Our client, a vertically integrated food manufacturer and retailer, had significant morale issues likely to be further affected by the imminent introduction of annualised hours.  The combination of low morale and poor cross-functional working was having a detrimental impact on processes such as sales forecasting and OTIF delivery.

We reframed the strategy with the Executive team and introduced a balanced scorecard linked to the parent company in Germany.  This balanced scorecard was cascaded down to manufacturing team level, introducing visual based performance boards and regular KPI review meetings, all supported by a new performance management system.

We conducted a culture survey and ran cross-functional workshops to address working patterns, production improvement and communications.  We also trained teams in skills such as problem solving and coaching and ran a skills programme with the supervisors.

All manufacturing colleagues signed the new annualized hours contracts contrary to prior expectations that this would lead to a significant loss of employees.  Three years after the programme, only 8% of employees disagreed with “People feel valued at work”, compared to the 79% at the start of the programme.  There was significant improvement in all manufacturing metrics and two new products were successfully launched