Retail organisation uses employee feedback and internal communications to create new company values

What they needed

Instead of starting the process in the boardroom with the Executive team, the People team decided this was a task that would start at the heart of the business: With its people. The strategy was to encourage and invite the team to give open and honest feedback, tell the People team exactly what made Missguided special, where the company needed to improve, and try to explain in words the uniqueness of the brand.

This process required collaboration from everyone within the business to make sure everyone felt they had contributed to the Missguided Vibes, could instantly buy into them and understand their importance in the future of the business.

The research phase kicked off with interactive “Holla at Us” listening events, where questions were divided into two themes: You and the business.

Key questions included:

• What do you know?

• How do we make you feel?

• What makes Missguided different?

• What do you think Missguided wants to achieve in the future?

This research outlined four very clear themes – love, empowerment, positivity and fun. After the research phase, the next phase was focussed on connecting with as many employees as possible to discover why these words were important to them and the business. In order to do this, the team needed some help, which led to the creation of the  “Vibe Tribe.”

The Vibe Tribe consisted of a community of people who wanted to support the Vibes process. These people were to be naturally enthusiastic and had a voice within their teams. The People team was looking for people who were influencers and passionate about the organisation – enabling them to reach more people and collate information in their language.

How we helped

To kick off this new initiative, the Vibe Tribe started hosting “Vibe Weeks,” which centred around taking one of the key areas that had been highlighted through research and spending the week talking to the team about that behaviour through interactive activities.

The first potential Vibe the team explored during week one was love. The Vibe Tribe hand-delivered Love Notes, along with Loveheart sweets with two simple questions for employees to answer: “What are you passionate about?” and “What do you love to do outside of work?”

Keeping in mind different communications preferences, the team tried to appeal to different styles and activities. The Vibe Tribe was tasked with “Love Selfies,” which included getting team members to write and share one of their greatest loves. The team also introduced a survey called the “Love-o-meter” to ask people questions about what they loved to do as part of their day job, as well as a video to gain feedback.

The second week of Vibe Weeks, the team explored positivity. Team members dropped 500 little smileys on employee’s desks, not only to make people smile, but to ask the important question, “what made you smile last?” This was an important question when it came to employee engagement at Missguided. The Vibe Tribe also asked employees to show their creative side with the smileys, demonstrating what made it happy.

Following positivity week was fun week. The team found out quickly that although Missguided was a fun place to work, people didn’t like talking about having fun, and “forced fun” was something no one liked. The Vibe Tribe also dropped gummy sweets on people’s desks with the statement, “show us how you have fun at work,” and received some great entries. During fun week, a giant “Ha Ha board” was passed from floor to floor, encouraging employees to write down what made them laugh last at work.

The final week was focussed on empowerment. The Vibe Tribe explored dreaming big by asking employees, “what is your biggest dream?” and invited employees to write their dream on a giant board in the company’s Social Space. The team also asked, “what would you like the find at the end of a rainbow?” Which was cleverly attached to rainbow sweets and gave the Vibe Tribe an idea of different thought processes. The Vibe Tribe and People Team spent hours asking people about the behaviours associated with the proposed Vibes, and made sure everyone agreed upon what was right for the people and the business.

What they achieved

At the end of July 2018, the team began to launch the new Vibes – with one launching each week through a number of different communication and engagement activities. Throughout the entire process, the Vibe Tribe had support from the Institute of Management and Bolton University which helped with data collection and validated the research.

The research helped give the team early signals and confirm what should be a Vibe or a behaviour. Nearly all of Missguided’s head office contributed in some part of the research and discovery phases. The Vibe Tribe ensured that the retail teams were involved during the discovery phase and the People Team spent time working on the sales floor, speaking to the team and helping customers.

Around 50 different versions of the Vibes were discussed with team members and senior leaders throughout the discovery phase. By using honesty, transparency, open communication, collaboration and some fun throughout the process, the Vibe Tribe created the Missguided Vibes. These Vibes will help Missguided employees connect to the vision and purpose more than boardroom-created values could have. The new Vibes are:

• Love Lots: do everything with passion and pride.

• Believe Always: empower ourselves and others to be their best.

• Dream Big: use ideas and innovation to lead the way.

• Win Together: collaborate and win as a team.