What happens once you’ve taken the pulse of your employee population? This case study demonstrates some of our activities following a U.S. Employee Engagement survey in 2010 - and how those activities generated real benefits both to the organization and the employees involved. This was presented at the tri-state Society for Human Resource Management conference in Springfield, April 27th 2012

1. Organizational Engagement:
What is getting in your way?
SHRM 2012
Tri-State
Conference
April 25-27, 2012
Rebounding:
HR’s Pivotal Role
in the New
Business Playbook
Sheraton Springfield Hotel &
MassMutual Convention Center,
Springfield, MA
Presented by:
Nancy J. Di Dia, Amy Fry, and David C.
Thompson
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

2. About Us
• Nancy J. Di Dia
• Amy Fry
• David C. Thompson
– about.me/dcthompson
SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
Tri-State Conference
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3. I was told to keep this at the graduate level
• Particles in a Box
ˆ
N
1  1
H 2
i
ˆext ri
v  
i 1 2 i j | ri rj |
 0 : inside confining volume
ˆ
vext r
: elsewhere
• With exact solutions we can extract the correlation energy
– The „Stupidity Energy‟ [1]
– Important for „realistic chemistry‟ e.g. bond forming/breaking
• We can evaluate the performance of theoretical models [2-4]
[1] R. P. Feynman, Statistical Mechanics, 1989 SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
[2] D. C. Thompson and A. Alavi, Phys. Rev. B 66, 235118 (2002) Tri-State Conference
[3] D. C. Thompson and A. Alavi, Phys. Rev. B 69, 201302 (2004)
[4] D. C. Thompson and A. Alavi, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 124107 (2005) 3

4. Engagement is „wicked‟ hard (perhaps)
• „Tame‟ problems:
– Well-defined, stable problem statement
– We will know when a solution is reached
• „Wicked‟ problems:
– Ill-defined and ambiguous
– Complex interacting issues dynamically
evolving
– Context is critical
‘Dilemmas in a general theory of planning’ – H. W. J. Rittel and M. M. Webber, Policy Sciences 4 SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
(1973), 155-169 Tri-State Conference
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5. The Dilbert Index
“I look for the number of Dilbert comics and that seems to be
inversely proportional to the level of morale. A lot of Dilbert comics
seems to be like a passive aggressive way of an employee
complaining.” -- Damon Beaven
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http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/02/23/the- Tri-State Conference
dilbert-index-a-new-marketplace-podcast/ 5

6. Just because it‟s hard, doesn‟t mean we
shouldn‟t think about it
Definition of Employee Engagement: An engaged employee exhibits a combination of
intellectual connection and emotional commitment - which together motivate and drive
everything they say and do.
Employee Engagement is a Leading Indicator
of Financial Performance
By industry, organizations with engaged employees have 3.9 times
the earnings-per-share growth rate of organizations whose
employees are less engaged
Engaged Employees Are Motivated, Creative and
Productive
88% of fully engaged employees believe they can positively impact
the quality of their organization’s products and services.
• Only 38% of disengaged employees feel the same way.
Engaged Employees Stay
Two-thirds of highly engaged employees have no plan to leave
their current jobs; versus one-third of the moderately engaged
and12% of the disengaged.
Towers Watson SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
Tri-State Conference
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7. It‟s just like selling Coca-Cola
Action
Aware of the brand
Consider the brand
Preference for the brand
Buy the brand
Loyal to the brand
Rational Chaotic
Linear Non-linear
Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the Social Web SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
Paul Adams, http://amzn.to/siyTk4 Tri-State Conference
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8. How it happened …
Hello Of course,
Colleagues! happy to give
Got a minute? our views!
We’ve got some Thanks for
questions. asking.
Survey ran from June 2 – 23 2010
67 fixed-response questions
1 free text write-in:
‘What is one change you would recommend to make Boehringer Ingelheim a more
innovative company?‘
All part-time and full-time BI-US employees
Internet Administration
9183 eligible, 8765 responded; 95% response rate
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9. Engagement & Enablement: Sources of
frustration
Frustrated Effective
Effective Frustrated Gap
The work flow is well organized for a quality job (smooth work flow,
44 70% 23% 47%
good methods, no duplication of effort, etc.)
My work group receives high quality support from other units on
45 72% 34% 37%
which we depend
41 We have enough people to get the job done on my team 68% 37% 32%
36 I have the information I need to do my job well 91% 60% 31%
I have opportunities to achieve my personal career objectives at the
57 77% 47% 30%
company
7 Rate your company on being effectively managed and well-run 62% 32% 30%
The people on my team have processes in place to ensure that we
46 88% 59% 29%
deliver our products and/or services "right the first time"
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Key Driver of Engagement or Tri-State Conference
Enablement 9

