenue awareness to sales and marketing teams. By expanding this focus across teams and functions, you create safe, collaborative environments where everyone shares both the responsibility and benefits of growth. This is key to building a sales-driven, audible-ready culture that can flexibly shift to meet customer and business needs.Warren shared seven unexpected ways to facilitate this transformation and drive a cross-functional sales focus in your organization, some of which have already been implemented at Velocity Global.First, empower your workforce with sales intelligence from day one. It’s important for people in all phases of the employee lifecycle to understand the customer’s pain points, the solutions that the company provides, and how their role impacts both. They also need visibility to how the company is performing and the influence their work can have on that performance. “Forrester found that when workplaces have a common vocabulary rooted in customer value, and they empower teams with that, they generate 2.4X higher revenue growth and 2X higher profitability growth than [companies] without that alignment,” said Warren.Velocity Global starts this integration as soon as their new hire onboarding program, giving new employees a very early indicator of how they fit into the organization. Team members are also trained to identify paint points and turn everyday conversations into an opportunity for business growth. Additionally, the company hosts quarterly brown-bag lunch events where employees learn about new product use cases, customer case studies, and the impact of their work.Next, teach employees to sell without selling by being good problem-solvers and storytellers. Training an entire workforce to center resolution of the customer’s pain can require a total, yet vital, mindset shift. Business opportunities increase when everyone is accountable for revenue growth and armed with the language, understanding, and ability to have an intelligent conversation about customer pain points and company offerings, says Warren. Alexandria Warren, VP of solutions consulting at Velocity Global, led the thought leadership spotlight “The best lead and the most authentic intro is from a non-salesperson who has the same pain that their friend, colleague, or industry partner has,” Warren said .“Everyone wants to help someone in their network, right?” Providing employees with the skills, knowledge, and language empowers them to elevate a simple conversation into a potential business partnership.Designing cross-functional KPIs and incentive programs is another key point, says Warren. Velocity Global recently implemented a program that requires its R&D and products teams to engage directly with sales partners to identify pain points and increase efficiency within the customer sales process. “When we have mutually aligned goals, we are all working towards the same vision,” she said. Finding ways to link goals and KPIs across teams allows the entire organization to share in the wins and losses of the sales team. Incentive programs like awards and recognition for customer-facing service leads, driving exceptional deal cycles, and making strategic connections help demonstrate the value of everyone’s contributions.Create mutual empathy through job shadowing experiences, says Warren. Customers and prospects give frontline sales teams feedback on products and solutions, an experience which can be challenging to truly understand without seeing it firsthand. Job shadowing programs allow non-sales teams to gain customer-facing sales experience, providing a more robust perspective on the daily work of their sales partners. A 2021 SHRM survey demonstrated that a majority of organizations (89%) with some type of job shadowing program also reported improvements in their employee experience. This expanded visibility provides a more robust perspective on the daily workflow of their partners and how their own role can impact that sales lifecycle, creating relationships based on mutual empathy and trust. It also positions the organization to be more flexible for out-of-scope requests or accelerated project timelines.Next, create a loss library that’s accessible to all teams. A shared resource tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) can encourage cross-team analysis and brainstorming, leading to fresh insights and sales breakthroughs. Bringing in different perspectives strengthens collaboration and innovation.Warren also encourages promoting friendly competition across departments. Fun, low-stakes internal contests can build camaraderie and expose sales teams to new ideas from experts in other business areas, sparking creative approaches to problem-solving. Finally, empower sales staff to turn away work from misaligned clients. Taking on the wrong clients can drain energy and create frustration, while allowing sales teams to focus on high-quality leads fosters engagement, respect, and stronger cross-functional trust.“Imagine the power of a company where everyone plays a role in revenue generation,” she said. “The result is faster growth, more deals, a competitive edge, with [the entire organization] consistently attuned to what the customer needs—and a wholly supported, passionate sales organization to carry the bag.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Velocity Global, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photos by Annie Mulligan for From Day One)
