Last Updated on June 4, 2026 by Fly High Coaching
People engagement strategy is one of the most talked about topics in the workplace right now. Yet most executives and leaders still struggle to build one that actually moves the needle. Are you clear on what your employees need to stay engaged? Does your organization have the systems to support that level of engagement?
In this episode, you will learn more about the essentials of people engagement strategy. Our host Porschia, alongside guest Rachel Platt, will share their insight on why engagement is no longer a soft topic, and what it really takes to build a culture where people do their best work.
They will also discuss the biggest clarity gaps that exist inside organizations today, including how 3 common missteps around job expectations, manager development, and feedback can quietly drain engagement over time. The conversation also covers how companies can use practical tools like stop, start, and continue to assess what is working and what needs to change right now.
Rachel Platt brings 20 plus years of experience helping organizations and leaders build the clarity, systems, and confidence they need to solve complex employee challenges. She founded PLATTinum Consulting in 2018, following Chief People Officer and other executive HR roles, and today works with small and mid-size companies and nonprofits across the US to design people strategy that connects directly to business outcomes.
What you’ll learn:
- What people engagement strategy is and why it matters more than ever in today’s workplace
- The biggest clarity challenges executives face when building a people engagement strategy
- Why well-trained people managers are one of the hardest, and most important, parts of the equation
- Practical tools you can use right now to assess and improve engagement across your organization
- How companies can build repeatable systems that support leadership development, performance, and retention
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about essentials of people engagement strategy with Rachel Platt. Rachel Platt brings 20 plus years of experience helping organizations and leaders build the clarity systems and confidence they need to solve complex employee challenges. Navigate, change and achieve their most important business goals.
She goes beyond HR compliance and day-to-day HR operations to find, fix, or implement strategic people strategy solutions [00:01:00] around culture, employee experience, and leadership development. Rachel founded Platinum Consulting in 2018 following Chief People Officer and other executive HR roles. Platinum partners with clients to maintain a transparent, ongoing open dialogue.
They place outcomes before egos and work with clients who share similar values. Hi Rachel. How are you today?
Rachel: So good to see you. Thank you for having me.
Porschia: All right. I am excited to have you with us to discuss the essentials of people engagement strategy. But first we wanna know a little more about you.
So tell me about 7-year-old Rachel.
Rachel: I don’t think any 7-year-old is sitting there thinking, oh, I want to work in HR one day. I think most know what it is. I was certainly one of those kids who like to [00:02:00] keep things organized, like to be in charge, liked. To have a lot of people around me and liked it when people got along.
So maybe that was a way of thinking about hr. But the reality is I went to business school and I really believe that no matter what your product or service is, you are in the business. People, you are either employing those people to do the work or selling to people who make decisions. So how you treat people, how you create an environment for your employees, your customers, your clients, that they want to be in your environment, they want to be in your [00:03:00] ecosystem.
Is critical to the success of any business. So I am not a soft, fluffy HR professional. I’m not the party planner. I’m the. A person who’s sitting here and saying, how do we align with the business strategy? What is it that we need to accomplish and how do we do that with the human beings who come to work with different lives, different motivations, different experiences, different backgrounds, and how do we all.
Move forward in the same direction and I think it’s really cool. And I think 7-year-old Rachel would think what I do is cool. She might not have known about, I might not have known about it back then, but I still think after doing this for many years, since I was seven I [00:04:00] still think it’s a fascinating job and people are fascinating and I really enjoy.
Porschia: Yeah. You said a lot of things that I completely agree with. I love how you talked about, most companies are in the business of people. I completely agree, and I think that people forget that a lot. I. In their day-to-day role and with the tasks and responsibilities that they have.
And I also like the distinction that you made about hr, because I see this a lot with our clients. I think a lot of people and leaders and organizations believe that when you’re talking about people or employee engagement or any ask. Aspect of working with the people. They think it’s fluffy and handholding and it’s just feel good stuff.
And there’s so much more to it than that. And some of my audience knows that I have a master’s in industrial and organizational psychology. So I love going deep into the strategy, which we’re gonna do [00:05:00] today. So Rachel, tell me about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business.
