Altrium’s approach to employee engagement has drawn international recognition. The Sri Lankan firm recently won Silver in the Employee Engagement category at the Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Action Awards 2026, a global platform that recognises leading organisations such as Google and IBM. The recognition places Altrium among globally benchmarked organisations, highlighting its LIVE framework — an internal model designed to turn employee voice into measurable outcomes.
LIVE — short for Listen, Involve, Validate, Evolve — sits at the centre of Altrium’s People and Culture strategy. It took shape during a period of rapid growth, as Altrium scaled from 15 to nearly 90 employees, prompting a deliberate move away from “once-a-year” engagement and towards a continuous, structured operating rhythm. Instead of treating engagement as an annual exercise, the company embedded regular listening, participation, and follow-through into day-to-day operations.
Over the past year, Altrium reports a 95% internal engagement and satisfaction score, well above typical industry benchmarks, alongside high participation across its listening and involvement mechanisms and strong retention outcomes. Those metrics were included in the award submission, and they reflect the framework’s impact across teams.
At its core, LIVE addresses a gap many organisations struggle with: converting feedback into action employees can see. It does this through mechanisms such as pulse surveys, one-on-ones, leadership forums, and recognition programmes — each tied to clear ownership and accountability. To understand how it works in practice, Echelon spoke with Nadeeja Samarakoon, Associate Manager, People & Culture at Altrium.
What is the LIVE framework, and what inspired its creation?
LIVE is Altrium’s employee engagement framework, built on four connected pillars: Listen, Involve, Validate, Evolve. The goal is to keep engagement continuous and responsive rather than periodic.
It emerged during a phase of rapid growth — when we moved from a small, close-knit team to a larger organisation in under three years. That shift created a real need for structured ways to listen to employees, gather feedback consistently, and strengthen inclusion as teams expanded and working patterns changed.
LIVE now sits within our broader People and Culture strategy. We think about the employee lifecycle across stages — attract, retain, engage, and grow — and LIVE plays a central role by improving the day-to-day employee experience and supporting retention through consistent feedback and follow-through.
L to R: Rukshan Salgado, Director, Delivery | Nadeeja Samarakoon, Associate Manager, People & Culture | Yohan Liyanage, Founder and CEO at Altrium, at the Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards 2026.
Altrium grew from 15 people to nearly 90. What cultural evolutions appear during expansion?
As Altrium grew, our culture had to evolve from informal and relationship-driven to more structured and inclusive. Early on, the closeness of the team naturally created connection. But growth requires systems — policies, clearer expectations, and consistent mechanisms to make sure people feel included and treated fairly, even when not everyone knows each other.
We also scaled during a fully remote phase in 2022, which reduced in-person connection and increased the need for structured engagement. In response, we introduced more intentional forums — events, leadership access points, and, later, the launch of our Engineering Hub in 2023. As headcount grew, we added regular pulse surveys and one-on-ones with managers and People and Culture. Those early measures became the foundation of LIVE.
Your engagement and satisfaction score stands at 95%. What practices inside the LIVE framework drove that result most strongly?
Several parts of LIVE contributed, but a few made the biggest difference.
First, Listen ensures consistent dialogue through one-on-ones, pulse surveys, and project feedback. These checkpoints help leaders spot issues early and respond before they escalate.
Second, Involve builds psychological safety by giving people structured ways to contribute ideas and shape decisions. Initiatives such as Voices, Tech Talks, Spark Sessions, leadership coffee chats, and partnerships like SpeechCraft with the Colombo Toastmasters Club increase collaboration and participation.
Third, Validate is where trust is won or lost — it turns feedback into action. We identify clear action points, assign ownership, and follow through. Programmes like Your Mind Matters support wellbeing, while recognition platforms like Impact Awards reinforce contribution and shared ownership.
Finally, Evolve focuses on growth through learning and development and performance practices, so the framework stays relevant as the organisation changes.
How does stronger alignment between teams and leadership influence the experience clients have with Altrium?
Stronger internal alignment improves the client experience because it supports consistency in delivery. When people feel heard and supported, they stay engaged and focused, and concerns get surfaced early instead of becoming project risk later.
LIVE creates clearer channels for feedback and escalation, which reduces friction during projects and helps teams stay aligned with leadership. Over the period referenced in the award submission, Altrium maintained 100% client retention, and strong internal alignment helped reinforce delivery standards and long-term partnerships.
Many organisations struggle to convert employee feedback into action. How does Sentiva support the LIVE framework in closing that loop?
LIVE was designed and executed through Altrium’s People and Culture operating rhythm, and the discipline of closing the loop is one of the framework’s core strengths.
Sentiva’s approach is built around the same principle: capturing signals, identifying patterns, and enabling consistent follow-through, so employee voice does not get stuck in spreadsheets or one-off initiatives. While Sentiva People — Sentiva’s upcoming core HRIS, with retention and engagement capabilities — is not yet generally available to the public, the underlying philosophy behind Sentiva mirrors the LIVE method and is designed to help organisations scale this approach across the full employee lifecycle.
From a leadership perspective, what has the LIVE framework changed about how decisions are made within the organisation?
LIVE shifted decision-making from being largely top-down to more insight-driven and participatory. Leaders now rely more on engagement data and real-time feedback when shaping initiatives, policies, and development programmes.
Altrium’s LIVE framework was recognised at the Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Action Awards 2026, winning Silver for Employee Engagement
In practice, that means programmes are designed around what employees need and ask for. Feedback is gathered, discussed, and acted on — rather than decisions being made in isolation. The result is a more responsive system where employees have a clearer voice and leadership decisions reflect those inputs.
What lessons from the LIVE framework could other technology firms apply?
The biggest lesson is to treat engagement as part of how the organisation runs — not as a one-off exercise. Most organisations don’t struggle to collect feedback — they struggle to act on it visibly.
Start with a continuous listening cadence: new joiner check-ins, regular pulse surveys, and project feedback. That gives leaders a current view of what is happening now.
Then make closing the loop non-negotiable: share what was heard, what will change, what will not, and why — along with clear ownership and timelines. That visibility builds trust.
Managers matter too. Engagement scales when they have consistent touchpoints, escalation paths, and recognition rhythms, rather than relying on People and Culture alone.
Finally, use data to connect engagement to outcomes: participation, sentiment, recognition, and attrition risk help link people signals to retention, wellbeing, and delivery performance. And keep evolving — review quarterly, adapt what is not working, and strengthen what is.
This is also why Sentiva was built: to help organisations operationalise continuous listening and structured follow-through at scale, strengthening retention and enabling consistent action across the full employee lifecycle.