Cancer in the Workplace: Prioritizing Access to Comprehensive Care for Employees
BY Jessica Swenson February 27, 2025With increasing cancer rates and treatment costs across the U.S., employers are seeking ways to neutralize the associated rise in healthcare benefit expenses. Research shows an alarming surge in cancer rates, even in younger people. These elevated rates undoubtedly contribute to the 50% increase in high-cost claims—claims totaling over $1M per patient—employers are seeing. Part of this cost is the expense of injectable cancer therapies. There is plenty of media coverage on concerns around the volume of production and consumption of injectable drugs; it’s also worth noting that seven of the most expensive injectables are cancer treatments.At From Day One’s Atlanta conference Dr. Denise Harnois from the Mayo Clinic discussed a solution that gets patients the comprehensive care they need while potentially reducing employer benefit costs. Employers are turning to centers of excellence as a more efficient and cost-effective way to manage employee care for complex or serious diseases. Drawing from Business Group on Health’s 2025 Employer Health Care Strategy Survey, Dr. Harnois said that “50% of organizations [will be] using centers of excellence [for] cancer care by the end of 2025” and an additional 25% will shift to this model in 2026/2027. One version of this model available to employers and patients is Mayo Clinic’s Complex Care Program. Efficient Pathways to Complex CareThe Mayo Clinic Complex Care Program uses an integrated, patient-centered approach to provide a second opinion and get patients the care they need. It focuses on identifying the right diagnosis, providing the right treatment, and executing that treatment in the right way for the patient. The program offers equitable access regardless of patient location and seeks to remove barriers to treatment by subsidizing travel or co-pay expenses when possible. It is also built with efficiency in mind. Patients are evaluated by three to five specialists, participate in laboratory and diagnostic studies, and leave with a comprehensive treatment plan, all within three to five days.With 11 million patients connected to the program, Mayo has ample data to demonstrate its value. By reviewing the broad health outcomes of 7,000 patients and analyzing the detailed medical records of 516 patients who traveled for care in 2023, Mayo identified a few key statistics that show the impact of bringing together a multidisciplinary, multispecialty care team.They found that 52% of patients referred for second opinions on complex/serious illnesses had a change in diagnosis during their time in the program. Additionally, 85% of these diagnosis changes resulted in a change in treatment. And 57% of treatment changes affected medical therapy only, but up to 25% eliminated surgery recommended by a local healthcare provider.Patient Case StudyDr. Denise Harnois of Mayo Clinic led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Dr. Harnois shared a patient story illustrating how the program can benefit patients and employers. A lung cancer survivor experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath was referred to the program through her employer. Her local physician had diagnosed her with a Stage IV recurrence of lung cancer requiring surgical intervention, chemotherapy, and likely radiation therapy.This patient’s evaluation and testing in the Complex Care Program revealed that she was not experiencing symptoms of recurring lung cancer at all—she had a lung infection that could be treated with steroids and antibiotics. This change in her diagnosis and care pathway not only improved the quality of life for the patient and her family but saved her employer and its healthcare plan over $200K for just the first year of the recommended cancer therapy.Mayo’s Complex Care Program reflects the original mission of the Mayo brothers: the needs of the patient come first. Dr. Harnois reiterated this sentiment by saying: “Everything we do at the Mayo Clinic is about putting the patient at the center of everything. It's about focusing solutions and care and hope around what that patient needs and what we're going to be able to offer that patient.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Mayo Clinic, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Featured photo by Dustin Chambers for From Day One)
Enhancing Productivity and Creating Relationship Breakthroughs Through Your Total Rewards
