Chapter 2
Voices valued: How we encourage engagement through MAX
The key? Listen, then act.
With all of this said, if there’s one key takeaway we’ve learned through our research and experience, it’s that employees thrive best when they feel seen and heard. And our global voice of the employee program — MAX (“My Associate Experience”) — was created in 2019 with the goal to provide a soundboard for our 170,000 employees to do exactly that. MAX is embedded in our culture and forms part of our operating standards for a reason — because it has impact. We measure our employee perception of Foundever through the eNPS (the Employee Net Promoter Score). We found that employees who know about MAX rank their perception much higher than those that don’t – a 38 point difference, to be exact. Not too shabby, right? So how do we inspire engagement through MAX? It’s as simple as this: we listen and then we act.
How we listen
Once a year for three weeks, we invite all our associates with at least four weeks of working at Foundever to participate in a confidential 28-question survey called the MAX Annual Survey.
The survey allows us to understand our employee sentiment and engagement.
How we act
For our MAX Roadmap one year, for example, we discovered a key theme from the surveys in North America was around “communication”.
Our employees specifically asked for the weekly emailed Newsletter for North America to be shared with more people. So that’s exactly what we did. We listened, and we acted.
How we listen
MAX Pulse is our daily, one-question survey hosted on our shared associate platform. Unique in our industry, it gives real-time visibility of the sentiment of our associates, meaning we can respond fast and act in the moment to show that we genuinely care about the wellbeing and experience of our people. In other words, we can listen fast and solve problems fast.
How we act
The “pulses” are shared with first-line supervisors and managers to monitor sentiment daily and act where required. For example, if a supervisor sees there’s an issue to be addressed with their associate, acting in the moment might look like an individual meeting, a morale booster, a workshop or group feedback session.
A consistent and effective communication strategy is essential to build trust. Associates will only feel there’s value and purpose in participating if they know the feedback is monitored and acted on.
Alongside individual and team follow-up, a monthly communication to the workforce is recommended (as a minimum) which may include:
The sentiment for the past month
The number of comments
Any action taken (maintaining confidentiality at all times)
Celebrating the positive comments and experiences as well as the improvements
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