Client/sponsor Tarja Uitti Pernod Ricard Finland Oy

Facilitator Mirjami Sipponen-Damonte Xpedio Oy

Compass

Description

Pernod Ricard Finland is an affiliate of a global alcohol corporation producing wines and spirits.  The company that has its main office in Helsinki and production site in Turku had produced good figures year after year, and grown even beyond the expectations. The difficult economical situation started however to have its impact also on the results of the beverage company, and in 2014 it was facing its first layoffs.

The company management noticed soon that these layoffs not only resulted in decreasing business numbers, but also in general sad mood of the personnel. In order to solve the situation the management decided to act and called in an external facilitator.

The goal of the project was to improve the profitability of the business, and the company management felt strongly that the right way to approach the challenge was through the involvement of employees and improvement of the workplace spirit.  The following approach was used to achieve the project objectives. In addition to these points there was ongoing application of the workshops’ outputs into daily work.

• Denison Organizational Culture Survey to identify the improvement areas in the beginning of the project, and to assess the impact of the project at the end
• Nomination of a steering group, called travel guides, to keep up the dialogue and keep the process active all the time. The steering group consisted of members from all functions and all levels of the company
• Polaris 1-day workshop in mixed groups to identify sources of joy at work and life, and reflect on own attitude
• Functional teams’ workshops to share experiences of Polaris and reflect them on team level, as well as to gain awareness on Denison analysis results, of the underlying beliefs and assumptions, and to create team level actions
• Facilitation of management team workshops to take responsibility and identify actions to support the organizational change
• Cross-team workshop to enhance communication, openness and trust between the members from different teams, supported by an experiential African percussion session
• Workshops in functional teams after the second Denison analysis.  Action planning to further development
• Project closing event, celebration of success, learning consolidation 

Key Results Achieved

Key results achieved include:

• Improved organizational culture in 12/12 dimensions (indices of high performance culture)
• 2 % of profit increase in the very difficult market conditions
• New product development improved by 50%
• Attraction of new customers improved by 15%.
• Renewed, more participatory decision-making process
• Increased clarity and structure in internal briefings
• Improved meeting structure