Strategy at Work

Nestlé & IHarnessing global employee insights to improve competitive advantage

The company formed a long-term partnership with Willis Towers Watson to deliver a survey initially of 260,000 employees, about four-fifths of its workforce, involving many innovative elements and working together in every part of a highly complex organisation.

The results were impressive: more employees than ever before lined up behind the newly designed Nestlé & I vision and the global participation rate to the survey jumped to 87%, up nine points from the previous exercise. Through connecting the survey to Nestlé strategy and business priorities, the company successfully created the foundations of a employee-centric business decision tool, being able to derive business-relevant insights from the survey. The new Nestlé & I transformed the ways in which the business uses survey data to continuously improve its practices, approaches and, most importantly, leadership style.

Survey background

Nestlé, founded in 1866, employs over 330,000 staff in more than 150 countries. The company’s business objective is to be the recognised leader in nutrition, health and wellness, and the industry reference for financial performance, trusted by all stakeholders. Given the size and complexity of its businesses, Nestlé operates in an extremely decentralised way to be close to consumers. At the same time, many of the 2,000 Nestlé brands are grouped within globally managed businesses.

The company began its global employee opinion survey called Nestlé & I in 2009, but after two cycles it became apparent that it lacked recognition by staff and was seen as insufficiently connected to company strategy and day-to-day decisions. Also, only a small proportion of the questions produced globally comparable answers.

“In my eyes, Nestlé & I in 2014 was a great success – and this is what I also hear from the Markets.”

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Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, set out to transform its existing employee survey, known as Nestlé & I, into a globally consistent tool that would influence business decisions at every level. Its aim was not merely to make a ‘nice-to-have’ emotional connection with staff, but to empower Nestlé to act on the insights in a way that enhanced the company’s competitive advantage.

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Nestlé was looking for a partner that was able to understand the company, could cope with complexity and turn the survey into an effective decision tool that addresses the diverse needs of its numerous businesses and markets. It formed a partnership with Willis Towers Watson, covering three surveys over six years, to design, implement and manage the transformation of Nestlé & I.

The challenge was to devise a survey that would harness the opinions and ideas of employees across all sites and businesses, to increase the competitive advantage derived from the insights collected and deliver a clear return on investment.

A key part of Nestlé’s thinking in embarking on the Nestlé & I journey was that its own employees could offer insights as valuable as those of its customers, which cost much money and effort to gather.

“We went out with a commitment that said: you tell us what needs fixing, what we can do better, where we can grow competitive advantage, and we will allow you to do it,” says Guy Redshaw, Nestlé’s Global Head of HR Strategy and Organisation Development, who shared his experience recently with members of Willis Towers Watson’s Engagement Network – a collection of senior HR and benefits professionals.

He adds: “If we want to get employee insight, we need to know why we are trying to do it and what we can get out of it. It’s not just a ‘nice-to-have’ thing to show that we talk to our employees and they talk to us – and then we do nothing about it.”

To highlight Nestlé’s commitment to Nestlé & I, the survey was conducted in several waves until 2014 and in only two waves in 2014. The newly re-designed survey was also backed by a wide-ranging communication campaign. The exercise is to be repeated every two years, with Nestlé going global with Nestlé & I in 2016 in one wave.

Defining Nestlé & I ambitions for 2020 – Key performance indicators

less time to complete the survey20%

Global participation90%

increase in engagement5%

Reports on time100%

Figure 1. Nestlé & I size and scale

260,000

were invited to participate

43languages

Survey and communication materials translated to

30 reporting languages

808,000just to increase survey participation

emails

32,000 reports produced for

11,000 managers

15survey dimensions

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The partnership

Nestlé wanted a partner that could be present in every market where it operates. Willis Towers Watson consultants in each country now work directly with the local Nestlé HR director and Nestlé & I co-ordinator. This means that a global project can be implemented at the closest point to the consumer and by people who can make fast decisions. These consultants are able to understand local priorities and present the results of Nestlé & I to the leadership teams in the language of each Nestlé market and global business.

The strength of this network means that post-survey action planning within teams can be supported by Willis Towers Watson consultants as well as the coaching and development of Nestlé & I co-ordinators.

Willis Towers Watson will provide further support in building capability, assisting Nestlé in continually improving and developing, and staying ahead of the competition in matters related to survey implementation, follow-up and linkage to company strategy.

“ The challenge was to devise a survey that would harness the opinions and ideas of employees across all sites and businesses, to increase the competitive advantage derived from the insights collected and deliver a clear return on investment.”

– Guy Redshaw, Global Head of HR Strategy and Organisation Development, Nestlé

Survey design

The big challenge was to design a survey that was globally consistent but also relevant to the needs of each market, spurring engagement among staff and managers. In the old survey, only about 12 questions were globally comparable; the rest were set locally.

In the new survey, 83 common questions were designed, covering everything from Nestlé’s business strategy and culture to work processes, rewards and the quality of leadership. On top of that, up to 20 questions were set locally.