BY Jessica Swenson February 06, 2025It’s no secret that employees are key to an organization’s productivity and profitability. Research shows a clear link between engaged, authentic, healthy employees and positive business results. But what can employers do to enhance the employee experience and become a high-performance organization?Ingrid Woolfolk, employee experience lead with WTW, shared insights and next steps in a thought leadership spotlight session about “Creat[ing] Relationship Breakthroughs Through Your Total Rewards” at From Day One’s Chicago benefits conference.WTW helps clients build resilience, inspire their workforces, and optimize performance with data-driven solutions in people, risk, and capital. With over 50 years of insights across industries, they’ve analyzed how employee experience, rewards programs, and company performance are connected.What Makes a Winning Company?To understand what high-performance organizations are doing differently, WTW analyzed results from 16 million surveys completed between 2002 and 2023, including 6 million individual employees from 600 companies in what they call the “post-disruption era” (2019–2023). They compared the employee experience and tracked 9 separate financial metrics across 30 global high-performing companies and 500 average companies.Ingrid L. Woolfolk, the employee experience leader at WTW, led the session Data showed that total rewards are important to employees, even if they don’t use that language. Because of this, it is crucial for companies to understand what employees need and innovate their offerings to fulfill those needs. The three areas that emerged as most important to employees were recognition, growth, and well-being. These three areas also happen to be existing differentiators for global high-performance (GHP) organizations.“Recognition goes beyond traditional monetary rewards,” said Woolfolk. Leading companies prioritize pay equity, transparency, and customized compensation options. They foster loyalty and internal growth by setting clear goals, offering development opportunities, and providing advancement pathways. Comprehensive well-being programs—addressing physical, emotional, social, and financial needs—demonstrate that employees are valued beyond their productivity while removing barriers to engagement.Five Predictions for 2025Based on this research, and requests from existing clients, WTW predicts that companies will pursue the following five focus areas in 2025 to drive performance and elevate their employees’ total rewards experience.Artificial intelligence: Companies are already showing interest in using AI to improve business outcomes and improve the employee experience through enhanced communication, navigation, analytics, and operational efficiency.Spending money where it counts by analyzing employee wants and needs alongside cost and utilization rates to better understand the overall ROI of specific benefits. Subsequent communication campaigns will ensure clear articulation of the total rewards value.Bolstering employee pocketbooks: Woolfolk and team anticipate that companies will seek to improve the affordability of pay and benefits programs, advance employees’ financial acumen and resilience, and enhance retirement offerings. Elevating transparency beyond compliance: Data shows that DEI programs may evolve into broader, more sustainable human capital strategies that promote equity, inclusivity, and pay transparency. These strategies are expected to exceed current compliance standards through new governance models and stakeholder reporting.Double-down on careers by developing career frameworks that align with business goals and support productivity targets while growing and rewarding critical employee skills.Where Can You Start?Woolfolk suggests collaborating with HR and finance partners to assess your current plans. Including the finance team up front can reduce decision-making delays and improve planning. Ensure you have a solid listening strategy so you can collect, analyze, and act upon employee feedback. “Make sure you don’t ask questions that you’re not willing to address,” she said, “because nothing hurts employee morale worse than asking questions and they never hear anything back.”Work with vendors to optimize the design of benefit plans, she says. Take the lead of high-performance organizations by being sensitive to the diverse, evolving needs of your employee populations, including more people in the planning as your organization’s story emerges, and being transparent about what’s next.“Taking action now is really important.” Woolfolk said. Identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and goals is crucial to engaging with the correct partners and building out the rest of your total rewards plan. Any listening strategy or employee survey is not a single event that leads you to high performance. It is a multi-faceted, ongoing exercise, and needs to be blended with a great communication strategy and change management principles.“Combining that change management with that communication strategy is paramount. In order to create the relationship breakthrough, you need that dialogue. You need listening,” said Woolfolk. You need communication that ultimately creates that high-performing employee experience that we all want, to help drive productivity.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, WTW, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.
