EEA Impact Academy: Training and Certification in Stakeholder Engagement That Drives Measurable Results
Do you have the skills to foster the proactive involvement of all the stakeholders in your organization or team?
Whether you are the CEO of a large organization, head of a department or any sort of team, or the director of a not-for-profit, you can benefit from the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) to engage people to accomplish any purpose, goals, objectives, and values. The 17-year-old Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) is the only organization dedicated exclusively to applying TQM principles to the engagement of people—aligning purpose, goals, values, and systems to improve engagement, performance, and financial outcomes of an organization or team. Make the connection between employee engagement, customer experience and financial results.
Click here for Power Point that summarizes the program. There is no other program we know of in the world that focuses on the practical steps to foster the proactive involvement of people in business or any project or task.
Founded in 2009, the EEA was one of the first organizations to recognize and address the strategic connection between customer and employee engagement and financial results through a formal operating system, or on the critical skills needed to harmonize the interests of the people critical to your success.
TQM is a proven approach to engagement that addresses why customer and employee engagement remain at near record lows: the lack of a strategic and systematic approach at most organizations that is applied daily at over 1 million factories, laboratories, medical and engineering facilities worldwide that follow ISO 9001 quality standards.
The EEA’s Academic Director is Gary Rhoads, Professor Emeritus of Integrated Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. He was also Co-Founder of Allegiance, one of the first companies connecting employee and customer engagement, which was later sold to Maritz, and of Xvoyant, a sales engagement company. The faculty includes over three dozen academics, experts in all areas of engagement and human capital analytics, and investors. People who complete this certification will be among the only people formally trained in enterprise engagement processes anywhere in the world.
The 3 Steps to Enterprise Engagement Success Through the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Impact Academy
- Enroll in the EEA Certification Program of Your Choice.
- Learn the Enterprise Engagement Framework. Once registered as a free EEXadvisor or as a paid member, you will receive a self-study guide and all the information needed to master the core principles that align purpose, values, goals, and strategy across the organization, team, or project group. Paid academy members get additional training supporting, including a one-on-one support session with an expert and your choice of books, video shows, decks, or articles–however you prefer to learn–along with optional professional recognition and access to the EEA’s People Impact Value Calculator measurement tool.
- Demonstrate Impact and Earn Certification. Complete the certification requirements, become a recognized Enterprise Engagement expert, and use the EEA impact measurement tools and total quality management processes to improve upon and prove results.
Draft Letter to Management for Approval
Here’s a succinct overview of the program and benefits for management approval.
Dear [Manager Name],
I am writing to request approval to participate in the Enterprise Engagement Academy, atraining and certification program offered by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) — the world’s only curriculum dedicated to systematically teaching engagement strategy, implementation, measurement, and continuous improvement using Total Quality Management (TQM) principles.
Why this training matters for our organization:
- It provides a holistic operating system that aligns organizational purpose with employee and stakeholder engagement for measurable outcomes for our team.
- Participants learn practical frameworks and tools to improve engagement, execution, and performance across functions in a highly measurable way.
- The curriculum emphasizes measurable impact and ROI, equipping our team to drive continuous improvement and report results in meaningful metrics.
Expected Organizational Benefits:
- Enhanced chances for measurable success and better outcomes
- Improved employee engagement and retention
- Stronger customer and partner alignment
- Measurable improvement in key performance indicators
- More effective cost-reduction strategies
- Better utilization of AI
- Reduced operational friction and increased strategic alignment
This program directly supports our strategic priorities to enhance organizational performance through people and data-driven decision-making. I am confident that the insights gained will benefit my contribution to our goals and can be shared across our team to maximize organizational impact.
Thank you for considering this request. I would be pleased to discuss how this program aligns with our strategic objectives and deliver a summary of key takeaways upon completion.
A Certification That Stands Out
The EEA Academy is the world’s only education and certification program that
systematically teaches how to design, implement, measure, and continuously improve people engagement practices across the enterprise using the proven principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). Unlike other courses that focus on isolated tactics, the EEA curriculum provides a standards-based operating system that aligns purpose, goals, values, and measurable outcomes for employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders. These are processes taught in almost no school, human resources, or marketing programs anywhere, making this certification unique among all others for its focus on value creation across the enterprise or a team.
Now available–specific certifications focused on Employee, Sales, and Channel engagement. Professionals seeking to demonstrate supplemental expertise in any of these three stakeholder audiences can take a supplement test demonstrating their specialized knowledge. All candidates must demonstrate core competencies by passing the core examination.
- Test your current knowledge about TQM for people with this 20-question private preview of the full academy exam with an instant score and teaching notes. No one will share your results or contact you.
- Assess the maturity of your organization or that of a client using this private assessment tool from the Maturity Institute.
- Click here for an overview of the full curriculum.
Click here to sign up for the EEA Academy or read on for more details.
The Applications
TQM is a systematic, holistic approach to achieving any type of organizational, team, professional or personal purpose, goals, objectives, and values.
