Employee engagement remains a stubborn problem for employers, particularly in industries with large frontline and hourly workforces. Ajinomoto Foods North America (AFNA) says it is moving in the opposite direction. The specialty frozen-food manufacturer has earned Great Place to Work certification and Inspiring Workplaces recognition for the second consecutive year, climbing to No. 14 in North America from No. 55 a year earlier. The company says nearly 80% of its employees now rate AFNA as a great place to work.
Ajinomoto Foods Shows How HR Programs Can Connect Culture With Retention
For employers, improving employee engagement is rarely solved by a single benefits program or workplace initiative. It requires a combination of leadership, communication, career development and systems that make it easier for employees to see a future within the organization.
Ajinomoto Foods North America is pointing to that broader approach after receiving two workplace recognitions for the second consecutive year.
The company said it has again earned Great Place to Work certification and recognition from Inspiring Workplaces, while moving from No. 55 to No. 14 in Inspiring Workplaces’ North America ranking. AFNA says nearly 80% of its employees reported that the company is a great place to work, compared with 57% at a typical U.S. company.
The recognition covers six areas: culture and purpose, employee voice, inclusion and belonging, leadership, wellbeing and employee experience.
Those categories increasingly overlap with the capabilities of modern HR technology.
Employee engagement once relied heavily on annual surveys. Today, HR departments can use employee listening platforms, workforce analytics, learning-management systems and talent-management software to understand how workers experience an organization and where interventions may be needed.
AFNA’s approach combines those broader employee-experience priorities with programs aimed at career growth.
The company has expanded its leadership-development program, conversation labs and coaching initiatives. It also relaunched its tuition reimbursement program under the name Skill Up & Grow, with access to professional certifications and technical skills for both hourly and salaried employees.
That last point is particularly relevant for manufacturers.
An organization with a significant frontline workforce cannot build its talent pipeline exclusively through corporate employees. Technical training, skills development and internal mobility have to work for workers whose daily environments may look very different from those of office-based employees.
Learning and Development Moves Beyond the LMS
The modern corporate learning market is increasingly moving from course completion toward skills development.
Platforms from companies such as Workday, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Cornerstone increasingly connect learning with talent profiles, performance management and career development.
The objective is to make learning actionable: identify the capabilities employees need, provide development opportunities and create pathways to new responsibilities.
AFNA’s Skill Up & Grow initiative follows that philosophy at a program level.
Tuition reimbursement has traditionally been a relatively passive benefit. Employees identify a course or credential, complete the process and receive financial assistance.
A more strategic model treats education as part of workforce planning.
For an employer, professional certifications can help address skills shortages while creating advancement opportunities for existing employees. For workers, the benefit is a clearer connection between training and career progression.
AFNA is also redesigning the employee experience earlier in the lifecycle.
Its onboarding program includes a My Purpose workshop designed to help employees connect individual strengths and purpose with AFNA’s values and mission.
That reflects a growing emphasis on employee experience as a continuous journey rather than an HR transaction.
The first days and weeks of employment can influence whether workers establish relationships, understand expectations and see how their work contributes to organizational goals. Digital onboarding platforms can support that process, but culture and manager behavior remain critical.
Engagement Remains a Difficult Enterprise Problem
AFNA’s results stand out against a much weaker national engagement picture.
Gallup’s 2026 workplace research reports that 31% of U.S. employees were engaged at work in 2025, while 17% were actively disengaged. Gallup describes the global workplace as experiencing a prolonged engagement decline.
That context helps explain why employee-experience initiatives are receiving more attention from enterprise HR leaders.
AFNA says its internal engagement score has reached 91%, while voluntary hourly turnover has fallen by nearly 50% over several years. Those are company-reported figures and should not be treated as independently verified evidence that a particular HR program caused the improvement.
Still, the combination illustrates what HR departments increasingly want from employee-experience investments: measurable changes in workforce behavior.
Retention is particularly valuable for manufacturers because turnover can carry costs beyond recruiting.
Replacing an hourly employee can mean recruiting, onboarding, training, lost productivity and additional pressure on experienced workers. Higher retention can therefore affect both workforce stability and operational performance.
Employee Voice Becomes a Workforce Data Problem
AFNA also emphasizes employee listening and cross-functional leadership.
That is another area where HR technology is evolving.
Modern employee-listening platforms can collect feedback through pulse surveys, engagement surveys, open-ended responses and manager feedback. Increasingly, AI can help HR teams analyze large volumes of qualitative comments and identify recurring themes.
But collecting data is easier than acting on it.
Employees quickly become skeptical of surveys if they do not see visible changes afterward. Effective employee listening therefore requires a feedback loop: ask, analyze, communicate what was learned and show what the organization is doing differently.
AFNA’s emphasis on employee voice suggests that its workplace strategy is built around that principle.
The company describes its People First culture through its values of Caring for One Another and One Team, while linking those values to leadership development, career growth, wellbeing and employee connection.
That matters because culture is increasingly being operationalized through the employee technology stack.
HR leaders now have more tools than ever to measure engagement, identify skills gaps and monitor retention. But those tools are only useful when they support management practices employees can actually experience.
For AFNA, the continued recognition from Great Place to Work and Inspiring Workplaces provides an external benchmark for its efforts.
The more consequential test will be whether the company can sustain its engagement and retention gains as its workforce, business needs and skills requirements change.
For the wider HR technology market, the lesson is clear: employee experience is becoming less about isolated perks and more about the systems, leadership practices and development pathways that shape an employee’s entire journey through an organization.
Market Landscape
The HR technology market is increasingly organized around employee experience, skills development, engagement analytics and workforce retention.
Four trends are shaping the category:
Employee listening: Continuous feedback is replacing the once-a-year engagement survey as HR teams seek faster signals about workforce sentiment.
Skills-based development: Employers are connecting learning programs with certifications, skills inventories, internal mobility and workforce planning.
Frontline employee experience: Manufacturers, retailers and other large employers need HR technology that works for hourly workers as well as corporate staff.
Retention analytics: Workforce analytics increasingly connect engagement signals with turnover, absenteeism, performance and career progression.
The competitive landscape includes Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle, Microsoft, UKG and Cornerstone, alongside specialist employee-experience and engagement platforms.
For enterprise buyers, the important distinction is increasingly whether these systems operate as disconnected HR applications or as an integrated workforce-management environment.
AFNA’s programs demonstrate that technology is only one part of the equation. Leadership behavior, coaching, training access and employee voice determine whether digital HR infrastructure translates into an experience workers actually value.
Top Insights
- AFNA climbed to No. 14 in Inspiring Workplaces’ North America ranking, while continued Great Place to Work certification reinforces its focus on employee experience and workplace culture.
- Skill Up & Grow expands development access, connecting professional certifications and technical skills with career growth for both hourly and salaried employees.
- Employee engagement remains a major enterprise challenge, with Gallup reporting only 31% of U.S. employees were engaged at work in 2025.
- Frontline workforce development is becoming strategic, as manufacturers use training, coaching and career pathways to improve retention and build internal talent pipelines.
- Employee listening is evolving into workforce analytics, giving HR teams opportunities to connect feedback, engagement, retention and development outcomes.
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