For the first time, Nestlé’s staff were asked to rate their manager’s performance as a leader – “Culturally, that’s a big shift,” says Mr Redshaw. This 180-degree feedback was incorporated into reports to managers, identifying their strengths and areas for development, the latter being embedded into individual performance plans.

Another innovation for Nestlé was that the survey included space for open-ended comments, with staff asked to describe the one improvement they saw as necessary to make Nestlé an even better company.

Analysis for open-ended comments was done using Willis Towers Watson’s Vera software, the world’s first automated narrative text-processing tool designed specifically for employee survey comments. Fifty individual Vera sites were produced, one for each Nestlé market – the first time ever qualitative data had been collected from such a large organisation, in all languages; it brought the quantitative data to life and made employee feedback even more ‘real’ to leaders.

Once designed, the survey was translated into 43 languages and conducted online, on paper and via a smartphone app.

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Figure 2. Nestlé & I 2014: The global communication campaign

Branding and communication

To capture the imagination of employees, a new, fresh, colourful brand identity was created for Nestlé & I, building on the metaphor of dialogue between the company and the individual employee.

The brand was part of a broad communication campaign, using digital and other elements to encourage employees to express views freely and challenge traditional ways of doing things. Toolkits made available for markets included videos, infographics, posters, leaflets, tent cards, e-cards, screensavers, intranet page templates, PowerPoint templates, executive letter examples and FAQ documents.

Local teams got the message across in their own way. Mr Redshaw says:

“ We had some managers, in some parts of the world with a billboard on saying ‘please do our survey’.”

This exercise helped to enhance the credibility of Nestlé’s brand as an employer in the eyes of its staff. “People got behind it like they hadn’t got behind it before,” says Mr Redshaw. “You start to get an implicit glue in the organisation.”

Figure 3. Nestlé & I re-designed visual identity

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Outcome

The survey’s aim is to prompt people from the chief executive to a factory operator to make changes that improve the business, with benefits to the bottom line in areas such as safety, factory performance and sales force efficiency.

“We identified two or three areas where we thought we would get tangible return on investment. Now we are starting to see some additional areas that we didn’t predict. People are telling us about it because they are proud of it,” Mr Redshaw says.

Willis Towers Watson, in partnership with Nestlé co-ordinators, has produced about 32,000 reports for 11,000 managers in 30 languages, collected 70,000 open-ended comments and conducted close to 100 leadership team presentations on how to capitalise on the feedback derived from Nestlé & I.

The results were presented first to local teams, and then progressively upwards through the organisation before reaching the Executive Board.

“We have to be able to make decisions at the lowest level possible and we need to empower people to do that,” Mr Redshaw says. “At the beginning of the year I was at a coffee factory in the Philippines. We walked round the corner and the whole wall was covered in Nestlé & I. There was a group of 10 operators there and they told us what they had done using their data. They didn’t know I was the project manager. They just sold it to us, because it was their survey and they were proud of it.”

He adds: “I know of places in the organisation where they are using the insight in their operational master planning and change programmes and trying to build a culture where people are starting to work together more.”

Figure 4. Nestlé & I 2014: Posters inviting employees to participate in the survey

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Talent and Rewards

This part of the business includes the areas of Rewards, Talent and Communication, Data, Surveys and Technology, and Executive Compensation. Willis Towers Watson advises companies on all questions about the strategy and organisation of the HR function, compensation for employees and management, talent management, as well as on employee surveys.

Organisational Surveys and Insights

We are the world’s leading provider of international employee surveys through our Organisational Surveys and Insights practice. We maintain the largest database of employee opinions, have a network of approximately 350 survey experts for on-site support, and link our survey projects with our broader focus on HR consultation, for example, in the context of the follow-up process for your employee survey. We draw on 40 years of research and practical experience of employee surveys in order to customise your survey projects. We provide our services based on sound consulting, efficient and user-friendly technology, and professional project management.

“ We can’t stop. The ball’s rolling and it has to keep going. So it’s not just a one-hit wonder project, it’s become part of what we do.”

– Guy Redshaw, Global Head of HR Strategy and Organisation Development, Nestlé

A look at the future

Nestlé is using the Willis Towers Watson action planning platform, but is not making it absolutely mandatory for line managers to use. It is not about HQ trying to track everything that is going on around the world. It is a tool to be used if appropriate and helpful, as there are many other areas in Nestlé’s business processes where the action planning fits better.

The return on investment will be evaluated as part of the project process and big wins will be communicated and celebrated globally. The next survey in 2016 will be widened to the remaining staff not covered by the last one. A big aim is to do more of it digitally and reduce the number of paper forms.

“We’ve got some big challenges now,” Mr Redshaw says. “We started something, we are using it, and it’s part of our daily work. The future for us is to gain even more competitive advantage from within our own organisation – and we are starting to see it. If in the year-end results in 2019 we can mention that through our employee insight, we have managed to realise a tangible level of competitive advantage, it will be great, and job done! We can’t stop. The ball’s rolling and it has to keep going. So it’s not just a one-hit wonder project, it’s become part of what we do.”

Towers Watson is represented in the UK by Towers Watson Limited.

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