The Challenge

Paulig faced multiple challenges in building a consistent and insight-driven engagement strategy:

• Low survey participation:
  Infrequent, lengthy surveys resulted in response rates below 45%, limiting actionable insights.
• Fragmented engagement data:
  Engagement feedback was scattered across HRIS tools, spreadsheets, and intranet systems, making it difficult to link sentiment with performance or attrition.
• Inconsistent recognition culture:
  Recognition efforts were ad-hoc and localized, lacking visibility and consistency across regions.
• Limited benchmarking and trend analysis:
  Without external benchmarks or historical trend analytics, it was hard to assess progress or compare engagement levels year over year.

The Solution: Empuls by Xoxoday

Paulig partnered with Empuls to deploy a unified, AI-powered employee engagement platform covering surveys, analytics, and recognition.

Survey Design & Deployment

• Rolled out engagement, pulse, and lifecycle surveys with branching logic, skip rules, and conditional flows tailored by role, region, and business unit
• Used AI Co-Pilot to refine survey tone, ensure inclusive language, and optimize survey length
• Enabled bulk operations, automated reminders, and Teams/SMS nudges to improve response rates
• Delivered a fully branded, multilingual survey experience in English, Finnish, and Swedish aligned with Paulig’s brand identity

Analytics, Reporting & Insights

• Activated AI-powered text analytics (word clouds, clustering, topic modeling) to surface key themes from open-ended responses
• Integrated HRIS and attrition data to correlate engagement with turnover and productivity indicators
• Provided real-time dashboards with cohort-level segmentation, internal trends, and external benchmarking
• Configured smart alerts for sentiment drops or low engagement, enabling proactive HR and manager interventions

Industry & Scale Enablement

• Supported multi-language and multi-currency configurations for Paulig’s European workforce
• Enabled mobile-first access for factory and retail employees, ensuring inclusivity across all roles
• Deployed the platform within 8 weeks using Xoxoday’s structured implementation framework (Discovery → UAT → Go-Live)
• Ensured GDPR-compliant EU data residency, backed by ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified infrastructure

Outcomes & Business Impact

• Survey participation: Increased from 45% to 82% within two survey cycles
• Insight velocity: 60% faster analysis time through automated dashboards and AI text mining
• Engagement index: 18% uplift across three business units in the first year
• Recognition adoption: 3× growth in peer-to-peer recognition with consistent participation across regions
• Manager enablement: 90% of managers actively used team dashboards and created follow-up action plans
• Employee sentiment: Positive feedback on transparency, inclusivity, and seamless mobile experience

Future Roadmap

Building on this success, Paulig plans to deepen its engagement maturity with Empuls by:

• Introducing predictive engagement models to identify at-risk teams and forecast attrition
• Expanding AI-driven nudges to encourage timely recognition, feedback, and survey participation
• Extending benchmarking across regions to compare cultural and engagement trends
• Adding well-being and continuous pulse surveys to track evolving employee needs
• Continuously enhancing dashboards to support leadership decision-making and people analytics maturity

Conclusion

By adopting Empuls, Paulig transformed employee engagement from a fragmented, reactive process into a continuous, data-driven strategy. With AI-powered insights, inclusive survey design, and scalable recognition, the organization empowered leaders to act faster, employees to feel heard, and HR to drive measurable business impact.

Empuls now serves as a foundational layer in Paulig’s people strategy supporting engagement, transparency, and sustainable growth across its European workforce.

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