Sales
- Align sales activity to clearly defined customer value and purpose
- Standardize best-practice sales processes while enabling continuous improvement
- Use measures beyond revenue (cycle time, win consistency, customer trust)
- Improve forecast accuracy and reduce variability in performance
Marketing
- Clarify purpose, target audiences, and value propositions before tactics
- Treat campaigns as systems with feedback loops, not one-off initiatives
- Align stakeholders (sales, partners, customers) around shared outcomes
- Measure what matters: impact, not just impressions or clicks
Leadership
- Create clarity of purpose and priorities across teams
- Align strategy, execution, and measurement into a single operating system
- Reduce risk by replacing ad-hoc decisions with predictable processes
- Build a culture of learning, accountability, and continuous improvement
Human Resources / People Management
- Align talent, incentives, development, and engagement to organizational purpose
- Define roles, expectations, and success measures clearly
- Improve onboarding, performance management, and retention through systems thinking
- Shift from programs to sustained capability building
- Lower costs through effective employee involvement
Personal Life
- Clarify purpose, values, and success criteria for major life decisions
- Align family or personal stakeholders around shared goals
- Reduce stress and conflict through clear roles, routines, and communication
- Learn from experience and make better decisions over time
TQM is not about bureaucracy—it’s about clarity, alignment, flow, and learning, whether in business or life
Why This Matters Now
Just as TQM transformed manufacturing quality, stakeholder alignment is redefining performance today. Despite billions spent on human resources, incentive and recognition programs, engagement and loyalty remain near record lows.
The issue isn’t effort—it’s a failure to harmonize the interests of stakeholders and to better align engagement and capability. That’s why we created the EEA Impact Academy in 2009, based on a decade of research indicating a clear connection between customer and employee engagement and financial results.
The Economics
Major research continues to validate the financial benefits of strong stakeholder engagement:
- The Human Capital Factor (validated six consecutive years by J.P. Morgan analytics): the HAPI ETF has outperformed the S&P 500 by over 4% annually since launch.
- Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre: Companies with happier, more purposeful and less stressed employees significantly outperform peers across financial metrics.
- JUST Capital ETF (Goldman Sachs): Companies scoring high in customer, employee, and community engagement have earned 14% annually since 2018—matching or exceeding the S&P 500.
Topics
- History and principles of stakeholder management
- The economics
- Framework
- Operating systems
- Tactics
- Metrics
- Continuous improvement processes
TQM principles can reset or strengthen:
- Organizational or team purpose
- Goals, objectives, and values
- Sales, HR, marketing, operations, and manufacturing alignment
- Measurement systems capturing both behaviors and outcomes
- Cost reduction and innovation strategies
- The management of any type of organization, team, not-for-profit or even family issues
- The basics of meaningful sustainability reporting
Why the Impact Academy?
Most training on engagement teaches tactics: training, communications, voice, rewards
and recognition, job design, analytics, etc. We teach alignment based on the same principles that transformed quality in manufacturing based on the principles of W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker and the Japanese translation of these principles known as Kaisen for continuous improvement.
The Impact Academy shows how to integrate human resources, sales, marketing, learning, communications, recognition, rewards, sales, and operations into a single operating system—based on ISO 9001 quality management standards used by over one million organizations worldwide and the newer ISO 10018 people engagement standards designed for use in service industries and professional fields.
This is the only curriculum that directly connects engagement, performance, and financial results.
Faculty
The faculty of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance: The Roadmap textbook and nine-video program includes multiple contributors in all areas of the front-lines of engagement, as well as the authors of the following books included in the program.
- Enterprise Engagement for CEOs – Bruce Bolger, Author
- Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap – Bruce Bolger, Allan Schweyer, Richard Kern
- The Power of And – Responsible Business Without Tradeoffs – Edward Freeman
- Grow the Pie – How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit – Alex Edmans
- Building Corporate Soul – Ralph Specht
- Humanizing Human Capital – Dr. Solange Charas and Stela Lupushor
- The New ROI – Going Behind the Numbers – Dave Bookbinder
- 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace – Paul White and Gary Chapman
Membership and Certification Options
All EEA members receive RRN and ESM weekly newsletters and monthly members-
only newsletters offering previews of research and and other insights not featured in weekly newsletters and/or special offers or discounts shared by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance community.
- Free EEXAdvisors program. Sign up to receive:
- Core education, learning resources, and study guide for those seeking a low-cost way to earn the Certified Engaged Solution Provider credential demonstrating a basic understanding of TQM for people.
- A weekly newsletter with news and research and special offers for discounts on events, products, and services.
- A monthly insider e-newsletter with a preview of information to come in the month ahead and special offers.
