Practitioner profile: Jennifer Schulte
Jennifer Schulte (pictured, right), global engagement director at Mars, Inc. is presenting the keynote session at Melcrum’s Employee Engagement conference in London. Based in the US, Schulte’s passonate about ensuring that all associates of the company have the chance to feel fully engaged with their work. Not an easy task when you’re taking on a workforce of 68,000, as she explains, but inspiration is never far away. 
Tell us more about your role at Mars, Inc.
I’m responsible for the measurement (survey) process and related activities that drive associate engagement across our organization. Together with a team of engagement champions, who represent specific business segments and geographic areas, I identify engagement strategies and deploy techniques to deliver results and address specific needs at the division and unit level. This includes data (survey) collection and reporting, communication, manager and leader education and intervention processes to address systemic engagement barriers.
What’s your background?
Mine’s probably not the “traditional” path to this role, if there is one. I began my career in Finance, working in three different organizations and focusing on financial management (including a couple of years in commercial banking). After gaining an MBA in Finance and joining Mars as a finance manager, I realized I got the most enjoyment from coaching and managing my team. I was lucky to be considered for a role in Learning & Development at Mars, facilitating programs for managers that focused on coaching and developing others. While in my L&D role I became a North America region champion for engagement, and that led me to my current role four years ago.
What are your biggest challenges?
My biggest challenge is being only one person, and keeping up with (or even better, ahead of) the pace of change. Our organization includes over 68,000 associates worldwide, and I have a fundamental belief that every one deserves a great manager and a chance to be truly engaged in their work. The scale can be overwhelming. Thanks to the team of passionate engagement champions who form our global community, we’re able to find synergies, set and agree on standards and identify best practices that can be matched to areas with a related need. I rely on these champions to keep engagement on the local business agenda, communicate locally relevant messages while maintaining a consistent theme, and to gather and share feedback so we stay current and address issues and concerns that matter as a global team.
Can you share with us a lesson that you’ve learnt the hard way?
We use a survey measurement tool (Gallup’s Q12) for the purpose of providing data. The survey results show areas of strength and areas where we need to focus more effort to improve, with accountability at the lowest level possible – between a manager and their direct work team. Our goal is to become a world-class engagement organization, which means across the business we need to be at or above Gallup’s 80th percentile point from their database.
This goal was set in 2004 and began to cascade down to individual manager performance objectives. Unfortunately, bad behavior was the result. In order to get the right “score”, some managers were, what we call, “gaming the survey” (associates felt forced to complete the survey and were incentivized by managers to give high scores in return for keeping their jobs, for example.)
What we learnt is that the quality of follow through – teams and managers deciding on the necessary actions and following through on those plans – is the lead indicator to high engagement scores. We’ve switched our focus for individual manager performance objectives to follow through (both a quantitative score and a qualitative measure), to focus individual accountability on the right behaviors vs. just the survey score. This helps us capture more honest responses on the other survey items and focuses accountability on the item that’s within a manager’s control.
What inspires you in the workplace?
I’m inspired by many aspects of the Mars business: our visionary leaders, iconic brands, principle-based culture and every time I meet a Mars associate who’s passionate about the work they do. Even when I’m involved in an engagement “intervention” meaning I’m working to identify an underlying cause of disengagement, I’m so inspired by the level of passion and commitment I hear – we’re all dedicated to finding ways to make a difference and drive success for our business. In this role I hear that passion and commitment from all levels, from the executive team to the manufacturing floor. It’s always inspiring and pushes me to do more.
Have your say
What challenges have you faced when measuring engagement levels in your organization? Do you agree with Schulte on her top three characteristics internal communicators should possess? Share your thoughts with us below.
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