Food production company enhances employer brand and Employee Value Proposition with tailored, branded employee engagement platform, resulting in 97% registration

The team at KP Snacks received feedback from an employee survey that suggested employees were not aware of all the discounts they could have access to and therefore did not truly understand the value of their total reward package. They decided to create a platform encompassing discounts and rewards and recognition, using the company’s existing Values & Behaviors branding for a fun and familiar feel.

The challenge

The team at KP Snacks wanted to improve their employee reward, recognition and discounts offering and make it accessible to all staff. The company has a largely offline population with a varied demographic, spread over eight sites nationwide.

The benefits on offer had low engagement levels, particularly as the discounts and recognition initiatives varied by location, and employees didn’t have a central location where they could easily access information about them.

The existing recognition program consisted of paper and electronic "call-out cards." For their recognition awards, the team used paper gift vouchers that could only be used at a limited range of retailers. 

With this in mind, the team conducted a survey to test employees’ appetite for a new online reward and recognition system, which could also be accessed on employees' phones, allowing it to reach those employees without computer access. The results showed that 88% didn't use the existing discounts program and 77% felt sure they would use a new online recognition system and an improved discounts program if these were implemented.

Armed with supportive data, the KP Snacks team set out to find a new system that would encourage active usage from their people.

The approach

To choose the name of the platform, the team enlisted the help of the company’s Values & Behaviors (V&B) Champions (a cross-section of employees across the business), who settled on "KP4ME." The team used the tagline "Built for you, by you" in their communications about the platform to reflect this collaborative approach.

It was important to the team that the platform had the same look and feel as their existing V&B branding, so they decided that it would feature the same signature bright colors, drawings of characters and images of chips and snacks cleverly incorporated into various designs – including in the KP4ME logo. The unique look and feel was a priority for the team not only to reinforce the importance of KP Snacks’s values and employer brand, but also to make the platform fun and engaging. 

For the platform to be a one-stop-shop, it needed to include a wealth of information and tools that KP Snacks employees could regularly access. On launch, this included: 

• KP people information and Leadership Team bios
• Mission, vision and values
• Quick links to internal systems and regional information, employee calendars, the HR portal, and employee policies and procedures
• Employee benefits, including employee discounts and information about other benefits that KP Snacks provides to its people
• A Wellbeing Center with access to hundreds of expert articles to boost wellbeing anytime, anywhere (which was especially popular with the offline demographic of KP Snacks employees!)

The hub also put a great emphasis on communications and recognition, using the Reward Gateway blogging function to create a "KP4ME" newsfeed to keep employees in the loop with company and people news, uniting employees across all eight sites.

Plus, the platform is also used to celebrate best practice across the business with "Call Out Cards," the company’s own tailored eCards, which are hosted on the Call Out wall for others to see, react and comment on moments of recognition for colleagues who have gone above and beyond. These eCards follow the whimsical branding on the rest of the platform to combine hand-drawn characters with popular snacks. 

With KP4ME balloons and branded cupcakes in hand, the team launched the platform at the company’s annual V&Bs Champions Day, as they wanted this group of employees to be early users of the site. They began with a live demo of the site and hired an external events company to create a quiz based on KP4ME, playing on the formats of well-known quiz shows such as "Mastermind," the "Generation Game" and "Catchphrase."

Introducing the Champions to the site helped maximize early engagement, and these sessions were followed by roadshows at each KP site delivered by V&B Champions. Plus, the KP4ME project team was on hand to ensure all colleagues could log on to the platform and answered any questions people had. 

The results

Since rolling out to the rest of the workforce after its initial launch, the platform has 98% registration and 88% of employees logged in per month, which shows how the platform’s features and functions are exactly what the KP colleagues need. Feedback on the platform from employees has so far been positive, with employees remarking that it is "easy to use" and "really professional, but with a KP twist." 

Over the holiday season, the team at KP Snacks sent out 12 all-company emails using a "12 Days of Christmas" theme, each one highlighting a different facet of KP4ME or promoting a new benefit or recognition tool. A mix of employees from every KP site got involved in filming the videos, helping to encourage and demonstrate enthusiasm about the platform.

Within two weeks of launch, spend on the site exceeded the $10,000 mark, with a total employee saving of nearly $730, with those numbers climbing rapidly. Six months in, the KP Snacks platform has facilitated more than $950k spent on the platform and more than 2,500 Call Out Cards sent among employees.