Key facts and figures
| Business priorities: | New strategy |
| Sector: | Energy, Retail and Trading |
| Lead contact: | Head of Employee Engagement and Change |
| Employees in the picture: | 15,000 people |
| Locations: | England and Scotland |
| Lead time to launch day: | 8 months |
“We have set clearly the ambitions of the company; the global vision, the global picture – and ‘Our Compelling Story’ has been instrumental in reaching this position.”
Chief Executive Officer
Our client’s challenge
EDF Energy is one of the UK’s largest energy companies and its largest producer of low-carbon electricity. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the EDF Group, one of Europe’s largest energy groups, they generate around one fifth of the UK’s electricity and currently employs around 13,000 people. They supply electricity and gas to around 5 million residential and business customers, making them the biggest supplier of electricity by volume.
British Energy was acquired by EDF Group and work began on integrating EDF Energy and British Energy activities -including refreshing the vision, mission, ambitions and values. Results from an Employee Engagement Survey (EES) showed employees were keen to know more about the company’s direction – and how they could play their part in ‘Leading the Energy Change’ through day-to-day activity.
More specifically, this Employee Engagement Survey showed EDF Energy that they also still had ‘lots to do’. The feedback told them they needed to:
- Share their new Vision, Mission, Ambitions and Values
- Help people get to know the new company – wherever they had come from
- Create a fuller sense of ‘One Company’ – and a new sense of pride
Our solution and results
The first EDF Energy ‘Our Compelling Story’ learning map was developed with The Big Picture People and the company’s 70-strong Senior Leadership Team – and was used as the basis for manager-led workshops across the company. The large, visually-rich picture contained information about EDF Energy – celebrating the past, conveying the present and painting a picture of a new and inspiring future.
It gave teams of 8-10 people the opportunity to explore content in a challenging and enjoyable way, using interactive learning materials such as discussion prompts, card matching exercises, a jigsaw puzzle and quizzes. Using this approach helped to encourage discussion and understanding of key learning points, tapping into the knowledge and opinions of everyone involved. The ‘solutions focus’ of supporting materials – e.g. ‘what’s working already?’, ‘how can we make things even better?’ – facilitated positive and constructive debate. Its four sections included:
- ‘What we’re all here for’ – Our vision and mission; industry context and challenges
- ‘What we need to stay focused on’ – Our ambitions, milestones, metrics
- ‘How we need to work together’ – Bringing our values to life for each team
- ‘What we need to do’ – Our biggest hopes; actions needed to move us forward
The launch (click here to see more about our launch phase) began and more than 14,788 employees (some 96%) took part. It was also built into the induction process for new employees. Following on from the success of ‘Our Compelling Story’, EDF Energy followed-up with a second Learning Map called ‘Feel Better Energy’ which took engagement to even higher levels.
The Learning Maps developed are used in conversations between employees, contractors, partnering companies and visitors alike. The second ‘big picture’ now provides the backdrop to a new digital site, with over 30 interactive hotspots, providing an accessible and sustainable on-line resource which continues to bring EDF Energy’s journey to life.
More than 14,788 employees (some 96%) took part in the original series of workshops and content is also used as part of induction for new employees. End-of-session reactions from participants were hugely favourable:
- I enjoyed my ‘Our Compelling Story’ session (93% positive response)
- Participating in the session was a good use of my time (87% positive response)
- Our session leader encouraged everyone to get involved (98% positive response)
- Our session leader was well-prepared for running the session (98% positive response)
- I’m looking forward to playing my part in ‘Leading the energy change’ (91% positive response)
In addition, EDF Energy won external recognition for the work they had done with The Big Picture People.
