Inside R.M.Williams remarkable employee engagement strategy

In 2024, R.M.Williams identified three focus areas in their Annual Employee Engagement Survey: Growth and development;, communication and collaboration; and feedback and recognition. These key areas, combined with additional insights gained from their survey, highlighted the need for a comprehensive solution that could reach and engage every employee.

Retail, distribution and workshop teams each work in different environments with different rhythms and priorities, so the solution needed to be flexible and accessible at any time from any device.

On top of that, the workforce needed to stay connected to company updates, leadership messages and recognition moments continuously, in the flow of their shifts, rather than through occasional campaigns.

The vast diversity of languages also had to be embraced, ensuring every employee felt connected to the brand, regardless of their English language proficiency.

Taken together, R.M.Williams needed an engagement model that treated accessibility, multilingual delivery and daily rhythm as core requirements, but also led with empathy, so that every employee felt seen, heard and valued.

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To address these challenges, R.M.Williams partnered with Capability Group to build an engagement programme delivered via Axonify - a single platform for learning, communication, and recognition across corporate, retail, distribution and workshop teams.  

The engagement strategy was structured around three pillars tied to the R.M.Williams’ 2025 engagement goals:  

• Growth and development: measured through participation, knowledge scores and certifications, this pillar tracks whether employees are actively learning and building capability over time.

• Communication and collaboration: delivered through announcements and Channels, this pillar ensures information reaches employees consistently and gives them a space to engage with it socially, but also formally.

• Feedback and recognition: enabled through polls, surveys, recognition pins and events, this pillar captures employee voice and reinforces contribution, turning engagement into a two-way exchange instead of a one-way broadcast.

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The engagement approach at R.M.Williams has produced measurable benefits across participation, knowledge, communication reach, recognition and feedback, all tracked through Axonify's real-time reporting.

• 16% Knowledge growth organisation-wide
• 83% participation rate sustained for over 12 months
• 200+ Recognition Pins sent each month
• 63% viewership across all announcements

R.M.Williams is known for handcrafted products made with intent and passion - built to endure a lifetime of adventures. What this engagement model shows is that the same philosophy found its way into how the business looks after its people. Every employee gets to experience that philosophy for themselves, feeling proud of being part of an iconic brand, and feeling connected and valued every single day. Sometimes that looks like something big, like a trip to the Adelaide workshop. More often, it looks like something small: a recognition pin, sent by someone who cares. And this is what keeps people genuinely motivated and engaged.

The effectiveness of the strategy is measured through a closed-loop model: employee feedback defines priorities, platform data tracks engagement and capability in real time, and subsequent survey results validate whether the organisation has improved in the areas employees identified as most important. This ensures the engagement model is continuously aligned to business priorities and delivers measurable, employee-driven impact.

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