How can you engage your employees
Companies
Reebok
What does it mean to have a truly engaged workforce? Right now, companies spend a lot of time thinking about this exact question because they know engaged employees are more productive, stay at their jobs longer, and are generally happier than their disengaged counterparts. They also know that organizations that embrace employee engagement have more success in the long run.
TPI has decades of experience designing corporate philanthropy programs and strategies with the goal of increasing employee engagement while also serving the community at large. So when the Reebok Foundation came to us wanting to take a fresh, strategic look at Reebok’s philanthropy, specifically its grantmaking, we jumped right in.
There were a couple of key components that led our work with Reebok, including creating a more standardized RFP and reporting process, increasing brand-philanthropy alignment, and emphasizing engagement with underserved areas of Massachusetts. In a time of intense change for Reebok, including a corporate restructuring, Alisha Collins, Manager of the Reebok Foundation at the time said of TPI’s work, “It provided structure and guidance, whereas before, employees were finding opportunities that weren’t as connected to the Reebok brand and mission.”
TPI worked with the Foundation to identify and refine its goals for the coming year, guided staff through new streamlined RFP and review processes, and supported them in researching potential grantee organizations. With TPI’s coaching, the Foundation decided to hone in on youth-serving organizations working to increase participation in physical activity, a strategy that more closely tied the Reebok brand to its philanthropic activities.
TPI provided structure and guidance, whereas before, employees were finding opportunities that weren’t as connected to the Reebok brand and mission. – Alisha Collins, Former Manager, Reebok Foundation
The Reebok Foundation and TPI worked together to ensure that employee engagement was a key component to the Foundation’s new grantmaking process. To expand upon the ongoing employee engagement opportunities at the Foundation, TPI helped to design and implement an employee grant review process that encouraged employees to play an active role in the review and decision making phases. At the end of the process, TPI came in to facilitate the proposal review committee, helping Reebok employees make decisions about how their employer’s resources could best serve the community where they all live and work. The Reebok Foundation ended up funding 16 organizations and granting out a total of $175,000 with the goal of serving 18,500 Massachusetts residents.
Building on our experience with other corporate clients working on developing employee engagement strategies, designing grantmaking strategies, and managing RFP processes, TPI was able to build out a solution specifically targeting the Reebok Foundation’s areas of interest and precise needs. Each component of the program, from actual grants that were distributed, to employee engagement, linked up to the larger strategy of helping Reebok become more thoughtful about how its philanthropy impacts the community. Having that broader strategy is critical to staying on track during each stage of the process, and TPI was able to help the Reebok Foundation do just that.