Rachel: I was, it’s such a good question and it really made me think before we got on today, I have been so lucky over the course of my career, I’ve had some outstanding leaders who both. Championed and sponsored me before we knew what those words actually meant and what the difference between them is.
I had people, leaders who pushed me and so to places that I did not want to go or think that I could go. And so as I think back, I really do think about. A one of my first bosses who just gave me wings [00:06:00] and said, build this project, do this. You have a vision for what this is going to look like and make it happen, and I will support you.
And that really taught me a lot about. Taking initiative, speaking up for myself, and also how to be a great boss. So later on when I had a less great supervisor who was constantly taking credit for everyone else’s work, was not sharing information in a timely way, I knew enough. To say this is not going to be successful for me and the way that I work best.
And so another career pivot, leaving for another role. And I’ve had been through [00:07:00] several mergers and acquisition, excuse me. I have been through several mergers and acquisitions over the course of my career, both on the acquiring and on the acquired side. And there have been several places where I just, something had to get done and I was the one who had to get it done and I didn’t know how to do it.
And I think. And just learning and researching and being curious and asking questions, and not being afraid to admit that you are trying something. Maybe admitting that you made a mistake and now you know better, so here’s how we’re going to fix it. Those were all of the great experiences that I had that led me.
When I started my consulting practice in 2018 to [00:08:00] say, I don’t know how to do everything yet, I don’t know yet, but I can learn and I’ll figure it out and I’ll surround myself with smart people and I encourage everyone to go a little further than you ever thought that you could go. It doesn’t mean that you need to start your own business, but.
Ask the questions, wonder why, push a little bit further. It’s scary, but it’s a great feeling when it’s, when you’re able to be successful with it.
Porschia: I agree. So there are many aspects of human resources. How did you decide to focus on people’s strategy as one of your areas of expertise?
Rachel: I would say that I think it’s the area that has the most impact on the long-term success of the business and the immediate and long-term success of the [00:09:00] individuals who work there.
It’s all about holistically looking at. Yes, your compensation, yes, your benefits, but it’s really about how do we communicate, how do we make decisions? How do we recognize and reward people? How do we think about innovation taking initiative? It’s how do we connect that to the business goals that we need to accomplish?
And I find it fascinating. And very creative. There’s no template. There’s no, this is how we do because it has to be customized for every single organization, the culture, their leadership style, and so many other factors. So I’m not great. I following a rule book all the time. I [00:10:00] am well grounded in, the laws and the regulations and compliance.
But I love that as my foundation, but not something that I need to be thinking about every single day, all day, every single day. And that’s the work that we do. And that’s what differentiates us from, we do know HR outsourcing within platinum. And leaders who either are or are aspiring to create a great work culture, they want something that’s specialized for them and that’s how we partner and it.
We’ve had some fantastic outcomes.
Porschia: So I think that’s a great segue. We’ve discussed HR on the podcast before, back in episode 30. We talked about the importance of human resources. From your perspective, why is human resources important?
Rachel: You do, of [00:11:00] course, have the compliance components and the rules, the regulations, the fairness.
The following, the guidelines that the government lays out for us. So you have that as one foundation, but really having someone within an HR team that is focused on culture can help leader culture does not sit, it is not owned by. HR culture needs to be owned by the leadership team, but they’re doing a million other things also.
And so hrs role of helping the leaders to be the best leaders that they can possibly be, helping to have an ear to the ground about what. Is concerning employees or what needs additional [00:12:00] communication or what maybe didn’t land the way that the leaders thought that it was going to land, and helping the organization think about how to create engaged employees, what employees value versus what leaders think that they value.
That’s what makes magic in an organization. That’s what makes people want to stay there and work there.
Porschia: Yeah, I agree. Company culture has been another hot topic and we discussed that in episode 71. How do you think people engagement strategy impacts company culture? I think you started telling us about this.
Rachel: It’s. It’s embedded in every single thing that you do. If you are thinking about people strategy, you are anticipating what a reaction or [00:13:00] what the next question can be. You’re not leaving people in a gray area. You are trying to be as transparent because you’ve thought about it from someone else’s perspective.
