Driving Employee Engagement Through Research

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Driving Employee Engagement Through Research
Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Jackson Jackson
and Wagner
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Who is ASA?

• Wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines
• Serves small and medium markets throughout the
  U.S.
• Nearly 6,000 employees in 42 domestic locations
• Rapid growth and influx of new employees
• Double-digit growth every year since 2000
• Culture changing from command and control to
  open and participatory
• Growing gap between old and new employees on
  culture, vision and values
• Annual engagement survey showed improvement
  opportunities in future/vision category

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Communications Audit Background

• Senior leaders welcomed communication audit as
  opportunity to
• Gauge employee morale
• Revise vision and guiding principles
• Engage new employees, re-engage tenured team
  members
• Improve communication
• Create systems for an open, participatory culture

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Communications AuditResearch Objectives

• Identify awareness and acceptance of vision and
  guiding principles
• Identify gaps in communication and resources
• Motivate desired behavior via rewards and
  recognition
• Raise awareness create ownership of guiding
  principles
• Improve lateral communication

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Communications AuditResearch Design

• CEO involvement established early
• 170 employees participated in research,
  including
• One-on-one interviews with 21 managers, directors
  and vice presidents
• 25 focus groups with cross-divisional teams
• Expert review of communications vehicles
• Secondary research included ASA, peer history

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Communications AuditResearch Process

• Project timing
• Three months from design to final presentation
• Six months from presentation to rollout
• Facilitated sessions with management team to
  establish priorities
• Breakout sessions by division to discuss
  research, implementation of ideas
• 12-person team to review and revise vision and
  guiding principles
• Corporate Communications team developed action
  plan

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Communications AuditKey Findings

• Communications
• Improving except in rapid growth areas
• Communication breaks down at manager, supervisor
  level
• Bottom-up communication is good feedback
  inconsistent
• Information overload especially e-mail
• Large gap in lateral communication across
  workgroups
• Teams want information easier, earlier in
  decision-making process
• Information is received, but not always
  understood
• Grapevine still beats official announcements
• Inconsistency communicating enforcing policies
  and procedures

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Communications AuditKey Findings

• Culture
• Changing more open, civil participatory, but
  inconsistent
• Internal agreement on ASA differentiators
• Widely-shared pride and passion for company, work
  and teammates
• Many ASA/Delta challenges to work out as one team
• Management says guiding principles are being
  lived, employees see contradictions
• Vision to be the best is understood and
  achievable, but meaning is unclear
• Employees worry Deltas future not as positive as
  ASAs
• Do more to motivate employees via rewards and
  recognition

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Communications AuditRecommendations

• Communications
• Multi-level feedback system with timely response
• More two-way open forums
• New vision, guiding principles with ongoing
  education
• Policies
• Create long-term strategic plan for
  communications training evaluation
• Cross-training to improve lateral communication
• Internal education campaign on policies
  procedures
• Multi-level reward and recognition program

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Vision Plan

• Findings and recommendations presented to senior
  leaders
• Developed vision team consisting of front-line,
  middle managers senior leaders
• Revised vision and guiding principles presented
  to officers
• Core team reported back to focus group
  participants
• Officers met with Corporate Communications to
  develop rollout plan

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Vision Implementation

• Internal Rollout
• New vision and guiding principles rolled out at
  leadership meeting
• Task managers with local vision discussions
• Vision video
• Manager briefing book
• Disposable camera
• Vision brochure, lanyard cards
• Customized vision materials distributed to
  participating locations
• Identify vision leaders in key locations

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Communications Audit One year later

• Corporate initiatives implemented
• Monthly lunch series with ASA president
• Unannounced leadership visits to largest hub
• Cross-divisional shadow program
• New reward recognition programs based on vision
  and operational performance
• Incorporate vision and guiding principles into
  communications vehicles
• Vision Week
• Quarterly programming based on vision and guiding
  principles

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How did we do?

• Vision measured in annual engagement survey

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How did we do?

• New vision believable, communicated by managers

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Driving Employee Engagement Through Research
Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Jackson Jackson
and Wagner