Engagement Course Syllabus

Engagement Course Syllabus

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This curriculum was produced by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance under the original direction of Allan Schweyer, Curriculum Chair, and Dr. Gary Rhoads, Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Marriott Graduate School of Business, Brigham Young University, and many practitioners at the front lines of Enterprise Engagement; human capital management, measurement, and reporting, and the emerging stakeholder capitalism movement. Click here for additional faculty and contributors. The curriculum is now in its 5th edition and has been expanded to include ISO 30414 human capital management and reporting standards and ISO 10018 people engagement standards, and information on the return-on-investment of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI.) 

Enterprise Engagement–A new systematic, inter-disciplinary process to achieving strategical and tactical organizational purpose, goals, and objectives by fostering the proactive involvement of all stakeholders. Enterprise Engagement is a practical framework for addressing the “S” of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) business practices and implementing the people elements of stakeholder capitalism. 

  • A field of expertise in general management and a framework and implementation process that can be applied to the achievement of any type of purpose, goal, or objectives involving people at any type of organization.
  • It addresses the essential people aspects of ESG often overlooked in Sustainability courses.
  • The course provides a systematic, integrated approach to organizational engagement to foster alignment, common purchase, and the achievement of measurable goals on a sustainable basis while maximize the stakeholder experience.
  • It aligns with the ISO Annex SL management system, ISO 30414 Human Capital Management and ISO 10018 People Engagement standards.
  • A syllabus that can be utilized by academic and business professional educators seeking to instruct students and management on Enterprise Engagement and ISO human capital management quality people management standards in a one hour, one-day, one week, or full semester program.
  • It prepares professionals who will have to help their organizations comply with the new European Union Corporate Sustainability Directive. This requires the disclosure of detailed information on workers, supply chain and distribution partners, and communities of potentially thousand of companies in the US and hundreds of thousands if not more around the world.

Course Description

This course provides students with a grasp of the economics, framework, implementation process and return-on-investment of a formal enterprise-wide engagement strategy to implement a stakeholder approach to management, including the different tactics used to address the various levers of engagement, as well as the ISO Annex SL management system, ISO 30414 Human Capital and 10018 People Engagement standards with which they align. This course provides students and business professionals a framework they can apply in any aspect of their organizational life to mobilize any type of audience to achieve any type of goal involving people. It provides a foundation for those seeking to understand how to implement Stakeholder Capitalism at the practical level with measurable organizational benefits.

Course Objectives

Objective 1: Provide students in any area of organizational management with a highly marketable skill they can apply to almost any leadership position in business, not-for-profit and government institutions large and small.

Objective 2: Familiarize students with the ISO Annex SL management system and the ISO 30414 Human Capital and ISO 10018 People Engagement practical framework for achieving organizational objectives; demonstrate how it can be applied to achieve an organization’s most important goals, as well as specific tactical goals that will be achieved by the engagement of customers, distribution partners, sales and non-sales employees, vendors, communities, owners and any stakeholders.

Objective 3: Bring to life a framework that students can apply to achieve almost any organizational objective for the rest of their lives, addressing an area of Sustainability largely overlooked in ESG related education.

Objective 4: Sensitize students and professionals to the benefits of integrating the various elements of brand and culture, leadership, assessment, communication, learning, innovation and collaboration, community and diversity, rewards and recognition, analytics and other areas.

Objective 5: Provide students with return on measurement and analytics tools they can provide to support a strategy.

Objective 6: Teach students how to practically apply these principles to create and audit an enterprise engagement process.

Method of Instruction and Class Outline for an Hour, Day, Week, or Semester

The topic of Enterprise Engagement and the Stakeholder Capitalism movement can be introduced in a class, several classes, or a complete course of 30-35 classes. The more time allocated, the more the course can include interactive exercises that enable the students to develop and audit their own engagement processes related to either an artificially created or actual organizational experience, including a school or volunteer activity.

1. One-Hour Course

The one-hour course provides the definition and economics of Enterprise Engagement, the framework and fundamental principles, and an overview of ISO Annex SL and ISO 30414 Human Capital reporting and ISO 10018 People Engagement standards.

