cASE STUDY 03:

The time we gave people a voice during transformation

Leading Hospitality Business

the challenge:

How do we gather input and get buy-in for change?

We partnered with a leading leisure and hospitality group with over a dozen holiday parks across the UK. They were about to begin a transformation programme with another external partner. In 4-6 weeks, they wanted to:

Focus on what matters most.
Identify where to focus to create the biggest possible impact on the business.

Plan our approach.
Understand the current state of parks so we can adapt our approach accordingly.
Engage the parks.
Give parks a voice so they feel change is done with them, not ‘to’ them.

THE APPROACH:

Rapid research sprint with practical performance benchmarks.

We designed a research sprint that lasted just four weeks. We ran interviews and focus groups with 58 people across four flagship parks across the UK. The focus was on understanding what was going well and what needed to change on parks.

The final deliverables included:

Overall and breakdown research reports.
The main report summarised a clear view of where to focus and how this differed across the four parks. We also created park breakdown reports.
Park Scorecard.
A simple tool that’s being used by Parks to continually monitor performance across three areas: customer, people, and commercial.

Performance Blueprint.
An articulation of six critical behaviours for all colleagues, and three additional ones for managers. These can be used in hiring, development, and day-to-day performance conversations.
Feedback workshop and conversations.
We ran a feedback workshop with the Managing Director and the HR Director. We also held 1:1 feedback conversations with Park Managers to help them understand the findings from their park and plan next steps.

External research.

A review of eight competitors, the behaviours required for success in the future of retail, and a generational workforce needs review.

Internal sessions.

We conducted 49 ‘Walkaround Sessions’ with over 200 people across the organisation. We used these sessions to gather feedback, add detail, and iterate the content of the Culture Blueprint.

“Valuable insights that will help us improve employee experience, customer service, and guest satisfaction."

HR Director

The results:

Smarter investments in people and change.

The Park Scorecard and Performance Blueprints have been embedded into park performance management routines. Meanwhile, the findings of the research sprint have been used to:

Make investments in areas highlighted by the report.
Shape the focus and priorities of the Park Managers.
Inform the design of the transformation across parks.