[Editor’s Note:In honor of Veterans Day, we present this case study that combines honoring our nation’s veterans and boosting employee engagement.]
It’s undeniable: An engaged workforce can move the needle in any industry. In retail, though, markets continually fluctuate, shopping trends change, economies contract and expand, and it’s the workforce that determines whether a company succeeds and makes a positive impact on the world.
The Home Depot Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the world’s largest home improvement retailer, is focused on improving the homes and lives of U.S. military veterans anddisaster response. Giving Back and Doing the Right Thing are core values of The Home Depot, and are integral to The Foundation’s mission. But those core values do more than improve local communities; they also support a company culture that enriches associates’ lives far beyond a paycheck.
With more than 400,000 associates, it takes a strategic internal and external communications program to keep them informed, engaged and enriched year round. Here’s how the Foundation has found success:
Define the Challenge: Macro and Micro
In 2015, the retail sector faced steadily rising turnover at a rate of 5% each month [bloom.bg/1x0dQAK]. The Home Depot operates with 95% of its workforce as consumer-facing hourly associates, and workforce competition among retailers is steep. Like many in the space, the company needed a strategy to break through to recruit, retain and engage associates.
Team Depot, the company’s associate-led volunteer workforce, is active year round, with a concentrated effort during Celebration of Service, a two-month volunteer campaign leading up to Veterans Day. For Celebration of Service’s fifth year, The Home Depot Foundation had an opportunity to take a fresh approach to engage employees nationwide, including 35,000 veterans, and also enlist consumer support.
1. Know Your Audience:Understanding your audience is critical to engaging associates from part-time roles to executive leadership. Peel back the layers. Understand it’s more than getting people to volunteer; it’s getting them to invest.
At The Home Depot, associates who participate in one or more Team Depot projects score five percentage points higher in their level of commitment to the company and their customer service in surveys than those who have not participated in Team Depot.
The Home Depot Foundation researched how to have the most influence on associates. It was decided to create Team Depot projects where associates could use their unique skillset to help veterans who were facing enormous challenges. Priority was placed on safety and accessibility projects to make it easier for disabled and aging veterans to navigate their homes. These projects would guarantee a more substantial influence on veterans’ lives than beautification projects that were common in past campaigns—and ensure participation and emotional connections from associates.
2. Set Realistic Goals and Think Big:True associate engagement is a journey; it doesn’t happen overnight, and it certainly doesn’t happen solely through a two-month campaign. Define what “good,” “better” and “best” results look like for participation, engagement and reach.
During Celebration of Service, we set out to increase volunteer participation and generate awareness of Team Depot’s efforts among associates and consumers. The goals were aggressive, but attainable.
- Increase Team Depot activities to more than 15,000 associates
- Have more than 400,000 social media connections
- Donate $1 million to veterans’ causes through 1 million social media actions from associates and customers
- Earn more than 300 million impressions across traditional and social media
3. Execute Strategic Communication: With clearly defined goals, set forward with a plan to reach associates through social media and earned media, which helps reinforce the program’s importance and credibility. Here are other tips:
1. Know how and where each key audience wants to interact with the brand and be able to reach it there
2. Use the opportunity to bring people together, sometimes for the first time
3. Communicate to associates in every possible way; they are busy, so keeping campaigns top of mind increases the likelihood for participation and engagement
4. Don’t underestimate the value of merchandising media results to all associates
The Home Depot Foundation launched the #ServiceSelfie social giving campaign to engage associates, consumers, nonprofit partners and media nationwide. Associates were encouraged to showcase their commitment to service in their communities, and The Home Depot Foundation committed to donating $1 for each social media action, up to $1 million. Actions included sharing a #ServiceSelfie on Twitter or Instagram or liking, commenting or sharing one of nine weekly Team Depot Facebook posts honoring nonprofit partners. For the first time, associate engagement had the chance to inform and enhance the campaign’s external success.
The Foundation rolled out the campaign starting with its Team Depot Captains, a volunteer liaison and organizer between the district manager, store managers, nonprofits, veterans and hundreds of associates. In a training summit held in Las Vegas, The Foundation rallied captains around the #ServiceSelfie campaign and asked them to energize volunteers at their projects. Captains were armed with a bevy of supporting materials including signage, Team Depot eye black, banners and tool kits.
Team Depot activated store and corporate associates with a leadership challenge, “One District, One Project,” calling for fewer, more impactful projects and stronger connections through grassroots internal communications. For the first time, store and corporate associates worked together on a two-month program in Atlanta with one consistent nonprofit partner. Corporate associates were engaged during the program’s launch with captains passing out eye black and signage that adorned the building’s lobbies and elevators.
To generate excitement before the campaign, The Foundation activated six internal communication channels with pre-launch content including The Home Depot TV, store break room posters and a teaser video. Throughout the campaign, Celebration of Service stories and results were shared with associates through three articles in the Doings in Our District newsletter; eight stories featuring Team Depot projects on myApron, the company intranet site; the company’s internal newsroom, Built From Scratch; and a full-page story in the internal publication Orange Magazine. Eight stories about veterans were captured at Team Depot projects and shared alongside these communications to amplify the emotional connection between associates and their collective giving-back efforts.
The Home Depot Foundation encouraged continued participation through SMS texts to more than 3,000 associates on the THDgo mobile network and through The Warehouse, the company’s internal social platform.
The Foundation communications team also executed a nine-week media relations campaign, targeting national and local print, online and broadcast outlets in 210 markets to help share the story externally, and then showcase that third-party validation to associates.
4. Measure Results, But Go Beyond:When measuring communication influence, go a step further. Understand how programs shape associate perception and their engagement with the company. As a first step, dive into what was accomplished. Then, get an understanding of how the campaign truly changed behaviors and engagement levels.
For Team Depot: The Home Depot Foundation’s 2015 Celebration of Service created safer, more accessible homes for more than 750 veterans and their families. Some 13,300 Team Depot volunteers in 315 cities partnered with 291 nonprofits to work on 367 projects. The #ServiceSelfie campaign increased the program’s reach on social channels as consumers and associates contributed more than 1 million social actions, which raised $1 million for nine veteran-focused nonprofits. [See below for results.]
The Foundation also met with Team Depot volunteers to collect their experiences and feedback. Here are examples:
- “Part of the reason I decided to make The Home Depot my career instead of just a job was what we do for our veterans. Many members of my family have served in the military, and given their lives. I wouldn’t be able to live the comfortable life I have without their sacrifice.”
- “Celebration of Service honors the people who have protected our great country. Veterans define our history. Repaying them goes way beyond the scope of things. Team Depot events challenge us to bridge a gap between thanking them for their services and building an emotional connection.”
CONTACT: Bradford Walton can be reached via [email protected]