2. One-Day or One-Week Class

A two- to three-hour course enables an instructor to cover the key definitions, economics and issues with more detail. This course can be expanded based on the amount of detail accorded to each subject. Each chapter of the Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap textbook is easily a full class. Basic topics include:

  • Enterprise Engagement definition: What does it mean to proactively foster the engagement of all stakeholders in a systematic way to achieve organizational purpose, goals, and objectives?
  • What is stakeholder capitalism?
  • What are ISO 30414 human capital reporting and ISO 10018 people engagement standards?
  • What is the Annex SL management system?
  • What are the economics and return-on-investment metrics?
  • What are the key levers of engagement necessary to accomplish organizational goals?
  • What are the key tactics that correspond to those levers and what does it mean to integrate/align them?
  • Return-on-investment measurement—how can organizations score the return on these investments?
  • What is an Engagement Business Plan? An ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 audit? The tracer method?
  • How do ISO standards bake DEI into the organizational business model to enhance performance?
  • How to address the obstacles presented by organizational siloes.
Interactive features

The connection between customer and employee engagement, as well as the economics, are surprisingly easily to bring to life in a classroom setting, because our engagement with organizations, or lack thereof, plays an important role in our quality of life.

For a very short class, the easiest way to start is to ask students to talk about what makes them develop an affinity for an organization, both as a customer and employee, as well as what makes them dislike an organization. What is the concept of organizational purpose? Their responses can be used to demonstrate how such feelings might affect their behavior. From there, the exercise helps them visualize how the perception of an organizations affects their feelings as an employee, their purchase behavior, willingness to recommend, etc. This leads to a discussion of how they could in turn calculate the bottom-line impact of those behaviors in terms of sales, retention, efficiency, etc., for a company.

3. Full Semester Course Outline: 30-35 Classes

This course combines an interactive classroom approach, online learning and tests, and a sample engagement plan created by the students in small groups or as individuals that is shared with and audited by other team members.

The classes can closely follow the Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap table of contents, or an instructor could choose to use his/ her own way of conveying the framework, tactical elements and analytics. The course is broken into the following elements:

A. Introduction to ISO Annex SL, ISO 30414 Human Capital ISO 10018 People Engagement standards

Class 1: The intro course outlined above, starting with the framework and concept of organizational purpose.

Class 2 (Chapters 1, 2 and 39:) More details on Annex SL, ISO 9001, ISO 10018, ISO 30414 Human Capital reporting guidelines and standards

Class 3 (Chapter 3): The economics—with an exercise enabling the class to experience how engagement affects interactions and business outcomes.

Class 4: Culture and the Enterprise brand—the 360-degree approach to organizational purpose, mission, vision and values.

Class 5: Organizational Silos—addressing the key impediments to a systematic approach to engagement; breaking down the divisions between sales, marketing, human resources and operations.

B. Audiences of Engagement

This segment is designed to bring together the students’ academic or personal knowledge of the different stakeholders involved with organizational success and how their level of engagement affects outcomes. The goal is not to make them an expert in the engagement of each of these audiences but to understand the inter-relationships between these audiences and the underlying levers of engagement to connect actions to results.

Class 6 (Chapter 6): An integrated approach to stakeholder management.

Class 7 (Chapter 7): Sales and Channel Partner Engagement.

Class 8 (Chapter 8): Employee Engagement.

Class 9: (Chapter 9): Volunteer and Community Engagement.

Class 10: (Chapter 10): The Employee/Customer Link.

Class 11: (Based on Chapter 11): Case study. Can use the example in the chapter or use another example of a more local organization.

Class 12: (Based on Chapter 11): Class exercise. Employees select either actual school, volunteer, or other initiatives, or they make up one and discuss how the interaction between the various players affects the overall experience and outcome. The goal is to bring to life the impact on both the economics and experience.

C. Tools of Engagement

For each class, the instructor can provide examples of the different tactics mentioned in the textbook that relate to their local communities.

Class 13 (Chapter 13): Assessment.

Class 14 (Chapter 14): Communication.

Class 15: (Chapters 15-16): Content Marketing and Preference Management.

Class 16: (Chapters 17-18): Learning, Training and Gamification.

Class 17: (Chapter 19): Collaboration and Innovation.

Class 18: (Chapters 20, 22, 25, 26): Rewards and Recognition.

Class 19: (Chapter 21): Loyalty.

Class 20: (Chapters 23-24): Diversity, Community, Wellness.

