Measuring employee engagement following a merger
21 April 2010
By Lindsay Davidson, Account Manager, ORC International
and Geoff Hall, Head of HR, World Duty Free
World Duty Free, the UK’s leading travel retailer, aims to offer customers the ultimate shopping experience across all of its stores. WDF is equally committed to its staff, and every one of its 2,900 employees are enthusiastic about the products they sell, are dedicated to delivering excellent customer service, and fully live their customer values.
Following a period of rapid change as a result of World Duty Free’s acquisition by the Autogrill Group in May 2008 and a subsequent merger in February 2009 with Alpha Retail UK, another Autogrill company, the rebranded WDF commenced integrating the two businesses, supported by the HR and Training and Development teams.
WDF was looking to fully harmonise the newly formed business within six months and identified a project plan and key milestones to strive for during this period. The approach was verbal and consultative throughout, and listening to employees was key to WDF’s success. The first step was to set up a consultation forum at World Duty Free and a staff council at Alpha, which was followed by a formal consultation on an individual basis. The groups were used solely for consultation, rather than negotiation, and the feedback was used to help shape the organisation post-merger.
To continue to give staff the opportunity to be fully included and involved in the merger, there is a “daily huddle” in the majority of WDF stores when key messages are shared amongst everyone. Additionally, “TALK”, WDF’s internal employee magazine, delivers key messages to all staff throughout the organisation.
Three months after the merger, ORC International was appointed to conduct WDF’s 2009 employee survey to identify the drivers of engagement at all levels within the new company structure, and to see how well staff were living the new company and people values. ORC International and WDF worked closely together to develop a robust questionnaire that measured the key aspects of working life within WDF, which enables the organisation to track trends over time and to benchmark their results externally.
The results of the survey were incredibly positive; only three months after the two organisations merged, the overall employee engagement level was 79%.
WDF is now working on action planning, focusing on the areas within the organisation that need improvement in order to obtain an even higher level of engagement amongst staff. Following the survey close, WDF carried out focus groups with employees to help understand any issues surrounding the survey, and to identify the priority areas for action. As a result of the groups, three key action areas were identified:
- My opinion counts
- Receiving feedback on my performance
- Having the tools/materials to do my job
To ensure engagement remains high on the agenda at WDF, a pulse survey is taking place in March 2010 involving a sample of staff from across the organisation to measure progress on engagement and how staff are living the new customer values. In addition, a full census survey is planned later in the year; WDF is hoping to see a measurable improvement, particularly in the key action areas.
