Edwards are not a household name, but there’s probably a little bit of Edwards in every high-tech product in your home or office.

They wanted to create a new culture where their people feel valued, motivated and empowered

Edwards recently changed their business structure, getting rid of top-down, hierarchical decision-making to put the power in the hands of their 4,200 employees across the globe. This is a huge change for any organisation – one that needs a culture where people feel valued, motivated and empowered to make decisions themselves.

A new way of working

We spent a lot of time understanding what this would mean for colleagues. We developed a new set of competencies. We gave clear definitions and positive and negative examples of specific behaviours to help everyone understand what was expected from them.

Our research told us our creative had to be bold, brave but above all, different. Early testing showed our daring approach and straight-talking tone resonated. It wasn’t what they were used to (at all!) but the messages stood out and the approach made them sit up. The ‘People Like Us’ concept made employees feel the comms were relevant, inclusive and personal. It was a real rally cry.

Early testing showed our daring approach and straight-talking tone resonated

A new way of cascading

We developed a suite of materials to support this cascade, which gave the employees the opportunity to reflect on both good and bad examples of the competencies, and equipped them to challenge inappropriate behaviour and have conversations about behaviour.

Just like Edwards’ new structure, we’ve put the power in the people’s hands. We set up an ambassador network of 70 colleagues who were passionate about making a difference, putting them through a specially designed train the trainer session. Over time, they’ll take the People Like Us message to every single employee.

A new way of sharing

Phase 2 of the programme saw the development of a microsite so that colleagues could test themselves alongside the competencies, get a feel for where their strengths lay and what they needed to do to elevate their working styles to better align to some of the other competencies and the colleagues in their team. And with the help if the ambassadors the momentum continues and shows the inherent power of the Edwards people.

People Like Us has created a culture across their business where people feel valued, motivated and empowered to make decisions themselves so that they can drive the business forward.

We’ve put the power in people’s hands