September 8, 2025

How Strategic Planning Builds Employee Confidence and Trust

Employees flourish in a workplace where they trust leadership, understand the company’s direction and can see where they fit into the overall vision. Similarly, strategic planning can be one of the strongest tools for maintaining an inviting culture and helping staff thrive. The key is to set achievable goals and clarify everyone’s role in the big picture.

“You can’t achieve your objectives by making your strategic plan only about your company leaders; it needs to be deployed to the level where the work really happens,” said Cindy Milrany, Freese and Nichols’ Chief Strategy Officer. “When your plan creates alignment from top to bottom, it gives employees confidence,” she said. “They can see where the company is heading and understand how their role has an impact on our results.”

Freese and Nichols has followed this approach for more than two decades, and there’s evidence internally and externally that it’s working, even as our workforce has grown to more than 1,300 employees across 12 states. The firm has been nationally ranked as a Fortune Great Place to Work eight times, with 95% of employees calling the company a great place to work.

Our successful use of planning has also led to us receiving the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2024 and 2010 as a national role model for business resilience and long-term success. Strategic planning is a key component of the Baldrige framework for organizational resilience, which we’ve incorporated into our way of doing business.

“We’re continually learning how to do our planning better,” Cindy said. “That’s part of our ‘continuous improvement’ mindset, and it’s helped us achieve our objectives.”

For example, Freese and Nichols set a goal in 2024 to bring voluntary turnover down below 9% percent — and reached it by finishing the year at 6.6%, just about half the industry average. For a consulting firm, low turnover translates to the continuity that’s essential for delivering high-quality work and building long-term client relationships.

Planning that Reflects Company Values

“We emphasize what we call our LEADS values to guide us in everything we do,” Cindy said. LEADS stands for Learn Continuously, Engage as Family, Act With Integrity, Deliver Quality, Serve Always.

Those values are embedded in our planning. For instance, “Employees and Culture” is the first of the three focus areas in our strategic plan. Goals under that category include “creating the next generation workforce” and “elevating career advancement.” The guiding focus is that opportunities for learning and career growth will excite employees about their work, enhance their skills and, in turn, help us serve clients.

Planning that Aligns Clearly Top-to-Bottom

We also have a process of employee goal-setting and individual development plans to help them stay on track with their annual goals while envisioning their career path. Like a continuum, employees work with their managers to set annual goals that are specific, measurable and attainable, and those individual goals are tied to expectations for their group and the company overall.

This structure promotes transparency about expectations, so employees know how they’ll be evaluated at their annual performance review. They can track progress throughout the year —and see the value of their work toward company success.

Employees are also front and center in the company’s growth plans because of the career opportunities created. For instance, if the strategic plan calls for a new regional office or service line, we’ll ask questions such as “What opportunities does this create for training new leaders or for employees to voluntarily relocate?”

The highlight of our strategic planning is the end-of-year update, where we share final performance compared to our annual goals, including our Key Focus Indicators. Our leadership team announces the results during a companywide celebration. And hitting profit and growth targets results in a team bonus that goes to every employee.

Planning Tips for Building Employee Confidence and Trust

Businesses, cities and other entities can use strategic planning to help employees thrive. Keep these practices in mind:

1. Involve employees early and often.
2. Clearly communicate missions, vision and goals.
3. Empower staff by aligning company goals, group goals and employee goals.
4. Show transparency and accessibility.
5. Create visible wins and celebrate success.

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How it Works in Real Life: What Young Employees Say

Sydney Tickle Rodts, EI
Transmission & Utilities, Raleigh, North Carolina

For this year’s plan, one of the actions was developing the next generation workforce. As a former intern, that means a lot to me because this is where my career started. Now, as a full-time employee, I can pay that back to future generations and help them enjoy the experience as much as I did. I have the opportunity to go to NC State career fairs and volunteer there and help to get students engaged, so that’s another way my role ties back beyond just working on projects.

Also, my manager and I like to use my individual development plan to help me accomplish my goals. We outline near-term and far-term personal goals where I can look at trainings or I can look at professional courses that I can take to help me get to the next level in my career. I have been able to take classes like assistant project manager training. That helps me, helps my group and contributes to project success and project excellence.

Joel Berumen-Pacheco, EIT
Mechanical and Plumbing, Austin, Texas

With all the events that go on with the strategic plan rollouts, it’s good to see every bit and piece of it: the business development side, the managerial side and the design side. It helps me realize and focus on what I believe I can help the most with.

Seeing the company’s values and the mission and the vision, that makes me feel confident, also knowing that the people in leadership are looking ahead to the future. I can look to them as role models. That really makes me feel like I’m at a good place with good culture.

Christina Gildea, PE
Water Resources Planning, Fort Worth, Texas

Having a goal-setting process has really helped me direct how I want my career to look in the short term and long term. Within my group, we usually meet with our lead technical professional. It’s a good way to sit and actively think about my career and what I want it to look like and also be able to have that mentorship because they have so much more experience.

On a day-by-day basis, I’m not necessarily thinking big-picture strategic plan. I’m more focused on my day-to-day work and the projects I’m working on. So that’s why I think it is so good that the company and leadership are so open and transparent about the strategic planning process. It’s a space and a time for the entire company to engage and actively think about how what they’re doing fits into the overall picture.

Watch Sydney and Cristina explain more in their videos: