Heineken: Boosting engagement through face to face communication
Background and challenge
Over the past ten years, Heineken’s global environment has changed dramatically. Industry consolidation, key market maturity and globalisation of brands all mean that clear strategic direction and greater competitiveness are now imperative. But in a decentralised and consensus-led company, developing and then engaging 60,000+ people with a single global message represented a real challenge so Heineken asked Ibis to help.
Approach
With only a very high level message and no consistent team-based communication process, our first task was to convince key stakeholders of the benefits of both. This also helped us to identify willing partners with whom we could pilot the process.
To develop a face to face briefing process that would work, we undertook a short diagnostic in our chosen pilot markets where we assessed readiness and tested ideas. The outcome was Teamtalk, a communication process based on a locally-tailored global message, presented as a briefing pack and sent to all front line managers for presentation, discussion and feedback.
To prepare and engage front line managers with their role, we developed and delivered a bespoke half-day training module. This explained the process and rationale behind it, set out the message we wanted managers to communicate and introduced techniques for effective face to face communication. We delivered some of these modules ourselves and trained local trainers in others.
Results
At the end of the pilot, we invited both staff and managers to share their views. Virtually all agreed that the process, whilst different and initially very challenging was of great value and should become an integral part of Heineken’s internal communications.
The company has since started the roll out of Teamtalk to other markets.