Vodafone New Zealand is extremely proud of their heritage. Originally a challenger brand, they’ve achieved some awesome things for New Zealanders through the years. They were the original tech enabler, putting life-changing technology into Kiwi hands and showing them how it could benefit their lives.
They have an incredibly talented and committed workforce. But growth through acquisition has left them with legacy platforms and IT systems that are outdated, expensive to run, and get in the way of a great customer and employee experience.
After becoming an independent business on 1st August 2019, with 50% New Zealand ownership, the CEO and exec team embarked on an ambitious plan to transform the business. In early 2020 they asked Home to partner them in mobilising their workforce behind their transformation by launching a new vision, strategy, set of behaviours, and internal brand identity.
Then COVID-19 struck. And our job became absolutely mission critical. So instead of jumping on a plane, we set up virtual workshops and had lots of coffee to fuel our late-night discussions with our friends on the other side of the world.
An injection of positive energy, an optimistic outlook, a clear direction and some light-hearted relief was very much needed. We got to work on creating a new internal brand and an engagement plan. One that would do all these things, be authentic to who they are and reflect their new vision and long-term transformation.
The new internal brand used colour blends to articulate a sense of journey and progress. The presence of the Vodafone red made it distinctly them, while the inclusion of their secondary colour palette celebrated the vibrancy and variety of life made possible through their technology enabled transformation.
We adopted a human tone of voice, using straightforward and humorous copy. Vodafone New Zealanders don’t take themselves too seriously, and humour is an important part of their culture, so getting a giggle in where we could was important.
Their internal team followed our guidelines and shot some amazing photos of colleagues – building pride and strengthening a sense of belonging and being celebrated. We also came up with a new name for their recognition scheme – The Remarkables – which is firmly linked to their new purpose.
In August, we used their one-year anniversary of becoming an independent business as launch day. We piqued interest with cheeky teasers, and thanks to New Zealand going hard and early on Covid, over half the team was able to attend in person, with the rest joining via Workplace. The event created a fantastic buzz about what was going to happen, afterwards their only regret was that they didn’t order more pizza.
The exec team did a fantastic job of explaining their new big picture, where they are heading as a business and what was expected of their people. A series of guided quarterly conversations is embedding this new direction into their people’s every day – through action planning toolkits and team sessions.
The new behaviours really hit the spot. They were immediately adopted into everyday conversation. The exec team are celebrating the behaviours in action through storytelling on their weekly livestream, and their recognition programme has been retuned.
They’ve seen a brilliant uptick in all their key metrics in their latest Pulse Survey. They are particularly delighted about increased strategic clarity and role clarity, and recognition of great performance, as these are directly because of the work we’ve done together.
The results show that between July and October 2020, their people’s perceptions of the key indicators have increased markedly:
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Hattie Roche
Co-Managing Director and Strategy Chief
Carol Whitworth
Founder / Inspiration & Innovation Director
