Four Success Factors Help Forcepoint Employees Get Even Better

Our employee experience and people development activities at Forcepoint focus on providing employees with the environment and resources to succeed at their roles and find fulfillment in their careers – bringing people and processes into alignment. We constantly strive to improve how we support employees with innovative technologies and connection opportunities. But building a healthy company culture also calls for putting in the work with plenty of old-fashioned communication and a shared understanding of what good looks like.

Recent evolutions in strategy have highlighted how critical employee engagement is for us. We achieved and celebrated a strong performance on this front in 2024, with a three-percent increase this year in reported employee engagement. This is especially noteworthy given that employee engagement is trending downward globally, and ours was already above industry benchmark. But we were determined that we could do even better in 2025! These were the circumstances that brought about a collaborative effort to define Forcepoint’s list of Success Factors.

What are Success Factors, and what are they for?

Forcepoint has a clearly defined vision – to safeguard data everywhere, for people anywhere – and a set of objectives. What we call Success Factors are the ways we behave to achieve our objectives.

Success Factors provide a common language with which to talk about how we get things done and what a good outcome looks like to us.

Defining our Success Factors allows for clarity around strategies and behaviors proven to amplify growth and successful outcomes that translate into wins for our customers. It also provides a framework for planning professional development and awarding promotions and bonuses. Building on the foundation of Success Factors makes it easier to have productive conversations about what employees are doing well, where they can improve and how they can achieve improvement. 

Our annual engagement survey gives us the opportunity to check in with the organization and collect feedback on the culture we’re co-creating, together. By embedding the new Success Factors, we’re anticipating greater engagement, awareness of growth opportunities and clarity on expectations of what good looks like.

What four Success Factors does Forcepoint use?

As we defined our Success Factors, a key consideration was that they should be easy to remember. For that reason, each one takes the form of a short, focused statement about what we do. To succeed at Forcepoint, we…

1- Become expert: We consistently increase our own knowledge, skills and expertise and share our learning with others.

2- Build success: We cultivate a shared understanding of where to go and how to get there, focusing on innovation, accountability, operational acumen and decision making.

3- Combine forces: We harness and multiply our collective power by engaging in substantive communication and collaboration.

4- Amplify: We maximize our impact on the company and the world through our engagement and our commitment to core values.

Under each Success Factor we have identified specific behaviors falling within its scope. This list is intended to provide inspiration, but it only represents a sample of the many positive practices that can be derived from the Success Factors. 

How is Forcepoint applying the Success Factors?

Coming up with our Success Factors was a constructive exercise, but to have a real impact they need to be firmly embedded throughout our organization. We are now well into the process of translating these concepts into meaningful actions that cultivate our team members to ultimately better serve our customers. We continue to bring awareness to our Success Factors and continue to put mechanisms in place to reward employees who exemplify the Success Factors in their work.

Here are a few ways we have been putting our Success Factors to work for Forcepoint:

• Guidance: A dedicated SharePoint site acts as a ready reference for employees seeking to understand and cultivate skills aligned to our Success Factors. The site contains comprehensive development and learning resources to guide employees at every level of the organization, supplementing on-the-job learning with content ranging from articles and book recommendations to eLearning opportunities.
• Evaluation: The Success Factors provide us with a framework with behaviors and skills we can refer to when measuring employee performance. They form the basis for discussions about compensation and promotion, helping us to identify and advance emerging culture leaders.
• Recognition: This year we revamped the Circle of Excellence, our annual recognition program for employees who are not on a sales commission plan. Everyone at Forcepoint is allowed to nominate an employee inside or outside their function, and nomination criteria are now directly tied to demonstrating Success Factor behaviors.
• Development: Every year at Forcepoint, employees state their professional goals and hold quarterly check-ins with their managers to discuss their progress. This year, we asked all employees to also choose one goal for personal development, aligned to a Success Factor area within which they want to improve. The idea is to help employees succeed at work but also provide them with skills and habits to support their personal wellbeing and growth.
• Storytelling: Stories are the building blocks of a healthy culture, and we want to make sure the right ones are heard. We internally publish Value Vignettes every quarter, stories that showcase not only the value Forcepoint brings to customers but also the behaviors aligned to our Success Factors that made our wins happen.

As we navigate a time of transformation for our company and our industry, we will rely on these newly defined Success Factors to reward the behaviors we want to see across the organization. Every one of us contributes to building culture. By speaking the same language about our goals and how we achieve them, we can get even better for ourselves, our culture and our customers.