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This case study is intended to demonstrate how U. S. Steel sharply increased its investment in talent, seeing that such a shift would become an important business differentiator. That active “people culture” stance paid off and can now be used as an example for other organizations across multiple industries, particularly those struggling to reinvent themselves in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the Great Resignation. Emphasizing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), action and metrics, the authors demonstrate that U. S. Steel’s human capital investment were key drivers in significant earnings growth (2017–2021); their wish is to share these lessons learned with other organizations.

Seeing that job change and attrition had reached historic levels during the Great Resignation, many companies speculated that increasing the investment in the talent of their organization would be a business differentiator. U. S. Steel was an early adopter of this mindset and in this paper shares how it implemented significant reinvestment in human capital, from hiring to employee resource groups, involvement with outside professional and diversity organizations and more. Ultimately they leveraged HR metrics, looking to retention, employee engagement and net earnings to gauge results.

Based on its robust reinvestment in human resources transformation built on inclusive practices and HR analytics, U. S. Steel achieved a quit rate of just 4% versus the overall US market quit rate of greater than 30% (Bureau of Labor Statistics). It also saw significant gains in employee engagement and other factors. Ultimately, while earnings have fluctuated throughout the transition to this strategy, leadership at the company believes that these investments have been key drivers in net earnings from $387m in 2017 to over $4.1bn in 2021.

U. S. Steel might not seem a likely organization to double down on reinvestment in talent, given that the company is 120+ years old, heavily unionized and in heavy industry. Still, that’s just what it did, realizing “moving up the talent curve” could be a key differentiator. Emphasizing DEI, action and metrics, U. S. Steel’s human capital investment paid off, ultimately being a significant part of earnings growth in four short years. Lessons learned here are certainly applicable to unionized and nonunionized heavy industry, but also are broadly applicable to nearly any industry and size organization interested in talent investment.