How O2’s Think Big program delivered €4.6 million in business benefits

In a study conducted by Katie Hyson alongside the people of Global Action Plan, we’ve found very good news about O2’s Think Big program’s financial benefits: the program delivered £3.8 million (€4.6 million) in business benefits.

The first of its kind

This is the first study of its kind in the UK to go beyond traditional employee engagement metrics, and towards a more holistic review of the impacts and benefits of employee participation in delivering sustainability goals.

And this is what we found:

Of those people actively involved in Think Big: 64% of participants reported increased sense of motivation, 59% of participants reported increased confidence, 87% of participants reported being more positive about O2 as a brand and 60% of participants reported being more positive about O2 as an employer.

Whilst managers said that: 58% of managers rated networking benefits seen in their people after their engagement with Think Big, 88% of managers saw better team cohesion, 67% of managers saw higher productivity, 73% of managers stated their people were more motivated after being involved, 88% of managers said their people’s confidence had risen, etc.

We also calculated the direct business savings that result from employee engagement on sustainability. Financial savings including: reducing waste to landfill, which saved £6,400, water usage down by 4% in 2012, 300,000 mobile phones recycled thanks to our call centre and store staff – raising over £750,000.

The personal development benefits and the employee engagement increases can be translated, into financial benefits.

For every £1 we invest in engaging our people in Think Big – to deliver sustainability benefits, they deliver £1.40 back to our business.

Even we’ve been deliberately conservative in the assumptions and calculations which underpin our results. We haven’t even begun to take into account all the possible benefits, such as positive PR or Brand benefits resulting from employee activities.

An infographic showing the return on investment from engaging people in O2 Think Big

Join our internal engagement business case review

We would like to invite other business to join this business case too; to open your books and share the results of your own employee engagement activities and the measures you use to determine their success. By sharing data and evaluation frameworks, we hope to build a more comprehensive picture of why we should invest in engaging our people to deliver sustainability. In many respects, the dearth of detailed analysis on employee engagement made it challenging to devise a robust research and evaluation framework for our own activities.

Together, we hope to help UK businesses realize the benefits of strategic people engagement, as well as the social and environmental benefits.

(Originally posted by Katie Hyson: click here to read it)