Key facts and figures
| Business priorities: | Company Strategy |
| Sector: | Heavy Engineering |
| Lead contact: | Head of Internal Communications |
| Employees in the picture: | 6,000 people |
| Locations: | Worldwide |
| Lead time to launch day: | 6 months |
“This is a fantastic method of communication delivery, well thought out, very professionally compiled and everyone of those that attended my sessions really enjoyed them.”
Operations Excellence Director
Our client’s challenge
Howden is a global engineering business that focuses on providing their clients with industrial product solutions across multiple sectors that improve their everyday processes. They are a project-based business that sells into major, long-duration projects across the globe in a diverse range of sectors. The long timescales they work on can be up to 6+ years from initial contact to project closure. Howden employs 6,000 people in more than 20 different countries.
Howden has evolved successfully over the last 150 years and the business continues to evolve. In 2019 they were entering another phase of transformation and change. Current feedback from employees via surveys had indicated that the company strategy was not well understood or bought into and this is impacting on employees’ reported score in their confidence in the future of the business, particularly in Howden’s European operations.
Our solution and results
Working with Howden’s Internal Communications team, The Big Picture People worked with senior leaders and subject matter experts across the business to create “The Howden Big Picture” Learning Map and supporting materials. This single toolkit formed the basis for a 2.5 hour facilitated sessions with small groups of 8-12 employees. The facilitators were Howden’s own employees who were trained by The Big picture People to lead the sessions.
The materials were translated into 15 different languages by The Big Picture People to ensure maximum engagement in all parts of the business. The project took 24 weeks to complete from inception to initial roll-out. Feedback to the Howden Big Picture has been very positive from both employees and facilitators alike. Employees valued the experience irrespective of role or function. The style of interactive, small group communication/learning was an eye-opener for many facilitators.
In the annual survey that initiated the project, only 55% of employees stated that they had confidence in the future direction of the business. In response to a pulse survey carried out after roll-out of the Big Picture sessions, this had risen to 76%. This was a significant uplift in such a short space of time against a backdrop of market volatility and other significant business changes.
