Coca-Cola Southwest Realizes 19% in Employee Engagement Over 5 Years by Building a Culture of Respect

The Opportunity

Facing challenges with retention and workforce respect, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages recognized that a key driver of engagement was a more consistent demonstration of leadership principles. Leaders needed clearer, ongoing support in exemplifying the organization’s Leadership Code based off their Culture Principles of being People Focused, Customer Centric, Focused on Results, Change and Innovation, and Transparency.

The Solution

Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages introduced a multi-tiered approach to embed leadership and cultural values into the fabric of everyday work:

• Weekly Nudges & Leadership Commitments: Leveraging AI-assisted Intelligent Nudges (via Activate) that guide leaders toward simple, actionable behaviors aligned with the Leadership Code and Culture Principles
• Targeted Engagement Action Plans: Each leader crafts at least one action plan annually in response to their team’s engagement survey results, complemented by broader facility-wide plans for shared improvements
• Transversal Action Plans: The organization analyzes facility data to identify overarching trends and develop cross-team strategies that foster respect, collaboration, and ongoing feedback
• Leadership Enablement Workshops: Internal Centers of Excellence deliver workshops on collaboration, teambuilding, feedback and development best practices — reinforcing consistent leadership standards
• Continuous Listening & Learning: Annual engagement surveys, pulse surveys, frontline focus groups, listening sessions, and an open-door culture ensure associates can share honest feedback
• New Leader Onboarding Program: Designed to introduce newly hired or promoted leaders to the importance of their role as a leader and fostering early connections along with one-on-one coaching to effectively implement our company leadership strategy
• ‘With Respect We All Win’ Initiative: A company-wide campaign fostering a respectful, inclusive environment where all team members understand their responsibility to uphold those values

The Impact

Since launching this holistic strategy, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages has witnessed improvements in both survey and business outcomes. Over five years, overall engagement favorability rose by 19.2%, reaching an 85% favorability score in the most recent survey. Leadership effectiveness metrics have climbed steadily, with a 0.7% gain year-over-year, and 70% of leaders consistently adopting nudges as part of their day-to-day routines.

In 2024 alone, more than 900 engagement action plans were created by leaders at every level — driving localized improvements and strengthening trust across the organization. A 91.7% favorability rating affirms employees feel respected in the workplace, while the 11% jump in employee referrals signals that the culture of growth resonates with both current and prospective team members.