You are being clear. Clarity is the biggest issue that exists within organizations. Leaders need to be clearer about what their expectations are for you in this particular job. They need to set those expectations. Clarify any outstanding questions and hold people accountable. We don’t have enough of that loop of actually setting clear expectations, giving people reinforcing or redirecting feedback about how they’re doing in meeting those [00:14:00] expectations and holding people accountable for the outcomes.
People say that they want autonomy at work, they don’t wanna be micromanaged, terrific, but then do your job. If you don’t know what your job is, you don’t know what to be doing. So we have a lot of people who are at Crossroads and that is finding all of the ways. To create connections, offer clarity, put the pro processes and programs in place, the systems in place, that we reinforce all of those things.
That’s what people’s strategy is about, so that you have the systems, you know that at X point in time, Y needs to happen and that is going to help us achieve X business goal. And I can give you a million examples of how that works with performance management or [00:15:00] recruiting or anything as you’re trying to launch a new product.
In order to launch the product, we need X number of engineers to be able to do this work By this point in time well. That this is a math problem. This isn’t something gray. Okay, how do we get that? Did we hit it? Did we not hit it? If we did not get that number of engineers by that period of time, what is the downstream effect of that?
How does that impact when we’re going to be able to launch this new product? And I don’t think all HR professionals connect those dots. And therefore leadership, the executive team does not always come to the HR professional because they’re thinking about them either in a very tactical, did my [00:16:00] person get enrolled in benefits?
Did they get a paycheck or it’s too fluff?
Porschia: Yeah, I agree. In my years working with companies, I’ve seen the attitude around people engagement change. Why do you think executives and leaders are more open to discussing people engagement now?
Rachel: Have you seen the latest Gallup research? It shows that only about 31 or so percent of US employees are actively engaged at work. I’m sorry. That means that most people are showing up but not actually invested in what they are doing. And the results of that is that turnover is high. Productivity is low.
People want more money, more time off, more flexibility, and the business wants to get more if they’re offering more. [00:17:00] And I think that is why leaders are willing to talk about what do I need to do to engage employees? And they’re also figuring out that. Really, it’s not as much what the leadership team is doing, but it’s what the direct manager is doing and how they are communicating and shaping the employee experience and what that investment, both financial, investment and time investment needs to look like in order to meet what their business goals are.
It’s a tough topic. Not all leaders are interested in talking about it, but those who are the ones who are having much better success in attracting and retaining their talent.
Porschia: [00:18:00] Yeah, I agree. And I think also with. The uncertainty, that is in the atmosphere, in the economy, and almost every industry with, disruption and ai.
To your point employee engagement is more important, in my opinion, than it’s ever been.
Rachel: Yes.
Porschia: Rachel, what do you think are the essential parts of a [00:19:00] people engagement strategy?
Rachel: I believe that. Having thoughtful, intentional job descriptions that actually are talking about outcomes, not the tasks that people need to be doing, communicating that clearly. Between leadership, the manager, the individual, and the team so that everyone understands what is expected, is really a foundational tool that most organizations are like, yeah, it’s a job description, who cares?
But being clear, having deep discussions about what those expectations are. Then having well trained [00:20:00] people, managers that can give meaningful and timely and actionable feedback as to what’s working and what’s not working to help people achieve those outcomes are. Probably, in my opinion, two of the hardest things to accomplish, but are so foundational because if you have those things, oh, and by the way, the manager should also be, these should be not just two people in a room, but two people having conversations back and forth about, Hey, supervisor.
You could do more or less of this to help me to achieve these goals, and there needs to be some dialogue and feedback upward feedback, but having that in place leads to [00:21:00] better succession planning leads to better leadership development, leads to better performance management, which can tie to compensation and bonuses.
Which can tie to stretch opportunities, all of those components, and having those programs that work for the business that you are now, not the business that you were when you were a startup, or the business that, it’s hard to shift the Titanic, but sometimes you need to make those shifts. In your organization to really achieve those goals.
