How Steve Madden went from zero feedback to beating industry benchmarks

With 4,000 employees globally and a multi-billion dollar business, Steve Madden is one of fashion’s most recognizable brands. Spanning retail stores, corporate offices, and international operations, the company has managed to maintain the scrappy, design-driven energy of its founder-led roots. That entrepreneurial spirit has fueled the company’s success for years.

But as the organization continued to grow and the world changed, particularly post-COVID, Steve Madden’s leadership recognized the need to formalize what had always been more intuitive: their internal culture and approach to employee experience.

For Lyndsey Benson, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, this shift would require building entirely new capabilities around measurement and feedback. And it would start with understanding what the employee experience actually was.

Jumping into the unknown

In 2020, Steve Madden launched a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department and published ambitious, public milestones for the company to achieve in five years. The move reflected both external pressure from investors and key stakeholders and internal recognition that it was time for their approach to company culture to evolve in a post-COVID world. The CSR targets included:

• Engaging all US corporate employees in learning and development opportunities
• Advancing underrepresented groups within the company
• Improving employee engagement and experience across the organization

With the world watching, Lyndsey – in lockstep with the CSR department – was on the hook to deliver a transformation.

Lyndsey and her team had a clear mandate: they needed reliable data on employee experience and engagement to understand their starting point, measure progress over time, and identify where they could make meaningful change. But Steve Madden had never gathered employee feedback before. There was no baseline, they weren’t sure what questions to ask, and the employee reaction to the survey was unpredictable.

Adding to the complexity, there was apprehension that colored the initiative from multiple fronts. Since this had never been done before, some executives were nervous about what employees might say about leadership, and some employees were hesitant to be honest because they worried their feedback wouldn’t be truly confidential.

Lyndsey and the HR team needed expert guidance to navigate this major new initiative.

A plug-and-play roadmap

Steve Madden had already been using Culture Amp for exit interviews, so when it came time to launch their first comprehensive engagement survey, deepening the relationship was an easy choice.

Working with Culture Amp’s People Scientists, Lyndsey’s team developed a two-part process:

1. Selecting the right framework

Culture Amp's People Scientists worked with the Steve Madden team to identify which areas to focus on, then built out the questions using research-backed templates. Culture Amp also provided communication templates for rolling out the survey to employees. For a team launching their first engagement survey, having expert-built frameworks meant they could move forward with confidence rather than starting from scratch.

The first survey also required significant internal communication to ease employee concerns. Lyndsey and her team emphasized confidentiality through many different channels, meeting employees where they were to reassure them they had a safe space to provide honest feedback.

2. Analyzing the results

After the survey closed, Lyndsey once again turned to her dedicated Culture Amp People Scientist to analyze the results. Rather than just receiving the raw scores, the Steve Madden team got personalized interpretations, summarized insights, and concrete recommendations for next steps.

Transforming confusion into clarity

Steve Madden’s first survey results revealed both surprises and a clear direction. The data revealed patterns the leadership hadn’t been aware of, highlighted areas where the company was stronger than expected, and offered specific insights into the best path forward. Among the key findings were:

• Communication gaps at the middle: While the CEO was an effective communicator, data showed employees felt disconnected from their divisional leader. The survey spotlighted a communication gap happening at the middle management level that the executive team hadn’t realized was an issue.
• Programming appreciation: Without specific prompting, employees provided highly positive, organic feedback on initiatives like “Wellness Wednesdays” – breaks in the day that included everything from massages to meditation. This feedback signaled to the team where they should invest more resources.
• Need for specificity: The survey asked about leaders generally, but with Steve Madden’s multiple leadership tiers, employees didn’t know if they should provide responses about senior leadership, their division head, or their direct manager. It was clear this was an area that needed to be tweaked the next time around.
• Sentiments that exceeded expectation: Despite nervousness about what the feedback would reveal, many employees were extremely happy with their experience – some even wrote about their plans to stay at the company until retirement. The new open communication channels helped alleviate anxiety around giving and receiving feedback.

Armed with these findings, Lyndsey and her team were able to fine-tune their next survey. And, with each survey cycle, Steve Madden has gotten better at asking the right questions and leveraging the data to understand the most effective places to focus their energy.

Creating baselines, beating benchmarks

The impact of Lyndsey and her team’s engagement work shows up both in the data and the lasting impact on company operations. They’ve been able to turn feedback into action that’s felt company-wide – and, in turn, these initiatives have been reflected back in survey results. Steve Madden now outperforms the apparel and fashion industry benchmark across many key metrics, including:

• Employees who see themselves working at Steve Madden in two years (+15)
• Employees who believe Steve Madden effectively directs resources toward company goals (+11)
• Employees who think Steve Madden is in a position to succeed over the next three years (+9)
• Employees who rarely think about looking for another job (+9)

This data has shown leaders that their efforts to formalize Steve Madden’s culture is resonating: 82% of employees are proud to work for the company, and 87% feel they are part of a team.

Embracing a cultural shift

When Steve Madden published their five-year CSR targets, they committed to specific goals without knowing just how far they had to go. What started as a way to track progress toward those commitments ended up transforming the company into one that not only measures feedback, but bakes it into the foundation of their culture.

The engagement surveys have given Lyndsey and her team a path forward to progress on those CSR goals, informing efforts like:

• Engaging all US corporate employees in learning and development with quarterly Steve Madden Learning Sessions and Culture Amp-led masterclasses
• Advancing underrepresented groups by launching mentorship programs, expanding the number of Employee Resource Groups, and providing coaching to create advancement opportunities
• Measuring and improving employee engagement through annual engagement surveys and 90-day check-ins with new employees to continuously monitor and improve the employee experience

And they’re not stopping there. Steve Madden is now taking what they've learned and scaling it across the organization, rolling out exit surveys and 90-day check-ins to retail store managers and extending engagement surveys to global teams in Canada, Mexico, and the UK.

Steve Madden has moved from a company that never asked for feedback to one where measurement and listening are embedded in the way they operate. Leadership reviews engagement data, uses it to advocate for resources, and regularly asks employees for their input (and, if they’re in the office, maybe even offers a piece of candy along with their survey).

The company's engagement scores have remained stable even during industry volatility, which is a testament to the strong foundation they've built. The quarterly check-ins built into the CSR framework create ongoing accountability, with engagement data that shows progress toward public commitments.

The journey that started with nervousness about a first survey has evolved into a comprehensive, data-driven approach to employee experience – one that's now expanding to reach every employee, everywhere.

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