American Woodmark Drives Survey Participation from 68.6% to 91.7% Over 3 Years While Building Its First Enterprise-Wide Five-Year EX Strategy

23-point increase in survey participation over three years (68.6% to 91.7%), reflecting growing employee trust that feedback leads to action
25-point Intent to Stay gap between employees who voluntarily left and those who stayed, validating that EX data predicts actual retention outcomes
80%+ engagement sustained across four consecutive years while the organization simultaneously expanded from periodic surveys to always-on lifecycle listening

Company NameAmerican Woodmark Corporation
IndustryManufacturing / Building Products
ChallengeMoving from periodic engagement surveys to a continuous, lifecycle-based listening strategy capable of supporting the company’s first five-year EX strategy
ProductsPoint-In-Time, Lifecycle
Listening Use CasesEmployee experience strategy, engagement, onboarding, exit, retention, leadership accountability
About American Woodmark Corporation American Woodmark celebrates the creativity in all of us. With over 7,800 employees and more than a dozen brands, we’re one of the nation’s largest cabinet manufacturers. From inspiration to installation, we help people find their unique style and turn their home into a space for self-expression. By partnering with major home centers, builders, and independent dealers and distributors, we spark the imagination of homeowners and designers and bring their vision to life. Across our service and distribution centers, our corporate office, and manufacturing facilities, you’ll always find the same commitment to customer satisfaction, integrity, teamwork, and excellence.

What Was the Opportunity?

American Woodmark had reached a turning point in its organizational history. With more than 7,800 employees across manufacturing plants, service centers, and corporate offices in the U.S. and Mexico, maintaining engagement, stability, and trust was critical to sustaining workforce performance and business outcomes.

Historically, listening had occurred through periodic engagement surveys that provided valuable but limited visibility into the full employee experience. Early insights revealed consistent themes: employees wanted greater clarity about their future, stronger development opportunities, and confidence that their feedback would lead to meaningful change. They wanted to be heard across their entire journey with the organization, not just once a year.

Attrition analysis reinforced the urgency. Employees who voluntarily left showed a 25-point gap in Intent to Stay compared to those who remained, confirming that employee experience insights were directly connected to retention outcomes. This created a mandate to move beyond episodic listening toward a continuous strategy that could provide leaders with actionable insights and strengthen workforce stability.

At the same time, American Woodmark was launching its first enterprise-wide, five-year Employee Experience strategy in company history. Executing that strategy required a scalable listening infrastructure that would provide continuous insight, strengthen leadership accountability, and ensure employee feedback directly informed organizational decisions.

What Was the Solution?

Always-On Lifecycle Listening

In 2025, American Woodmark launched an always-on listening platform to capture feedback continuously across the employee lifecycle. For the first time in company history, the organization implemented new hire onboarding surveys at 15, 60, and 180 days, along with a voluntary exit survey. This expanded listening beyond engagement measurement and into the critical moments that shape the employee experience, providing a complete view of the journey from hire to exit.

Pulse Survey Action Teams

To ensure feedback translated into action, American Woodmark established Pulse Survey Action Teams in 2025, supported by a structured action planning playbook. Each functional area now has a dedicated team responsible for reviewing feedback, identifying priorities, and driving improvements. These teams operate with clear ownership, defined action plans, and quarterly check-ins to sustain progress.

Leadership Accountability at the Highest Levels

Following the annual engagement survey, American Woodmark conducts formal review sessions with functional leaders and the CEO to evaluate results, align on priorities, and establish clear ownership for improvement. Mid-year pulse survey check-ins with the CEO and Leadership Teams are conducted to ensure listening insights are integrated into leadership dashboards and scorecards, enabling leaders to monitor trends, strengthen communication, and proactively address employee needs.

What Was the Impact?

Survey participation grew 23 points over three years. Response rates climbed steadily from 68.6% in 2022 to 84.0% in 2023, 87.1% in 2024, and 91.7% in 2025. For a manufacturing workforce where a significant portion of employees are on plant floors without regular computer access, this trajectory reflects genuine growth in trust that feedback leads to action.

Engagement sustained above 80% across four years. Engagement scores held at 79.1% (2022), 80.6% (2023), 78.7% (2024), and 80.3% (2025). Maintaining this level of engagement while simultaneously expanding listening infrastructure, adding new survey touchpoints, and increasing leadership accountability reflects stability and maturity in the employee experience.

Predictive power of EX data validated. The 25-point Intent to Stay gap between employees who voluntarily left and those who remained gave leadership concrete evidence that listening data connects to real workforce behavior. This finding helped secure executive commitment to the five-year EX strategy and the investment in always-on listening infrastructure.

Structured action planning embedded across the organization. Pulse Survey Action Teams now operate across functional areas with defined ownership, quarterly reviews, and direct accountability to the CEO. The action planning playbook provides a repeatable framework that ensures feedback is translated into specific, measurable improvements rather than general commitments.

Lifecycle listening launched for the first time. The 2025 launch of onboarding surveys at 15, 60, and 180 days, plus a voluntary exit survey, gives American Woodmark visibility into the full employee journey. In 2026, the organization will be able to connect data across listening events for the first time, linking insights from onboarding to exit to tell a holistic story around employee experience.

For a manufacturing organization with over 8,800 employees across multiple facilities and two countries, this transformation from periodic surveys to a continuous, always-on, lifecycle-based listening strategy, backed by CEO-level accountability and structured action planning, positions American Woodmark to sustain high engagement while proactively addressing the EX opportunities that may be driving attrition.