But those two things, a clear understanding of what somebody’s job responsibilities and a great process for delivering feedback lead to all of those other components of people’s strategy.
Porschia: I love that. So [00:22:00] based on what you said I thought of a, another question that. Sometimes comes up and people ask me, so I would love to know your thoughts.
How far out should companies be planning these days? Because everything changes, right? We know there used to be like 10 year plans and five year plans, and now are we getting the one to two year plan? When you think about people engagement strategy, how far out are you planning with these strategies?
Rachel: We are typically looking at an 18 month and a three year benchmark, knowing that we may need to pivot at 18 months, every 18 months. There’s just, there’s new technologies. Hopefully we will never have another COVID, all of these things that have happened in the last X number of years.
How we have thought about hybrid work [00:23:00] continues to change. How we think about AI and automation continues to change. So having a business plan that goes for. Potentially longer, but a people strategy plan that’s at the 18 month and three year point seems to be a good cadence to assess what is working and what is not, and where tweaks need to continue to occur.
We like to say we reserve the right to get smarter. You’ve constantly gotta be iterating.
Porschia: I love that we reserve the right to get smarter. So in that vein, what are some tips that you can share to help executives and leaders develop better people engagement strategies?
Rachel: One of my favorite tools that I use all the time and it’s so simple, [00:24:00] is stop, start and continue.
Are you familiar with it? I just think that it is, it can be used in so many scenarios. If you are struggling with a project, you can sit down with your team and you can say, what do we need to start doing? What do we need to stop doing? What is working for us and what do we need to continue that?
You can do that with a project. You can do that with a person. You can do that with as you are coming up on a deadline. It just really helps to set priorities and it is a tool that allows multiple people to participate simultaneously or multiple people to individually think about and then come together to talk through.[00:25:00]
In whatever style makes the most sense for them. But doing that with your general people strategy works also. How is our compensation, how is our bonus plan right now recognizing and rewarding for the behaviors and the outcomes that we want? Or are we just spreading the peanut butter and giving bonuses to everyone?
There’s different philosophies. Does our compensation philosophy work for us? Oh my goodness. Benefit costs have gone up by gazillions of percentage points. What is it that our employees actually need right now? Are we offering things that they don’t care about? Is there something that more of them care about?
Have we asked. Are we curious? Those stop, start, and [00:26:00] continue works in all of those scenarios in it works really well also in leadership development and how are we looking at our succession planning? Every one of those is an opportunity to. Look at through a different lens and making sure that you’re constantly on track and that other people have the opportunity to raise issues that you may not see through your viewpoint lens, whatever.
Porschia: Start, stop and continue is such a powerful exercise.
Rachel: Yeah.
Porschia: Earlier you mentioned that clarity is the biggest issue that you see in organizations. I wanna know from your perspective, what are some other big challenges that you’ve seen companies have with their people? Engagement strategies?
Rachel: A lot of my clients right now [00:27:00] are.
Talking about ai, but not in the way that people anticipate. They’re talking about AI in terms of talent acquisition and in terms of the sheer number of applicants that are not qualified for the opportunity. The number of resumes that are coming through that have tremendous AI embedded in them. It’s not that the AI embedded in them is the problem, it’s that it has so exaggerated people’s skillsets that by week three you’re wondering if there’s an imposter in your office.
So there’s a lot of talk about that. From a people strategy standpoint, there’s a lot of talk about the stress on [00:28:00] people, managers. Also, I would say that’s where I’m spending the bulk of my time. What does it mean to be a people manager? What do we expect of them? How much of their time should they be spending coaching others versus.
Doing their actual own job because there’s very, there’s nobody who’s just a manager anymore. You are literally doing your own individual contributor job, plus managing others and ensuring that they have the skills to. Grow and stretch and connect and build relationships with their team in a way that engages them and motivates them, and that they know enough about the rules, laws, and policies, [00:29:00] that they don’t say something or do something that could really jeopardize the reputation of the organization or put them at in legal risk.
