Heinz: Helping employees embrace global behavior change

In business today, good is never good enough.

While some of Heinz’s manufacturing sites achieved operational excellence, others lagged behind. The leadership team raised the bar on expectations — and results — to engage employees in delivering even more consistent, efficient operations in its global manufacturing facilities and offices.

Additionally, with an eye toward upholding its outstanding reputation for quality, Heinz launched its Global Performance System (HGPS), a multi-year effort that transfers ownership of continuous improvement from Heinz Corporate to the hands of every employee.

The inherent difficulty in aligning 32,000 global employees around a new mindset and behaviors led Heinz to The Grossman Group. Applying proprietary and proven processes and tools as part of the Grossman Methodology, including messagemap™ and iBrand™, The Grossman Group delivered a strategic message platform, change communication plan, and tools that enabled Heinz to tell its HGPS story and drive the right behaviors and actions, while also flexing to meet different site and employee needs.

Heinz delivered its Year One commitment to bring HGPS to eight pilot sites worldwide, and the communication plan and tools have been instrumental for the sites. Response has been so positive that HGPS is now rolling out at key plants in Asia and Australia.

HGPS has since expanded to 27 total sites in less than 18 months — much faster than originally expected. With the smart rollout of the program, including strategic communications, there’s big demand for the performance system to rollout globally to 80 percent of all sites across North America, Europe, and Asia in the next two years.

In the first year, Heinz reported record sales and profits with 10.3 percent growth in earnings per share and 9.2 percent growth in net income. The company cited its heightened emphasis on cost control and global productivity — achieved through HGPS — as a key reason for its success. Specifically, HGPS has positively affected 2.5 percent of sales, resulting in $250 million in improved productivity. In addition, the HGPS program has been a featured best practice at several supply chain conferences, including the Lean Six Sigma & Process Improvement Summit and SCOPE.