10. Action planning
Three organizational priorities were identified following the 2010 U.S. Engagement
Survey:
• Trust and Confidence in Leadership
• Work, Structure, and Process
• Teamwork and Collaboration
The Work, Structure, and Process sub-team focused on a grassroots approach for
affecting change:
• 60+ cross functional colleagues from across the U.S.
• Engaged with Business Resource Groups and the Office of Diversity, Inclusion,
and Engagement
• Empowered Employees through an implicit adoption of ‘Commander’s Intent’;
provided enough structure and guidance to enable, without dictating explicit
solution
• Experimented with Internal Social Media tools to ask questions, and solicit
feedback, in the spirit of continuous improvement
• Sought to ensure institutionalization of outcomes
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11. What is this?
1. A dynamic and engaging way to foster audience participation
2. The secret to a rich career and continued professional development
3. The least compelling visual I have seen in this deck so far
4. A side-view of some BI ‘employees’ (think about it …)
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12. You say potato, and I say potato
Subjective
Objective
+ +
708 potentially actionable items
+
(
( X7
6 potential areas of focus
“What is getting in your way?”
3 areas of focus in 2011
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13. And the winners were …
• Meeting Effectiveness - Improve meeting
practices and reduce times – identify why
this continues to be a barrier for many
• COMMITED - Enable communications and
organizational productivity through
technology
• Policy Process Review - Review policies
to simplify and keep those which are most
essential and current
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14. Social media is a great way to reach the right
people. Consider the following …
Following the 2010 U.S. Engagement Survey, the topic of Work, Structure, and Process was
highlighted as an area of organizational frustration. This is a pretty broad topic though, and
the Work, Structure, and Process team needed to identify the root causes of the frustrations
we all expressed and try to find ways to fix them.
So, the team did the sensible thing, and simply asked.
On Thursday, November 4th 2010 the first ever all Employee online discussion was run using
EmployeeCONNECT (Ask BI back then). During this discussion, Scott Lanzilotta, a
colleague at Ben Venue Laboratories, self-identified as an expert in Business Process
excellence, and shared a number of insightful comments around Meeting Effectiveness. This
was a known issue for the Work, Structure, and Process team, who subsequently approached
Scott to lead a team around that very problem. Throughout 2011, Scott and colleagues
estimated that approximately two million Effort Hours were used on ineffective meetings and
have fashioned a strategy, toolkit, and communication plan, which they rolled out across the
U.S., to support the reduction of ineffective meetings by 20% by April 2012.
Through social media an expert was found and
organizational efficiencies realized.
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15. Meeting Effectiveness
• Scott Lanzilotta and a team of 5 • Launched meeting effectiveness toolkit via
• Evaluation of meeting practices identified desktop icon in September 2011
approximately 2 MM Effort Hours (1,040 • Worked with Corporate Communications to
FTEs) associated with ineffective orchestrate targeted messaging through
meetings existing channels (e.g. , email lists,
• Strategy, toolkit, and communication standing meetings, OCS calls, etc.)
plan rolled out to support the • Provided Site Business Partners, VTI team
reduction of ineffective meetings by members, ERGs and other “championing”
20% by April 2012 groups with “plug-and-play” style
communications
• December 2011 survey executed
and data analyzed
– Effective meetings goal of
20% improvement was
exceeded
– 37% increase in meetings
with agenda, exceeding goal
of 20%
• Currently working with leadership to ensure
sustainability
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16. COMMITED
• 16+ members, rolling • Enablement of the BlackBerry
camera, video, and Wi-Fi
leadership functionality
• Creation of a BlackBerry
Application store
• Single Sign On enabled for many
applications
• Enablement of the OCS
Emoticons for U.S. colleagues
• Vetting and governance structure
delivered to ensure
institutionalization
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17. Policy Process Review
Review policies to simplify and keep those which are most essential and current
• Tyson Ardo & David • Roughly 5% of all of the free text
Engagement Survey comments expressed
Thompson as team leads frustration around ‘Policy’ *
• 2 ‘consultants’ • Using a 1 day kaizen event, with ‘Policy’
experts as participants, define scope of
• 17 ‘kaizen’ participants this problem as team deliverable
• Elements of scope:
– Communication
– Content
– Process
• Follow-up organizational survey to
validate scope
– Low response rate (58 completed surveys)
– 81 % of responders thought we had captured the
scope of the problem
*For ‘Policy’, read any written guidance to ensure our work is completed SHRM 2012 CT, MA, RI
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in a compliant fashion
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18. Cultural Highlight # 1
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http://www.kaggle.com/c/bioresponse Tri-State Conference
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19. Cultural Highlight #2
Voca People!
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http://www.voca-people.com/ Tri-State Conference
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20. Thank You!
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