Raising spirits through recognition at Glenmorangie
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390580000587 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Pages | 12-13 |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Ian Drysdale |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
12 Volume 4 Issue 2 January/February 2005
REWARDS
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in rewards
Raising spirits through
recognition at Glenmorangie
G
lenmorangie plc has come a long
way since it was founded in
1893. We now market and sell
our brands in over 120 countries
worldwide and have an annual
turnover of around UK£65 million. Like
any growing company, we are keen to
link overall company aims more closely
to employees’ personal objectives to
continue to drive high performance.
Last year our incentive scheme
consisted of a bonus that ranged from
8.5 to 25 percent of salary, depending
on seniority, for achieving annual
personal objectives. Overall company
objectives were rewarded through an
employee share scheme.
However, it was becoming
increasingly difficult to set meaningful
personal targets, especially for blue-
collar operations staff whose day-to-day
jobs don’t change dramatically.
Employees felt that their objectives
weren’t stretching them and they were
working toward similar targets every
year – the incentive scheme was
arguably more demotivating than
motivating. However, the company-wide
objectives did work well and encouraged
all employees to take an interest in how
we were performing as a business.
Gathering feedback
We ran an internal survey and also used
our participation in the Sunday TImes
Top 1001list to get employee feedback.
The information that came back
indicated that the incentive programs
weren’t working particularly well.
Employees felt their managers didn’t
recognize achievements. In focus
groups employees also told us they
wanted recognition at the time a
project occurred, rather than waiting to
be told they had done a good job in
their annual appraisal.
Many employees didn’t feel that
financial reward was the primary issue –
they simply wanted their manager to
say “well done” when they did good
work. We learned early on that
recognition doesn’t always have to be
associated with financial gain.
The development phase
We decided that we needed to review
the incentive program and introduce an
element of recognition. We removed
the personal objective piece of the
incentive scheme, freeing up budget to
create something more targeted that
would fulfill employees’ requirements.
The company-level incentive scheme
remained. We then started developing
what became the Glenmorangie Heroes
program – “HEROES” stands for
Honouring Excellence and Rewarding
Outstanding or Extended Service.
One of the most significant factors in
the program’s success was to involve a
cross-functional working group in its
development. We wanted to gather
employees’ opinions because the
change would impact them. We asked
for volunteers to sit on the group but
also selected a few individuals who we
felt would have a contribution to make.
Ideally, we wanted to have a
representative from each function. I
chaired and facilitated the group who
developed the program to present to
the executive team.
Managing the expectations of
different functions across the company
meant it was more difficult to develop
the program than if we had just created
it within HR. However, it was more
powerful, became embedded much more
quickly and helped a “buzz”to spread
round the organization. We encouraged
members of the group to feed back to
their respective teams after every
meeting. This enabled all employees to
have a sense of where the program was
going, what the latest ideas were and
the chance to add their input. This
feedback loop was vital to gaining
employee buy-in. The development stage
took about six months.
Glenmorangie plc is a leading provider of
premium malts and blended Scotch
whiskies. It sells more than two million
cases worldwide, of which around 50
percent is exported, and has an annual
turnover of over UK£65 million.
GLENMORANGIE
In 2003, whisky producer Glenmorangie found its incentive scheme wasn’t having the desired effect on employee
motivation. Ian Drysdale,HR director,reveals how it involved employees to create an innovative recognition scheme.
© Melcrum Publishing Ltd. 2005. For more information, go to www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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