Kenexa® Case Study:
HIRING & RETENTION
Outsourcing l
®
Employee Research l Software
United Rentals
Tools of the Trade: Engagement Surveys Hammer Home Employee Perceptions and Attitudes;
www.kenexa.com
Solution Taps Into Employee Engagement Across Distributed Network of Branches/Rental Locations
CoRpoRate
HeadquaRteRS
650 East Swedesford Road
R ather than making an assumption of what was important to its employee population,
United Rentals wanted to find out for sure. By implementing a 41-question engagement survey
by Kenexa, the organization has gained insight into what drives commitment and performance
2nd Floor at the company. It has responded by creating action plans that address issues and concerns. As a
result, engagement scores have increased from one year ago, retention is stronger and employees
Wayne, PA USA
are more productive and engaged with the success of the organization.
19087
800.391.9557 Situation analySiS
contactus@kenexa.com Founded in 1997, United Rentals, Inc. is the largest equipment rental company in the world, with
more than 760 rental locations throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The company’s
13,900 employees serve construction and industrial customers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners
and others. The company offers for rent more than 20,000 classes of equipment with a total original
noRtH aMeRiCa cost of $4.2 billion. Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, United Rentals is a member of
Canada the Standard & Poor’s MidCap 400 Index, and the Russell 2000 Index and is traded on the New
United States York Stock Exchange under the symbol URI.
With a distributed network of branches, one of the challenges for United Rentals is keeping a
pulse on employee perceptions and attitudes across the organization. Having employees dispersed
euRope across North America leads to a decentralized business climate and no formal process existed to
Germany gauge employee engagement. Realizing that turnover was higher than they wanted it to be, human
The Netherlands resources—with the support of upper management—began looking for a solution that would
improve employee engagement and thereby reduce turnover.
United Kingdom
“Ensuring we have the best people in place, performing key jobs and making sure they are effective
in their role, is one of our biggest challenges,” said Craig Pintoff, Vice President–Human Resources,
aSia paCiFiC for United Rentals. “Many people begin working with us as sales coordinators, which we consider
Hong Kong
the start of the career path toward branch management. Growing from within and developing our
employees is very important to our organization and we believe if we have an engaged workforce,
India
we will have lower turnover.”
Malaysia
Taiwan Looking to further engage employees, United Rentals partnered with Kenexa to implement a
company-wide survey to learn about issues and concerns that were relevant to our employees working
in branches and at the corporate office. Kenexa provides outsourcing, employee research and software
to help organizations more effectively recruit and retain a productive workforce. Launched in the
fall of 2004, in conjunction with Town Hall Meetings where employees and management provided
feedback on issues that concern them most, United Rentals was able to gain granular insight into
what was important to employees.
“It is one thing to guess what our employees believe to be important in driving their engagement
and it is another thing to actually know it,” said Pintoff. “For employees working at a branch, their
company is their day-to-day work environment. It is important results. Kenexa survey results are prioritized to recommend the
to them that there is a big company behind them, listening action plans that will have the greatest effect on overall employee
to their issues and focusing on ways to make their working engagement. Additionally, Kenexa’s action planning software offers
environment better.” dramatic improvements in the way accountability and alignment
cascades throughout the workforce.
Kenexa’s employee engagement model was developed and
tested through a stringent process of survey item design, “We found from our survey that the most important factor in
beginning with rigorous studies of organizational effectiveness increasing engagement at a branch is to go back after the survey
and comprehensive reviews of the academic literature related to is done and go through the process of learning what we can
employee commitment, psychological ownership, organizational improve and making those improvements,” said Pintoff. “We
pride, loyalty and satisfaction. Through the Kenexa solution, learned among the most important drivers of engagement at
United Rentals would gain an accurate snapshot of their United Rentals are management effectiveness, involvement, and
workforce and be able to understand what drives issues behind career opportunities.”
employee turnover.
Learning about issues important to their employee population,
Conducted in both 2004 and 2005, United Rentals has seen a spike United Rentals has implemented many corporate-wide initiatives
in its response rate from 48 percent to 80 percent of employees in response to survey results. Company-wide communication has
participating in the Employee Engagement Survey, indicating improved and in response to the need for more career opportunities
buy-in to the benefits of surveying the population. Increased at United Rental, every job at the company is now posted for
advertising and postcards mailed to employees homes, particularly internal consideration.
helpful for those without Internet access like company service
technicians and drivers, also helped keep the survey in front of Most beneficial is the granular insight into issues and concerns at
everyone. Discussions about the survey were also part of the every branch and the ability to create a more engaged workforce.
regular work routine. According to a Kenexa study of the survey results, the most
engaged branches had a 4.5 percent less voluntary turnover than
branches with lower engagement. For an organization like United
“It is one thing to guess what our employees
Rentals with more than 760 branches, that increase in retention
believe to be important in driving their translates into savings by reducing investment in new hire training
engagement and it is another thing to actually and recruitment costs while helping to meet the company’s goal
of building branch strength by reducing employee turnover.
know it,” said Pintoff.
Compared to a year ago, engagement scores increased significantly,
indicating a more engaged—and productive—workforce. Through
“The survey has become part of the culture at our company,” said the Kenexa solution, United Rentals has been able to isolate
Pintoff. “Every branch is required to meet with their employees, specific manager behaviors that can help predict the actions that
talk about the survey and to hone in on two concrete action plans improve sales and profit while reducing turnover—ultimately
that they can implement.” creating a standard for internal best practices for other branches
within their organization.
In addition to the engagement survey, United Rentals
implemented Town Hall Meetings where employees and “If you buy into the premise that an engaged workforce is more
managers gather together, face-to-face, at an off site location to productive, which we do at United Rentals, then any way you can
discuss the issues that concern them most. Pintoff notes that increase your engagement benefits business goals,” said Pintoff.
both are great tools to communicate with employees and that “At the end of the day, the only way to increase engagement is
“everybody knows their engagement score. It is a key benchmark to understand what drives engagement, what is important to the
for us.” workforce and that is done through a survey tool such as Kenexa’s
employee engagement survey.”
For other organizations considering engagement surveys, Pintoff
stresses the importance of being prepared to take action upon the
2 Copyright Kenexa®, 2007