Case Study: Nestlé
Wellbeing Unwrapped: Nestlé’s Recipe for Success
Nestlé is the world’s largest food and beverage company. With over 2,000 global icon and local favourite brands, spanning 188 countries, Robertson Cooper was excited to collaborate with Nestlé to deliver on their commitment to enhance quality of life and contribute to a better future by inspiring people to live healthier lives. Recognising the significance of employee wellbeing, Nestlé’s senior management pinpointed two crucial areas to propel their proactive approach: collecting valid wellbeing data and empowering line managers to champion wellbeing within their teams.
Goals
Paving the Way to a Brighter Future: Nestlé’s Wellbeing Objectives Unveiled
Embracing this mission, our shared goals with Nestlé were clear: to gather a baseline measure of wellbeing to inform their approach, draw on the data to unveil the links between wellbeing and key business drivers, enhance line manager capability to effectively support their teams, and decentralise responsibility for wellbeing by engaging HR Business Partners (HRBPs) across the organisation.
Our Solution
Empowering Line Managers: Equipping Leaders for Wellbeing Success
As trusted partners, Robertson Cooper embarked on this transformative journey by ensuring Nestlé’s readiness. We began with an initial pilot programme, allowing the business to experience the powerful insights our wellbeing survey would provide. Engaging sessions and webinars with senior leaders and wider teams fostered a shared understanding of the survey’s potential and set up the platform for success.
Building upon this foundation, Robertson Cooper utilised their evidence-backed Good Day at Work Questionnaire to gather a baseline measure of wellbeing, guiding Nestlé through the results, enabling meaningful action planning. This involved connecting wellbeing with their broader people strategy through support to strategic HR teams.
Within the survey findings, a crucial revelation emerged: line managers required enhanced support to effectively manage wellbeing within their teams. To address this, Robertson Cooper devised an integrated approach, offering resilience toolkits, train-the-trainer programmes, and e-learning tools accessible to both managers and employees. With access to detailed Team reporting, Nestlé’s managers were equipped with the data, insight and confidence they needed to tackle any wellbeing issues in their team. The enthusiastic reception of this localised approach reflected a paradigm shift in prioritising employee health in the workplace.
JUNE CLARK, HEALTH AND WELLNESS MANAGER, NESTLÉ“Robertson Cooper has supported us to gather critical wellbeing data but most importantly they partnered with us to ensure that the business was ready to understand and action the findings. These insights will ensure our wellbeing approach is data driven and is already enabling teams to take responsibility for managing wellbeing locally – this is important in a business like ours with very different employee populations and environments, such as office and factory-based workers. Building the capability of our line managers is incredibly important and we are committed to further developing this going forward.”
The Results
Shaping a Healthy Workforce: Nestlé’s Journey towards Reduced Absence and Improved Wellbeing
With a solid baseline measure of wellbeing in hand, Nestlé has unlocked a new era of proactive employee support and engagement. The survey results revealed a crucial correlation between employee engagement and high potential individuals within the company. Those employees with higher levels of engagement were more likely to be identified as “high potential,” providing Nestlé with invaluable insights into cultivating and nurturing their “home grown” talent. Armed with this knowledge, Nestlé can now strategically develop and empower their employees, harnessing their full potential for the benefit of the organisation’s growth and success.
Moreover, the survey findings shed light on an important correlation between sites with the highest levels of absence and those with the poorest levels of wellbeing. Given Nestle’s organisational readiness following the initial stakeholder sessions, they were in the right place to take action, engaging with HR Business Partners (HRBPs) and Factory Managers in deep discussions about the criticality of employee wellbeing as a top business priority. By establishing wellbeing as an integral part of the organisational fabric, Nestlé has fostered a culture where employees’ physical and mental health are prioritised.
As a collaborative effort, Robertson Cooper worked hand in hand with Nestlé to co-create internal capability and infrastructure that supports the wellbeing journey in the long term. This also included partnering with HRBPs to establish a Wellbeing Champions training network. Through this network, individuals from a cross section of the organisation have been equipped with the tools and knowledge to champion employee wellbeing within their respective areas, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all.
The results achieved by Nestlé are a testament to their unwavering commitment to employee wellbeing and the strategic partnership between Nestlé and Robertson Cooper. By leveraging the power of data-driven insights, empowering line managers, and engaging HRBPs, Nestlé has forged a path towards a healthier, more engaged, and thriving workforce, propelling the organisation towards a brighter and more sustainable future.
Are you looking to gather a baseline measure of wellbeing to inform your approach, just like Nestlé?