Class 21: (Chapter 24): The Workplace Environment.

Class 22: (Chapter 28): Trade shows and conferences.

Class 23: (Chapter 29): The Role of Technology.

Class 24: (Chapter 30): Measuring Enterprise Engagement and Performance.

Class 25: (Chapter 31): Big Data and Analytics.

Class 26: (Chapter 32): Case Study

Class 27: Interactive session with students to use the case study to create their own engagement plan on an individual or team basis.

D. Design, Implementation and Auditing of an Engagement Plan

Based on the number of available classes, this final group of classes involves the students creating their own Engagement Business Plans for a real or imagined organization in which they:

  • Define the overall brand, culture and objectives of the organization and methods of measuring results.
  • Create a formal plan to achieve both the strategic goals and an approach to address more tactical goals related to customers, distribution partners, employees, vendors, communities, or other stakeholders.
  • Audit the plan of another group of classmates.

Class 28 (Part IV Introduction and Chapter 23): The Framework and Implementation Process.

Class 29 (Chapter 34): Budgeting and ROI.

Class 30 (Appendix I: Sample Engagement Business Plan.

Class 31 (Appendix II and III: Audit and Tracer Method.

Classes 32-34: Group Exercise in which employees create their own engagement plan, which is audited by another group using what they have learned about the audit process.

Class 35: Wrap Up (Chapters 35, 36, 37, 38—Engagement Careers, Engagement at Not-for-Profits, Implications for Government, Engagement and Accounting.

Appendix: Learn how to apply the ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 standards to the analysis, development, and implemenation of human capital management strategies that address all stakeholders.

Quizzes and Tests

There would be about 12 learning modules with tests for instructors using the Enterprise Engagement Academy learning platform and online certification. Otherwise, instructors could create their own quizzes and schedules.

Hands-on Activities
  • As noted above, students can at any time be asked in the classroom about their personal experiences related to any of the issues of engagement, since it is in fact a subject close to many peoples’ hearts.
  • In addition, the instructor can at any time create group exercises in which the students address one issue of engagement in an imagined or real organization as part of their preparation for developing a full Engagement Business Plan and having it audited by another group or student.
  • Field trips could include going to meet with a local company committed to an enterprise approach to engagement, of which there are a growing number.

Textbook and Required Tools or Supplies

  • Textbook (required): Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap, 5th edition, available from Amazon.com. Students read the chapters before each class.
  • Resource list—See below.
  • Supplies and/or tools: The exercise of creating an actual Engagement Business Plan could include requiring the students to create mockups of different elements of their plan to demonstrate that it contains the necessary components.

Grading Plan

The instructor can use any number of grading plans and weight them as desired:

  • Results of quizzes provided by the Enterprise Engagement Academy or the professor.
  • Grading of Enterprise Engagement plans and audits.
  • Points for active positive participation in classroom discussions.

Enterprise Engagement Certification

Students using the Enterprise Engagement Academy learning and testing program can receive a student version of the Certified Engagement Practitioner (CEP) designation from the Enterprise Engagement Academy.

Enterprise Engagement Resources

Here is an extensive list of learning and information resources to help you become knowledgeable about the field and/or to inform your clients. Feel free to share these links with clients in your communications.

Enterprise Engagement Alliance at TheEEA.org: for general information about the field.

ESM (Engagement Strategies Media at EnterpriseEngagement.org): Subscribe for weekly eNewsletters on news, case studies, research, interviews, new companies and more, or visit the portal regularly. You can also access information via:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1926267

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eea_org

Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap 5th Edition, at Amazon.com. The complete guide to all aspects of Enterprise Engagement and ISO 9001 and ISO 10018 Quality People Management standards.

Enterprise Engagement Academy for online learning and certification: The Certified Engagement Practitioner (CEP) designation demonstrates that the recipient has a basic grasp of the concept of Enterprise Engagement and is actively taking steps to apply their expertise to the engagement field. The Advanced Engagement Practitioner (AEP) designation requires the individual to demonstrate the ability to create a formal Engagement Business Plan using a case study process.

Related Information Resources

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Guidelines and Standards: These articles provide an overview of current ISO standards and principles and how they apply to engagement.