- Basic Individual Academy Membership for Enhanced Professional Engagement Certification — $150 per year. Accelerated certification path, with:
- Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap textbook
- Study guide enhanced with nine videos with over two dozen experts in all areas of engagement, updated annually starting in 2026
- Online test for Certified Enterprise Engagement Practitioner designation
- Advanced Individual Academy Membership for Complete Support — $425 per year. Deep learning plus coaching
- Nine-part video curriculum with over two dozen expert speakers and panelists on all aspects of implementation
- 30 minutes of live coaching
- Five books out of eight book library offered for reference (print or e-books–see below)
- Discounts products, events, services and implementation tools, including access to the PVIC impact value calculator
- Includes one year of Academy membership
- Certified Engagement Professional Test ($250 every three years for non-members)
- A timed and recorded multiple-choice test from a randomized bank of questions—30 minutes
- A 15-minute live and recorded oral exam.
- Corporate Academy Membership — $1,075 per year. For organizations and internal leadership training.
- Training and certification for up to three team members
- Additional members: $350 each
- Discounts on measurement tools
- Optional People Value Impact Calculator (PVIC): $300 per year
- Solution Provider Membership — $1,500 per year. For consultants, agencies, and providers.
- All corporate benefits
- Certification and basic marketing support in EEA media
- Opportunity to publish thought leadership
- Optional PVIC impact measurement tool
- Professional Services Training & Support — from $2,500. Advanced implementation and commercialization support.
- For HR, consulting, marketing, incentive, and loyalty firms
- Enables new client value propositions
- Includes training, certification, and ongoing support
- Optional Appreciation at Work culture enhancement program
Start Free. Advance at Your Pace.
- Build expertise. Increase professional value.
- Create measurable impact for yourself, your organization or clients.
Paid Membership (advanced level and up) Includes
- Up to five books from pioneers in stakeholder management and people analytics
- Nine-part video series with leading academics and practitioners
- Advanced Excel templates and SPC tools for impact measurement
- Access to the PVIC platform for ROI and correlation analysis
- Advisory support and help desk access
- Thought-leadership publication opportunities
Book Library (Five included with Advanced academy membership and above.)
- Enterprise Engagement for CEOs – Bruce Bolger
- Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap – Bruce Bolger, Allan Schweyer, Richard Kern
- The Power of And – Responsible Business Without Tradeoffs – Edward Freeman
- Grow the Pie – How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit – Alex Edmans
- Building Corporate Soul – Ralph Specht
- Humanizing Human Capital – Dr. Solange Charas & Stela Lupushor
- The New ROI – Going Behind the Numbers – Dave Bookbinder
- 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace – Paul White and Gary Chapman
Other Member Benefits
- 15% off Appreciation at Work culture certification
- Access to People Value Impact Tools and Training for $300 ($600 otherwise).
- Free access to the Charity Choice charitable-giving platform
- One-hour onboarding session to map your goals
- One-year company license to the People Value Impact Calculator
- Others to come
Certification Options
1. Certified Engagement Professional
Demonstrates clear proficiency in core concepts.
- 90-question multiple-choice live, proctored exam (taken in two parts)
- Five-question oral exam via recorded Zoom
- Optional audience specialty with an additional 50-question exam
- Fees: $250 per exam; $100 additional per specialty exam
2. Advanced Certification
Demonstrates the ability to design and explain stakeholder engagement programs.
- One-hour recorded Zoom session
- Candidate applies the TQM framework to a real organizational challenge
Fee: $500 every three years
3. Fellow of Enterprise Engagement
Recognizes sustained applied expertise and leadership. Requirements include:
- Completion of all prior certifications
- Five years of relevant professional experience
- 30-minute interview and documentation review
One-time Fee: $500 every three years
Educational Support
To make the program accessible globally, the EEA offers multiple learning paths.
- EEXAdvisors. A self-directed option including:
- A complete series of articles and resources suitable for preparation
- A structured study guide aligned with the exam
2. Books
Books can be purchased individuall
3. Academy Membership (Individual, Corporate, Solution Provider)
Depending on membership level–individual, corporate, and solution provider, benefits include:
- A selection of books covering stakeholder engagement
- Nine decks for self study
- Nine recorded expert video discussions
- A 50-question practice exam
- Free content from the Stakeholder Management Library for Leaders, Academics and Investors
All paid members receive a complimentary 15- 30minute Q&A session for program preparation.
Corporate and solution provider members receive a 45-to 60-minute group training program
Click here for Enterprise Engagement Impact Academy pricing details and to register for the program of your choice.
Why Programs Fail — and How TQM Fixes It
| Common Pitfall | TQM Solution |
| No shared purpose or goals | Establish and align them across all stakeholders |
| Siloed engagement tactics | Integrate HR, sales, and marketing toward shared outcomes |
| Activity metrics only | Focus on ROI and SPC-based impact data |
| No feedback or accountability | Embed continuous improvement cycles |
Join the EEA Academy
Here is how the EEA Impact Academy differs from other leading people-related learning programs. This is not a rating based on the quality of the programs but rather their degree of strategic enterprise-wide application.
