Building Employee Engagement through Product Innovation

The Issue:

Amex’s Travel Financial Capture (TFC) group’s leadership team saw the need for fundamental change. Fragmented business processes were creating errors and losses; groups weren’t working well together; the workforce was disconnected from the business strategy and customers were highly dissatisfied. Employee engagement was low and employees felt they were getting “beaten up” by ongoing reengineering, outsourcing, and resource shortages. At the same time, employees were undergoing new information technology initiatives.

Management could see that the group was not prepared for the tremendous challenges it was facing. Something needed to be done quickly, and a top-down change initiative clearly wasn’t the answer.

What we did:

The leadership team wanted to accelerate the change process, build commitment to the organization, turn morale around and create a flexible, smooth-running business. OTM proposed an organization redesign process that would focus on employee engagement throughout the entire organization, provide a platform for team building, gain commitment and rekindle the spirit of its workforce. OTM led the team through an organizational design project that rebuilt the structure based on the team’s own definitions of what was required. Going through a comprehensive process facilitated by OTM consultants meant that no details or consequences were left unnoticed or unresolved.

The Result:

Employees Become Leaders

TFC’s new design eliminated functional silos and highlighted the interdependence of the various groups. It increased collective and individual morale and employee investment while reducing defensiveness and increasing receptivity to change. Unlike many such initiatives, the process OTM brought to TFC focused not just on deficiencies but also on positive performance and what had been successful, enabling TFC to respond quickly to their fast-changing business environment.