Case studies

A New Dawn Strategy

Client

Wolseley UK was part of Wolseley plc, a FTSE100 company with a turnover of £13bn-plus. It was the world’s largest trade distributor of heating and plumbing products and a leading supplier of building materials in North America, Europe and the UK. With a £2bn-plus turnover, Wolseley UK was a FTSE250-sized company, providing construction products and materials through a nationwide branch network.

Challenge

A strategic review of the company, aligned with the ambitions of Wolseley plc, resulted in a focus on key, well-chosen markets, and businesses that were leading players in those markets. This meant disposing of businesses that did not fit those criteria – three in the case of Wolseley UK.

The scale and complexity of the changes presented a challenge. In addition to the disposals, there was also a major reorganisation of the remaining support functions – and all during a recession.   The changes were potentially going to be viewed negatively by employees, so the key objective of the campaign was to ensure a potentially negative proposition was turned into a positive one, with buy-in for Wolseley UK’s winning strategy.

Response

Winning over the hearts and minds of the senior management teams to secure their support for the new strategy was essential – and the start point was ensuring they had a clear understanding of the rationale for the disposals and change programme.

A radically different approach was needed that would require a delivery with passion, energy and innovation.

The initial disposal announcement involved a combination of communications tools, including:

• a ‘heads-up’ teleconference for the top 50 managers
• a company-wide internal announcement
• a dedicated telephone line with a recorded information message from the MD
• bespoke briefings packs for managers in every business
• bespoke websites for employees of the businesses sold – which Wolseley UK was responsible for during a transitional period – launched on the day of the announcement.

Following the announcement, the changes were communicated in the form of a narrative of the company’s story prompted by questions raised in filmed interviews with grassroots employees. The questions formed the basis for a raft of communications tools used to relate the story to all employees in the business.  Questions were tough and direct and included: “Are we simply making our competition stronger?” “Why are we shrinking?”

They provided the framework for a keynote conference for 200 senior managers, which adopted a story form with each chapter of the story fronted by a video clip featuring employees asking questions which were answered by live presentations from the Leadership Team.

Delegates were encouraged to express their views on electronic graffiti walls. The ‘New Dawn’ title and logo used for on-going communication activities, including an all-employee brochure, was created by one of the delegates.

Results

• 100% rated the senior manager conference good/excellent, while 97% agreed/strongly agreed they had a better understanding about the rationale for the changes at Wolseley UK
• Feedback was overwhelmingly positive with descriptors including ‘brilliant’, ‘inspiring’, ‘timely’
• Most significantly, a barometer survey to gauge feedback to the changes from the branch network employees of the retained businesses, was extremely positive, recording an Employee Engagement Index Score of 86%
• The New Dawn campaign claimed two major awards at the IoIC Awards, Europe’s largest and most prestigious internal communications competition

“Today’s meeting has provided much-needed clarity and structure during a period of major change within the business.  Whilst this change/transition is on-going, I am much more knowledgeable on the plan going forward – a fantastic conference” – New Dawn conference delegate

“…a model of planning, execution and evaluation to a diverse audience. The campaign was delivered with flair and creativity and met business needs” – IoIC  judge

Driving Employee Engagement

Client

Wolseley UK was part of Wolseley plc, a FTSE100 company with a turnover of £13bn-plus. It was the world’s largest trade distributor of heating and plumbing products and a leading supplier of building materials in North America, Europe and the UK. With a £2bn-plus turnover, Wolseley UK was a FTSE250-sized company, providing construction products and materials through a nationwide branch network.

Challenge

To transform the communications capability of the company and drive employee engagement from bottom to top quartile.

Response

Developed a clear communications strategy aligned to the business objectives and aimed at helping the organisation deliver on its goals.  The resulting communications plan included establishing basic communication building blocks:

• Processes – a clear management structure responsible for cascading information; a communications plan template and approach for all change programmes, ranging from restructuring to M&A and disposals
• Programmes – focus on two-way communication, ranging from live, monthly on-line Q&A chat sessions between the employees and members of the Board, through to the launch of The WoW Factor (Winners of Wolseley) – a company-wide employee recognition scheme
• Evaluation tools to measure effectiveness.

The strategy ensured that the communications and HR plans and approach were completely aligned in the effort to create genuine dialogue and trust with employees and produce a committed workforce willing to add discretionary effort to help the company succeed.

Results

• Transformed employee engagement from bottom to top quartile
• The employee engagement index scores from the independent, annual all-employee survey improved by nearly 50% over a five-year period
• Employees not only understood their role in helping the business achieve its goals, but cared about making it happen and felt proud when it did
• Results achieved against a backdrop for a substantive period of that time of tough trading conditions and cost-efficiency measures, including redundancies, to remain competitive
• External recognition – communication strategy, plans, programmes and channels won more than 20 national and European awards

“The communications capability of the company has been transformed – highly effective programmes have been produced that played a key role in delivering business and stakeholder objectives” – Managing Director, Wolseley UK

Crisis Management & Reputation Re-build

Client

TXU Corp, a Dallas-based international energy company which managed a portfolio of competitive and regulated energy businesses. In the competitive TXU Energy Holdings segment (electricity generation, wholesale marketing and retailing), TXU Energy provided electricity and related services to more than two million electricity customers in Texas.

Challenge

Following a dramatic fall in wholesale gas prices in the UK, TXU Corp took decisive action to exit its UK and other European businesses, selling a substantive part of them and putting the remaining units into administration – all within a two-week period.  However, the process meant writing off billions of dollars and led to market and rating agencies concerns about the US parent company’s liquidity in the US. As a result, the share price in New York collapsed as rating agencies reviewed and re-graded the business on an almost weekly basis.

Response

In the middle of the unfolding crisis the key aim internally was to reassure employees that the company was in control.  The approach was about being open, available and straight talking – maintaining dialogue and ensuring the narrative employees listened to came from the company, not the media.

The communications activities to support this approach at the height of the unfolding crisis included putting a daily voting poll on the company intranet for employees to decide which topic they’d like an update on that day.  The choices ranged from the latest credit rating agency announcement to the impact on employee pension schemes.  Polls closed at lunchtime and the update of the winning topic was posted within an hour.

The activities also included a leadership team-led two-week employee roadshow to all key locations within weeks of the crisis happening to listen to employees concerns as well as reassure them and talk about the way forward.

Once the situation stabilised, the next phase involved reputation rebuilding, primarily with employees, customers and investors.  It was conducted against a backdrop of a decimated share price and the devastating effect that had on employees’ 401K pension schemes; multiple lay-offs; frozen salaries; key Boardroom changes, including a new CEO; and a major business restructuring.

Maintaining key communication principles – increasing dialogue through being open and straight-forward and a focus on two-way communications – was vital to keeping employees on-side.

Results

• Employees remained committed and engaged – in the 12 months following the crisis, employee engagement scores – which were already top quartile – rose in three of the four quarterly employee surveys conducted
• The engagement was aligned to a transformation of the business performance. The company moved from bottom quartile in the midst of the crisis to a high-performance industrial enterprise.  TXU became a top performer in the power sector, regularly delivering 70% annualised returns to shareholders and earning the rank of seventh best in the S&P 500.
• External recognition – the campaign won major awards, including the US PRWeek Crisis Management Campaign of the Year.