Leo Burnett Worldwide Surveys Its Global Workforce Using IBM’s Behavioral Analytics Technology

ARMONK, N.Y. – January 28, 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Leo Burnett Worldwide is using its workforce talent management software to analyze people surveys, strengthen its global workforce, drive revenue and increase retention.

Through IBM’s data analytics, Leo Burnett is able to glean valuable insights from its annual global people survey that allows it to better understand the needs of the workforce. With this pulse of their people, Leo Burnett, one of the world’s top advertising agencies, is able to identify a link between its overall corporate philosophy and greater business results through higher retention rates and a more productive workforce, saving the company valuable resources.

Leo Burnett’s “HumanKind” philosophy demonstrates how creativity can transform behavior. Leo Burnett partnered with IBM’s Smarter Workforce consultants, who use employee engagement analytics software to look at what drives their people to contribute to agency accomplishments. The information collected provided insights that helped generate suggestions that the agency can implement to better engage their people and improve productivity.

Leo Burnett used IBM’s analytics solutions to survey their 8,500+ people and applied IBM’s powerful analytics to synthesize the perspectives their people shared regarding agency strengths and weaknesses. They then identified those agency characteristics that lead to an engaged workforce. Additionally, the results helped Leo Burnett’s senior executives to identify the most engaged agencies.

In analyzing survey data, Leo Burnett discovered that agencies in the top half of engagement had retention rates 8.2 percent higher than those in the bottom half. This discovery is important in that the agency has the potential to save valuable financial resources and reduce recruiting costs. Agencies where people felt they were encouraged to be innovative were also 2.2 times more likely to meet their annual financial goals, which led to a greater belief in and adoption of its “HumanKind” focus.

A key contributor to Leo Burnett’s success is its commitment to listening and responding to its own people. By surveying its people, Leo Burnett leaders are quickly able to gain a deeper understanding of their workforce and how it impacts the business. This understanding helps them to establish action plans to improve specific areas of their business.

“With IBM, we now have the ability to more fully understand the perceptions that our people share about working in the agency. As a result we’re able to use that information to improve our agency work environment and, ultimately, our business,” said Sidney Chapon, Executive Vice President of Leo Burnett. “The quantitative and qualitative data shows a definite correlation between our investment to educate our people in HumanKind and provide them with the necessary resources to apply its mindset and tools toward agency results, both from a financial and creative perspective. The data proves it – when we invest in HumanKind and take the time to talk to our people and provide the necessary resources to apply it, we have positive results that dramatically impact the business.”

IBM’s Smarter Workforce initiatives help businesses capture and understand data and then use these insights to empower their talent, manage expertise and optimize people-centric processes. It includes IBM’s 2012 $1.3B acquisition of Kenexa, a leading recruitment, talent management and workforce sciences company.