Those are some big ones that a lot of leaders are really focused on right now, particularly, several years post COVID. People who were in more junior positions. We are continuing to realize that they didn’t have some of these experiences, which would have potentially. Taught them or given them the experience of some of the things that we’re now asking them to do as a people manager, but because they were remote because there was a million other priorities, they haven’t had those experiences.
Porschia: Yeah. I was talking to a contact. A couple of weeks ago, and she’s a Gen Zer and she was telling me she had one semester of [00:30:00] college at NYU and then everything went virtual, right? And so now she’s out in the workforce looking for her next opportunity. And to your point her whole.
View of work is completely different than a lot of people that were in the workforce, prior to COVID. So I’ve talked to a lot of leaders who are overwhelmed when thinking about their people engagement strategies and their initiatives. And I think it’s probably due to some of the stress that you’ve mentioned on people managers before.
So if we’re thinking about that, what is a good first step for someone who feels. Lost maybe with creating a people engagement strategy.
Rachel: I think asking questions and being curious and asking questions about what would this work look like if we were [00:31:00] a better place to work. If. If you could have more of something, what would that be?
Frankly, again, it’s a stop start, continue exercise but talking to leadership, talking to your brand new hires who started two weeks ago, talking to your star talent that you want to retain, being curious, being inquisitive, and. Reading a lot about what other organizations are doing because so many leaders and HR leaders, they’re so heads down focused on their own business that they don’t necessarily even know what else is happening out there, how somebody might be doing something different or better than what they are doing.
So just being curious. [00:32:00] Is the A number one skill to have and it is the place to start to say, where do we maybe have something that’s broken or maybe where do we have something that’s working, but could be so much better?
Porschia: Yeah, curiosity is vital. So Rachel, tell us more about your business.
Rachel: I started Platinum Consulting in 2018.
I had been a chief people officer and realized that I had gotten really far away from doing the work that I liked doing. And today we work with small and mid-size corporates and not-for-profits, primarily in professional services across the us. Really helping them to think through what are the [00:33:00] programs that we need to have, what are the systems?
What does, I’m thinking of this one because it work, because I was working on it earlier. What does succession planning look like in this organization? What are the promotional guidelines for how someone goes from a manager to a director? Because when they were small. It was and you get a title and you get a title, and you get a title.
Let’s quote Oprah there. And now they realize that does did not serve them well, and they’ve got title inflation. So yeah, we’re spending a lot of time on how do we system systematize this so that it becomes a repeatable process. So that it’s not so hard. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every single time, but that we’re looking at that holistically with [00:34:00] everything else that we’re doing.
Every project is not standalone. It is a broad look at what the employee experience looks like. And it’s a ton of fun.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. We’ll be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so people can find you online. But what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Rachel: I am on LinkedIn quite frequently every day. So you can certainly reach out Rachel Plat with two T’s, which is how I spell platinum also with two T’s. So I am there, there are links to schedule a meeting, send an email. The whole shebang all in one shot on LinkedIn is the easiest way.
Porschia: Perfect. So now Rachel, I wanna ask you our final question that we ask all of our guests.
Rachel: Yep.
Porschia: How do you think executives or professionals can [00:35:00] get a positive edge in their career?
Rachel: Can we go back to curiosity? So asking questions. To a variety of different sources to build your broad knowledge base, but also to create your own personal brand, your own vision, your own philosophy on something is really key to setting yourself apart from someone else. And then after you’ve asked the questions and you’ve started formulating, don’t forget to send a handwritten thank you note.
Let’s go back analog these days. And as the expression goes people don’t forget handwritten thank you notes. And people don’t forget when you’ve done something [00:36:00] kind for them. And ask lots of questions, be very curious. Engage with people. People, most people find it flattering if you say, I’d like to understand more about whatever the topic is, or more about you.
So lean into that. People will answer almost anything for you if you make them feel valuable, and then make them feel appreciated. Also, send a thank you note.
Porschia: Yes. Rachel, you have shared a lot of insights with us today and I’m sure our listeners can use it to be more confident with their people engagement strategies.
We appreciate you being with us.
Rachel: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great. I. [00:37:00]
