HRIZONS EX turns employee feedback into organizational transformation

HRIZONS EX helped a leading global skin care company evolve its employee listening program into an engine for manager enablement, organizational alignment, and continuous improvement.

January 22, 2026

Employee surveys have become a cornerstone of modern workforce strategy, offering organizations a direct line to employee sentiment and a powerful lever for change. But collecting feedback is only the beginning. The real challenge—and opportunity—lies in helping managers take meaningful action on that feedback to improve team dynamics, drive performance, and shape culture.

HRIZONS EX, a Microsoft Solutions Partner, is perfectly suited to address that gap. When Microsoft transitioned away from first-party services for the employee survey solution Microsoft Viva Glint, HRIZONS EX became one of the first authorized consultancies to support customers through the shift. Staffed by longtime experts in Viva Glint, the team specializes in helping organizations move beyond survey deployment to strategic activation.

“So many people are doing surveys,” said Patrick Gallen, Director of Innovation at HRIZONS EX. “But so many of them fail to connect employee sentiment and experience to the organization’s bottom line––to its goals and objectives.”

Their consulting-as-a-service model provides ongoing strategic support metered to an organization’s unique needs rather than a one-size-fits-all, one-time implementation—which made them an ideal fit for a leading global skin care company.

Listening with intent—and turning feedback into action

The skin care company has long had a mature listening program, with high engagement scores and strong employee feedback. This commitment to employee experience stands out in a market where many organizations are scaling back people programs, but the company wanted to go further. They didn’t want to just collect survey data; they wanted to use it as a strategic lever to drive workforce effectiveness and shape a positive culture.

“Our goal is to enable and empower our customers. Once critical skills and competencies are embedded in the system, it becomes self-sustaining.”

The challenge was scale and clarity. The skin care company’s HR business partners and managers were receiving survey results and looking for actions to take, but the structure and expectations weren’t always clear. They needed a more tailored approach to help managers understand their role in translating employee sentiment into business outcomes.

Circular infographic showing a cycle: Listen, Interpret, and Act.

HRIZONS EX was a natural fit, offering both tactical support and strategic guidance. Their approach emphasized continuous improvement, organizational alignment, and manager empowerment—exactly what the skin care company was looking for. Their partnership focused on evolving the listening program into a strategic lever to drive workforce effectiveness, empowering managers to act on feedback and drive change at scale.

Our goal is to enable and empower our customers. Once critical skills and competencies are embedded in the system, it becomes self-sustaining. We can then partner with our customers to tackle more complex challenges impacting workforce effectiveness.

—Patrick Gallen, Director of Innovation, HRIZONS EX

Empowering managers to lead impactful change

HRIZONS EX began its engagement with the skin care company by replicating the core services the company was accustomed to with their Viva Glint deployment, including survey administration, configuration, and insights review. But the partnership quickly evolved. As the skin care company looked to deepen the impact of its listening program, HRIZONS EX stepped in with a more strategic offering: a manager empowerment initiative called “action activation.”

Together, the teams co-created a tailored enablement program for managers and HR business partners that included custom content, guides, and rollout support designed to help leaders interpret survey results and take meaningful action. The goal was to embed clarity and accountability into the post-survey process—ensuring that feedback translated into change, not confusion.

“We’ve co-created a lot of content and guides that they’re actually, as we speak, rolling out,” said Mary Poppen, Founder and President of HRIZONS EX. “That was really what we wanted to accomplish ... to get to organizational alignment on priorities and action.”

As the project and partnership evolved, HRIZONS EX provided steady, flexible collaboration, adopting a customer-led approach that gave the skin care company what they needed without overselling or under-delivering.

“We shape the ‘box’ depending on what the customer’s looking for,” said Paul Howard, Director of Sales at HRIZONS EX, speaking of the company’s solution offering. “Instead of saying, ‘Here’s a box of stuff, you’ll need 80% of it, but you’re going to pay for the other 20%,’ we customize and personalize our approach.”

They are thinking several cycles ahead .... The program is also renewing itself on a continual basis, which is really healthy.

—Patrick Gallen, Director of Innovation, HRIZONS EX

Fostering a culture of continuous improvement

The skin care company’s partnership with HRIZONS EX has helped shift their listening program from a periodic check-in to a continuous driver of organizational effectiveness. The collaboration helped the skin care company gain deeper insights from survey results, treating them as catalysts for ongoing transformation—an approach that reflects the company’s strategic maturity.

“They are thinking several survey cycles ahead,” Gallen said. “They already have a list of the things they want to do between this cycle and next cycle. The program is also renewing itself on a continual basis, which is really healthy.”

The skin care company is already planning for program enhancements to future survey cycles. And HRIZONS EX is continuing to help HR teams at the company assess their listening function and identify opportunities for growth and transformation of the employee experience, enabling HR business partners and managers to implement needed changes and sustain progress independently.

“Our goal is to enable and empower our customers,” Gallen said. ”Once critical skills and competencies are embedded in the system, it becomes self-sustaining. We can then partner with our customers to tackle more complex challenges impacting workforce effectiveness."

HRIZONS EX also supported the skin care company in integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot into Viva Glint, allowing for more automated question generation and response analysis. Given the sensitivity of employee sentiment data and the current regulatory environment, the rollout has been intentionally stratified. The skin care company prioritized gaining a comprehensive understanding of the tool and its implications before scaling it across the organization, and according to Gallen, they have gained efficiencies along the way.

“They want their teams, their managers, and their HR business partners to be embracing continuous improvement,” said Gallen. “Less mature companies are hyper-focused on an engagement score, but more mature companies recognize that the score is just an indicator. For the skin care company, it’s really about how they are driving continuous improvement at scale.”

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