“Employee Engagement - the capture of discretionary effort to drive business results"
By: Bob Kelleher, Chief Human Capital Officer, AECOM Technologies
 I recently launched the new website Employee Engagement . com after repeated requests to share our amazing Employee Engagement journey with others.
Let me begin. I am Chief Human Capital Officer for AECOM, a 42,000 employee global professional services firm headquartered in Los Angeles, CA with over 450 worldwide offices. Most recently, I was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for ENSR, an international 2,500 employee environmental consulting firm, headquartered in Westford, MA, and a division of AECOM.
 Although only recently appointed AECOM's Chief Human Capital Officer, I spent the first 14 years of my career at ENSR spearheading ENSR's employee engagement departments and initiatives, including the Organizational Development and Human Resources departments. My elevation to Chief Operating Officer at ENSR was a reinforcement of ENSR's engagement culture - only in a true "people-centric" culture, can the Human Resources head become the Chief Operations Officer!!!. During my years overseeing ENSR's "people departments", I was the architect of their "Employer of Choice" programs and initiatives, originally launched to reduce employee turnover. Over time, this initiative took root with all - Board of Directors, Senior Management Team, employees, and even clients. Today, this initiative has became known as "Employee Engagement", and is now the foundation of ENSR's business strategy. In fact, it was the success of our employee engagement efforts that led to AECOM asking that I lead all "people" departments and initiaves for AECOM, with an ultimate goal of expanding ENSR's Employee Engagement culture globally.
 While at ENSR, we saw what happens when you openly share your values with your employees, from the top to the bottom, and your management team openly lives them (that "walk the talk" thing really works!!). We saw what happens when you communicate openly, honestly, and frequently with your employees - both good and bad news. We saw what happens when you invest more in the development of your staff than your competitors - there is nothing more important than the development of your people....nothing! We saw what happens when you foster, recognize, and celebrate a culture of high performance (including non tolerance for mediocrity). We saw what happens when you include your employees in the development of your strategic plan - they help you get there (because they own it!!). We saw what happens when your routinely recognize and celebrate accomplishments and effort, and foster a culture where people should expect to hear "thank you!"
What started off as an initiative, has become a cultural transformation. What started off as a goal to reduce employee turnover (now considerably lower than industry norms), has become a joint commitment between employees and management, a commitment that links employee goals with Company goals. ENSR's culture of employee engagement resulted in the ultimate win-win! Quite simply, they came to realize that if you give to your employees, they will give back much, much more ("the capture of discretionary effort").
 ENSR believes an unwavering commitment to employee engagement leads to superior client service, and ultimately, profitable growth. And after five years of record growth and profitability, ENSR remains committed to this strategy. Today, AECOM is now leveraging and adopting many aspects of ENSR's employee engagement culture elsewhere amongst its 16 global operating Companies.
Now that ENSR's story has become well known, and its employee engagement culture has reached "best in class" status (determined by benchmarking internal employee survey data against external norms), we're increasingly being asked to share those specific "best practice" programs and initiates that we've spearheaded. They include:
 Business Improvement Workshops - ("bottoms up" process improvement)
ENSR's LEAP (Leadership Excellence through Advanced Practices) training modules are a series of 1.5 day workshops focusing on human capital and business performance improvement. LEAP 1 - "Creating a High Performing Employee", LEAP 2 - "Creating a High Performing Business or Team", LEAP 3 - Selecting High Performing Employees".
 Leadership Workshops
ENSR's “Leading an Engaged Workforce”, is a 2 day workshop customized for ENSR and now being adopted by AECOM’s 16 operating Companies. This interactive workshop includes pre-workshop 360 leadership feedback, with specific modules on vision and alignment, staff development, how to lead different generations, and motivation and recognition, while reinforcing the business case for employee engagement. The workshop closes with a multi media leadership development program based on Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1916 Antarctic exploration, "Employee Engagement Lessons from Shackleton".
Balanced Scorecard
ENSR’s intranet based Balanced Scorecard is a key alignment tool which ensures all key business metrics are shared with all employees and are updated monthly ("where are we going, how are we going to get there, and how are we doing"). These metrics include internal benchmarking comparisons, including benchmarking against "average" and "top 25%" performance.
 High Performance Client Workshops
ENSR's “High Impact Teaming” (HIT) workshop, a 1.5 day interactive workshop that focuses on client teambuilding and partnering, has been an example of adopting an internal employee engagement best practice and exporting it with our key clients. The "deliverable' is a detailed action plan owned jointly owned by ENSR project team and our client's project team.
Employee Development Plans (EDPs)
ENSR's bi-annual performance appraisal program includes extensive 360 feedback, and focuses on future development and succession planning. We're committed to telling our employees "where they're succeeding", "where are the opportunity areas", "and how can we help develop you and advance your career." Utilizing cutting edge technology, all quantitative metrics are automatically self populated into the EDP forms, thus maximizing more "face time" between manager and employee.
 ENSR University
We're committed to a "best in class" learning culture with specific career paths and related training under ENSR University. We actively budget and measure training programs and initiatives, and consider training expenses "investments" rather than costs.
AECOM Employee Engagement Task Team
ENSR is working with AECOM's "Employee Engagement" task team to determine which “Employee Engagement" best practices can be leveraged throughout AECOM's 16 operating companies.
Employer Of Choice Committee
A representative team of global managers and employees who meet to evaluate specific programs and procedures BEFORE adoption as policy.
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