Selected work

The problem

WP Engine's annual Great Place to Work survey was working. Participation was strong, leadership took the results seriously, and it drove real company-level action planning. But it was a snapshot: one moment in time across a workforce that moved fast and changed constantly.

The gaps showed up in the data. Managers wanted more than annual scores to support their teams. Employees told us in GPTW comments and listening sessions that they wanted more touchpoints throughout the year: more opportunities to share how things were actually going, not just how they felt twelve months ago. At the functional and team level, the annual cadence was too slow. By the time results surfaced, the context had already shifted.

We knew we needed something more continuous. The question was how to build it in a way people would actually trust.

The approach

I owned the vision, narrative, and case for change, building the story that would earn executive buy-in and manager adoption. The strategic plan paired our annual GPTW survey with Workday Peakon as a monthly pulse tool and structured listening sessions to create qualitative depth. Together, these three layers gave us a continuous picture of employee experience.

We started with a Peakon pilot before committing to a company-wide rollout. The pilot gave us honest feedback, which turned out to matter more than the data. Survey frequency needed adjustment. Questions needed refinement. Survey length was too long. Most importantly, managers needed to start using Peakon as a coaching tool with their teams, and that shift had to happen before we could scale.

I took those learnings into a revised rollout plan and presented the full strategy directly to the CEO for approval. The pitch was grounded in three things: what employees told us they needed, what the pilot taught us, and how we'd support HR Business Partners and managers in turning data into visible team-level action.

Outcomes

Peakon engagement rates landed consistently at the high end of Workday's typical benchmark range, a sign the tool had earned employees’ trust.

Managers were able to take team-level insights directly to their teams, socialize themes, and act on them in ways the annual survey never made possible. The feedback loop became part of how teams worked throughout the year.

Hot spots and emerging themes surfaced and got addressed significantly faster than the once-a-year cadence allowed. Issues that might have festered for months became visible and actionable within a single pulse cycle.

What worked

Starting with a pilot before scaling was the single best decision. The feedback we received on frequency, question design, length, and manager framing would have been difficult to course-correct at company-wide scale.

Splitting the strategy presentation into a narrative case for change followed by a concrete operational plan also worked well. Leadership needed to feel the "why" before they could commit to the "how."

The throughline

When employees see that their voice led somewhere, they share more honestly next time. Over time, more people take part and their answers get more honest. That's what we were building: a culture where people believe asking is worth answering.

Where it started

In 2019, while I was managing workplace services at WP Engine's Austin HQ, I co-founded Hue, the company's LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group. It was culture work outside my job description, and it became my way into people programs.

Starting from what people asked for

As DEI Specialist, I led the launch of four new ERGs between 2021 and 2022. None of them were picked from a list. Each one came from employee feedback about communities that needed a space of their own: caregivers; mental health, neurodiversity and wellness; sustainability; and people with disabilities and chronic illness.

Every launch followed the same path. Interest sessions found the people who wanted to build each community. Working sessions with those emerging leaders shaped its mission and vision. I connected them with our design team to create each ERG's identity, then made sure they had what they needed to launch.

Making it repeatable

I turned what I learned into an ERG handbook covering governance, leadership structure and roles, budgets and goals, and what leaders and the company could expect of each other. New communities didn't have to start from zero, and existing ones had clear footing as the program grew to seven.

Around the ERGs, I ran the internal DEI newsletter and events calendar, coordinated awareness campaigns with the VP of DEI, and partnered with Culture and Internal Communications on Town Halls, All Hands, and the Supercharged Awards. I also supported the data collection and reporting used to track DEI impact over time.

Listening to the leaders

ERG leaders and members are some of the most engaged people at any company, so I built a rhythm around listening to them: monthly leadership meetings, listening sessions throughout the year, and an annual debrief to look back on the year and plan the next one.

What changed

What ERG leaders raised turned into real changes, from total rewards offerings that met the needs of more people to a mentorship program the ERGs created, with me as its employee experience sponsor. Sometimes it was as simple as a tool setting.

One example stays with me. When Zoom's live captions were still a new feature, Embrace, our ERG for people with disabilities and chronic illness, raised the need to turn them on by default. It was a small change to make, and it made a real difference for colleagues who rely on captions to follow the conversation.

Why it mattered

ERGs were where I first learned to listen at scale. Communities surface what surveys miss, but only when members trust that raising something leads somewhere. That lesson carried straight into the listening strategy I built later. In 2022, the ERG work and the community it created were recognized with WP Engine's Supercharged Culture Award.