Our client, a luxury chocolate manufacturer, was suffering from poor cross functional working which was affecting several processes including sales forecasting and OTIF delivery.   With 79% of factory colleagues disagreeing with the statement “People feel valued at work”, and the introduction of SAP causing a disruption in productivity we were asked to help introduce annualised hours and improve performance, whilst overcoming the loss of employees and problems with Trade Unions.

We conducted a culture survey and carried out cross team workshops to prompt a dialogue around change. These were run in parallel with training sessions across functional teams which were designed to address working patterns, production improvement and communication. Employees, particuarly supervisors, were trained in skills such as problem solving, coaching and team building. What’s more, a new performance management system based on a balanced scorecard was implemented. This was coupled with the development of visual performance boards for the manufacturing team which introduced plan-do-review KPI review mechanisms for all teams. By working in partnership with the Executive team we also reframed the strategy and introduced a balanced scorecard linked to the parent company in Germany.

Following the project, all manufacturing colleagues signed the new annualised hours contracts and supervisors were now trained leaders of high performing teams. In contrast with the initial 79%, 3 years on only 8% of employees disagreed with the statement “People feel valued at work”. This was highlighted by Investors in People assessors who said “We don’t know what you have done but the organisation has improved beyond recognition”. Furthermore, significant improvement was shown in all manufacturing metrics and two new products were successfully launched. Finally, the organisation now has a continuous improvement culture based on the scorecards which were implemented.