American Woodmark Achieves a 2-Point Benchmark Improvement With Its First 5-Year Employee Experience Strategy

What Was the Opportunity?

American Woodmark reached an inflection point: the organization understood that employee experience drives both business performance and customer experience, but now had the opportunity to implement an enterprise-wide listening strategy to act on that understanding.

"We understand that employee experience is ultimately going to impact our business and the bottom line, and it also ties back to our customer experience," said Candace Smith, Project Manager for Organizational Development. "We've done a lot in that space over the last three to five years. And so now we're linking those two. We understand that if we focus on what matters most — our employees and our culture — we truly are going to reshape the future of American Woodmark."

Early listening revealed consistent themes: employees wanted growth, development, and clarity about their future with the organization. They wanted to understand the full lifecycle of their career at American Woodmark. And critically, they wanted to see genuine commitment to change — not just surveys, but action.

"We wanted to understand what really, truly matters to them and what they expect from us as their employer," Smith explained. "They're asking for growth, development, a clear picture. They want to be heard across the lifecycle. They want to be a part of that—co-creating with us."

What Was the Solution?

American Woodmark partnered with Perceptyx to transform its approach from periodic surveys to a comprehensive employee experience strategy — the first five-year EX strategy in the company's history.

Expanded listening moments. The organization moved beyond annual engagement surveys to capture feedback at multiple points across the employee lifecycle. "Not just hearing that one time in an annual survey," Smith noted, "but getting to a point where we're looking into different moments that matter along the journey." In 2026, American Woodmark will be able to connect data across listening events for the first time, thereby linking insights from onboarding to exit to tell a holistic story around employee experience.

Co-creation with employees. Rather than designing programs in isolation, American Woodmark involved employees in shaping solutions that ranged from benefit packages to broader experience improvements. "They want to help us co-create those solutions along the way," Smith said.

Integrated Talent Insights. The team incorporated Talent Insights data to build a more complete picture of the workforce, revealing barriers and breakdowns that survey data alone might miss. For example, employees rated by their leaders as having a high risk for leaving scored 20 points lower on company culture than those at low risk (67% vs. 85% favorable) — a gap that wouldn't surface in aggregate engagement data alone. This integration enabled targeted action on specific challenges rather than broad, unfocused initiatives.

Story-driven executive communication. Working with their Perceptyx consultant, American Woodmark transformed data into narrative. "The way [our consultant] put the story together to tell the true employee lifecycle — we pulled in the Talent Insights data this year, which mapped a really telling story and showed breakdowns and barriers that we're able to go target now because the data is shown in a clear, more full picture," Smith explained. "Not just showing graphs and charts on a slide, but truly putting it into a story for American Woodmark to present to our executive staff."

What Was the Impact?

American Woodmark's commitment to building its first comprehensive, multi-year employee experience strategy represents a fundamental shift in how the organization approaches its people.

Strategic commitment at the enterprise level. "The fact that we are committed and building a five-year strategy for the first time around employee experience — I think that's monumental," Smith said. "It will catapult us into the future."

Clear line of sight from feedback to action. The integration of multiple data sources and storytelling approach has created what Smith describes as "linking the feedback to action in an easier, manageable, digestible format." Leaders now have targeted areas to address rather than overwhelming data without direction.

Predictive power of listening data validated. A 2024 attrition analysis using actual turnover data demonstrated the strong relationship between employee experience insights and business outcomes. Employees who voluntarily left showed a 25-point gap in Intent to Stay compared to those who remained. And 24% of employees who indicated intent to leave in the EX survey actually left the organization, thus demonstrating to leadership that listening data can predict real workforce behavior, not just sentiment.

Measurable improvement in retention sentiment. In 2025, Intent to Stay improved by approximately 2 points and now scores above both Perceptyx and Manufacturing industry benchmarks, which is a direct testament to the work American Woodmark has invested in acting on employee feedback.

Connection to purpose. The strategy explicitly links employee experience to American Woodmark's mission and customer experience, helping employees see how their feedback connects to organizational outcomes. "Connecting them to the bigger purpose and the shared purpose of the organization," as Smith put it.

Foundation for continuous improvement. The organization has established a sustainable cycle for ongoing listening and action. "The more we continue to have that continuous cycle of listening, acting, learning, and celebrating — the more we'll win," Smith said.

For a manufacturing organization with over 8,800 employees across multiple facilities, this shift from episodic listening to strategic, continuous employee experience management positions American Woodmark to compete for talent while strengthening the connection between engaged employees and satisfied customers.