Applying the Drivers of Appreciation to Support People and Business
BY Jessica Swenson January 03, 2025Showing employees that you appreciate them doesn’t stop at recognizing efforts on a specific project; that’s only the beginning. To inspire engagement, loyalty, and performance, it’s important to demonstrate that you appreciate and support the employee as a whole person.At From Day One’s Miami conference, Alexandra Powell, the director of cultural insights at Reward Gateway, spoke in a thought leadership spotlight session on the distinction between recognition and appreciation, and shared new insights on leveraging appreciation drivers to boost employee engagement and satisfaction. With 15 years of experience driving organizational culture change through leadership coaching and training, Powell leads employee recognition research at Reward Gateway and partners with clients seeking enhanced engagement through the use of recognition and communication tools.The Power of AppreciationBerkeley Haas School of Business conducted a study showing that people who were recognized at work were 23% more effective and productive, while people who felt appreciated for who they are as a person were 43% more effective and productive.While these numbers speak for themselves—feeling genuinely appreciated nearly doubled employee effectiveness and productivity—it is more nuanced than simply telling people leaders to appreciate their employees more.Powell demonstrated this difference in a qualitative way through a personal anecdote. A few years ago when her daughter needed additional parental support, Powell’s boss quickly created a simple system for her to easily communicate each morning the level of work she was capable of that day, and helped to triage and manage her workflow on the days that she was less available. This leader honored that Powell was not only an extremely valuable employee, but a mother, and understood the importance of supporting her in balancing those roles.Despite how vital it is to both people and businesses, actions supporting employee appreciation can be challenging to identify and initiate. This led Reward Gateway to research employee perceptions to help train leaders for success.Early Research FindingsFor the first phase of their study, Reward Gateway worked with 3,000 people across the US, United Kingdom, and Australia. With traditional surveys, results can be skewed as respondents have time for a longer thought process and tend to give the answer they want to give, or the answer they think is wanted, rather than the actual answer. To record true, instinctive answers to the survey questions, Reward Gateway used a fast-response model where statements were flashed on the screen and participants had a limited amount of time to respond.The full 40-page study will be published in January, but early findings validate the importance of employees being and feeling appreciated. Using a scale of 0–100, employee appreciation is shown to impact how hard the employee works (average rating of 72.14), their engagement (average rating of 70.5), and how satisfied they are with their job (average rating of 68.7). Across the surveyed population, the average global appreciation index is 65 on that same 0–100 scale (with, of course, some deviations across multiple demographics such as gender, industry, seniority, age, organization size, and control over work.)By measuring the response speed for each statement, Powell’s team was able to identify the top five most likely drivers of employees feeling appreciated. Finding ways to impact the employee experience in these areas is one key to boosting engagement:I am recognized by managers.My hard work is rewarded.I feel I belong here.My managers support me.My organization praises me.Applying Appreciation DriversPowell shared some examples of actions her clients have taken to influence their employees’ sense of appreciation. Recognition and appreciation don’t necessarily have to require developing a comprehensive program or system. You can start with simply meeting employees where they are to show genuine interest and gratitude for them.I am recognized by managers. Add a recognition moment to team huddles. If you have weekly huddles, this adds over 50 opportunities per year to recognize and appreciate your team members—even more if this is implemented across multiple departments. If you don’t know exactly what every person is working on, that’s okay. Ask them what they have done recently that they’re most proud of, and have a conversation about it.My hard work is rewarded. A couple years ago, one of Reward Gateway’s UK clients designed and sent a festive end-of-year holiday card to all employees and, because it had been a tough year, deposited just 20 pounds into everyone’s reward accounts. The CEO was concerned about the amount of the gift, so the day the card and reward were released, the organization also shared a video from the CEO communicating “how much he appreciated them, how hard it had been, and how instrumental they’d been to this success.” He got many messages of thanks from people who could see and sense his authentic appreciation for them.I feel I belong here. Top performers may appreciate additional professional development opportunities, or having the option, after a challenging project, to participate in enrichment events outside of the office. Expand traditional recognition programs to include celebrations of individual groups and belief systems. One of Powell’s clients created a series of 124 such celebrations organized on a quarterly calendar to recognize holidays such as Autism Awareness Month, Diversity Month, National Volunteer Week, Lesbian Visibility Day, Military Appreciation Month, as well as various religious holidays. They included supporting materials and a glossary of how to recognize and celebrate intentionally.Alexandra Powell, director of client cultural insights at Reward Gateway, led the thought leadership spotlightAnother client put additional effort into welcoming and celebrating new hires during the early stages of their tenure through automated recognition of their 30, 60, and 90-day milestones. This, in combination with ongoing in-person interactions, lets employees know right away that their presence is appreciated.My managers support me. Place a well-being block on everyone’s calendar for them to use as they see fit—yoga, a walk, play music, read a book, meal plan, attend a virtual wellness class—illustrating and reinforcing the company’s awareness that each person needs time to take care of themselves in whatever way is appropriate for them.My organization praises me. Use existing recognition events to ensure frequent praise and awareness across teams. Some examples include employee appreciation days, holiday celebrations, or highlighting the team members working on new and high-visibility projects.Powell provided insights into existing theories, but also introduced some new research findings and examples of practical ways to better support appreciation in the workplace, arming attendees with a framework of ideas to improve organizational engagement and illustrate to their teams the impact they have each day.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Reward Gateway, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.