Enterprise Engagement and ISO Standards eBook
http://enterpriseengagement.org/app/wsportal/direct/Enterprise-Engagement-ISO-Standards/#p=1

ISO Approves Effort to Develop Engagement Standards
http://enterpriseengagement.org/newswire/content/8483363/iso-approves-effort-to-develop-engagement-standards/

ISO Quality Management Principles
ISO principles related to engagement.
https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/archive/pdf/en/qmp_2012.pdf

ISO People Involvement Standards and Guidelines
ISO standards and guidelines related to engagement.
https://www.iso.org/news/2012/10/Ref1663.html   

Information About Investors and Engagement

These articles provide background on the reasons why investors now are focused on engagement and other human capital investments.

Securities & Exchange Commission Petitioned to Mandate Disclosure of Human Capital Investments, Engagement: This article highlights a petition by major investors to the SEC asking that public companies be required to disclose information on their human capital and engagement investments.
http://enterpriseengagement.org/articles/content/8565912/sec-petitioned-to-mandate-disclosure-of-human-capital-investments-engagement/

Accounting Profession Faces Increased Pressure to Address Human Capital Reporting: This article highlights a growing push in the accounting world to account for the 80% of book value attributed to good will by accounting for human capital and other related assets.
http://enterpriseengagement.org/articles/content/8565938/accounting-profession-faces-increased-pressure-to-address-human-capital-reporting/

$6 Trillion Investor Coalition Sees Link Between Human Capital Management and Shareholder Return: Why major investors are pushing for disclosure of human capital investments and engagement.
http://enterpriseengagement.org/newswire/content/8472962/26-trillion-investor-coalition-sees-link-between-human-capital-management-and-shareholder-return/

Blackrock Joints Ranks of Big Investors Focused on People: More information on investor interest in human capital and engagement.
http://enterpriseengagement.org/newswire/content/8483396/blackrock-joins-ranks-of-big-investors-focused-on-people/

Q&A With CalPERs on its Strong Support for Human Capital Disclosures by Public-Companies: http://enterpriseengagement.org/Q-A-with-CalPERs-on-its-Strong-Support-for-Human-Capital-Disclosures-by-Public-Companies/

2017 Peoplecentric Winners Named as Engaged Company Stock Index Soars: http://enterpriseengagement.org/articles/content/8562901/2017-peoplecentric-winners-named-as-engaged-company-stock-index-soars/

Momentum Grows for Human Capital and Employee Engagement Disclosures by Public Companies: http://enterpriseengagement.org/newswire/content/8482955/momentum-grows-for-human-capital-and-employee-engagement-disclosures-by-public-companies/

Other Resources on the Justification for and Methods of Enterprise Engagement

Deloitte: Employee Engagement Culture, Human Capital Trends
http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/human-capital/articles/employee-engagement-culture-human-capital-trends-2015.html

Hay Group: Why Does Employee Engagement Matter to CEOs
https://www.haygroup.com/downloads/fi/thought_paper_why_does_employee_engagement_matter_to_ceos.pdf

Aon Hewitt 2016 Trends in Global Employee Engagement
http://www.aon.com/human-capital-consulting/thought-leadership/talent/2016-Trends-in-Global-Employee-Engagement.jsp

Incentives, Rewards, and Workplace Motivation, Dr. Harold Stolovich, PhD., University of Southern California.
http://theirf.org/research/incentives-motivation-and-workplace-performance-research-and-best-practices/147/

Good Company Index Company Assessment Tool
http://gca.mcbassi.com/s3/self/?srp=gcrp

Principles of Results-Based Incentive Program Design, published by the Incentive Marketing Association
http://www.incentivemarketing.org/?page=Principles

Concept of Employee Engagement: An Analysis Based on the Workplace Employment Relations Study, David MacLeod, Nita Clark, Engageforsuccess.org, the U.K. government-sponsored organization.
http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/7/6/08140-MacLeod-Clarkes-Concept-of-Employee-Engagement.pdf

The Master Measurement Model of Employee Performance
Still the definitive guide to create a measurable engagement process.
http://theirf.org/research/the-master-measurement-model-of-employee-performance/215/

Manage Your Human Sigma
Research demonstrating the link between customer and employee engagement.
https://hbr.org/2005/07/manage-your-human-sigma/putting-the-service-profit-chain-to-work

Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work
More research on link between employee and customer engagement.
https://hbr.org/2008/07/putting-the-service-profit-chain-to-work