Arcadia is a fashion powerhouse. They’re eight much loved brands, with a global reach, 18,000 brilliant people, with a dynamic and vibrant culture. The Arcadia Internal Communications and Engagement team create world-class brand experiences for their people. As you can imagine, it’s a fast-paced, high-energy environment. That means it’s sometimes hard to step back and untangle the threads into a clear and actionable strategic plan. That’s where we came in.
The team first enlisted our help in 2016 to work with them to set their annual strategy – and we snapped up the opportunity like a must have jacket in the Topshop sale. We wanted to help the team to articulate their ambition, align it to the strategic direction of the business and to help gain buy in from their leaders. And we must be doing something right – because we’re about to collaborate on our 4th annual strategy together.
In our experience, a few flip charts and a tactical plan doesn’t quite cut it in our ever-challenging communications space. So, we created bespoke interactive sessions to help the team to line up their audiences, channels, objectives, stakeholders, narratives, change programmes and challenges (and everything in between).
We took what we heard and from there, we translated it into a robust strategy and tangible plan. We look to establish the right infrastructure for a strong, strategic team, but we also work with the team to develop annual showcase projects that really shift mindset. The recent implementation of an innovation and ideas campaign saw Arcadia change their benefits and perks model, a direct result of empowering employees.
For the first time, Arcadia have also communicated their corporate strategy to their employees. An ambition we thought was out of reach a year ago. This summer, we’ve helped Arcadia visually articulate their strategy and engage their people in the part they play in the delivery.
For all Internal Comms teams, bringing your stakeholders on the journey is a critical part of this exercise, and the same was true for the team at Arcadia. They wanted to position the internal communications team as a strategic partner – key to realising the company’s big ambitions. We’ve worked with the team to make sure they had both the visuals and the talking points to bring their strategy to life on an ongoing basis.
We often measure our success by the success of our clients. We’re big believers that we enable them to achieve big things, both for their teams and as individuals. We’re delighted to watch Maria and her team continue to progress within the business and cement their status as a high performing department.
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