Employee Engagement with Schneider Electric

'The world continues to change fast — we have to adapt with it'

Engaging employees in your organizational purpose and culture is the ultimate internal communication headscratcher — and nailing this challenge is more important than ever when it comes to taking an agile approach to operating effectively in today's ever-changing world of work.

Schneider Electric's Director for Employer Branding and Global HR Communications, Matt Jones, has got a firm grip on this — and he's happy to share some insider knowledge…

Thinking big

"Schneider is a big company, but it has a really well-balanced global presence. As part of that, we've got a naturally diverse cultural perspective. We're constantly trying to make it an inclusive place to work, but it's never about creating something that just looks good. We've always considered how we can embed our culture in the conversations we're having to create a personal meaning that our people can attach themselves to, while helping us retain and attract talent at the same time."

Promoting empowerment

"Our people are empowered to manage their own careers — not only from a skills perspective, but also when looking at how that translates to the role that you're in now and potentially where you go next. It really helps create more opportunities for people. In the last couple of years we've introduced a new initiative called the Open Talent Market, which is a platform to recruit internally but also showcase skills and experiences. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, it brings speed, transparency, and helps to de-bias career development with efficient matching of supply and demand of work needs within the company, across borders and entities. Since launching globally in mid-2020, in the midst of the pandemic, we've had nearly 70,000 employees register (of which 25% have taken action — a job, project, mentor), 11,000+ mutual mentorships (of which 71% are cross-border, 68% are cross-entity) and 5,000+ projects (of which 43% are cross-border, 59% are cross-entity)."

High tech, high touch

"From a leadership standpoint, it's all about creating an environment and culture that encourages collaboration, innovation and a little bit of disruption here at Schneider. We're quite deliberate in not just the language we use, but how that translates to behaviors too. It's not about dos and don'ts; it's about trust, empowerment and honest conversation. In this hybrid world, we talk a lot about how leaders need to be more human and more digital. It's a kind of 'high tech, high touch' way of working which points towards everything we do. Digital is massive — I'm not disputing that, it plays such an important role; but the human connection is just as important."

Open dialogue

“Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has always been a key part of what we do, and we continue to be very open about it. We have committed externally, as part of our Schneider Sustainability Impact, to what we call ‘50/40/30’ by 2025: that's increasing women representation to 50% of new hires, 40% of frontline managers and 30% of senior leadership. Our DEI story and culture is already there, but having those kind of benchmarks keeps these important cultural drivers front of mind and accountable too. One of the pillars of our employee value proposition (EVP) is ‘inclusive’ and it’s demonstrated through everything we do – right from the basics of our policies to the language that we use.”

Great expectations

“The world continues to change fast – we have to continue to adapt with it. The expectations of employees and external talent are changing too and we see much more emphasis on what it means to work and having a meaningful purpose. And throughout the challenges of the past couple of years, it’s our #SEGreatPeople that continue to make the difference. They have kept things going and our employee engagement results show that they are still proud to go to work for Schneider Electric and make a difference – internally and externally.”

Two-way engagement

This article was first published in the Journal of Internal Communication brought to you by Gallagher. As a world-leading internal communications agency, we are excited to share our round-up of internal communication trends and provide practical examples of how organizations communicate with their people.