Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Cola giant sees turnaround in fortunes after HR intervention

by Personnel Today 23 Mar 2004
by Personnel Today 23 Mar 2004

Building leadership capability at the top of Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has
led to a huge drop in employee turnover and minimised the damage from bad
publicity.

Vice-president of HR, Simon Brocket, told Personnel Today that embedding HR
at board level was key in turning round a company dogged by low confidence in
its leadership team and low employee commitment.

CCE, which manufactures and distributes Coca-Cola products and employs 5,000
people, took further hits over media revelations that its Dasani mineral water
originated from public water supplies in Kent.

However, new figures show employees’ trust in leadership has gone up by 30
per cent and commitment up 40 per cent, while labour turnover has fallen 66 per
cent since 2000.

After CCE’s 2000 employee survey showed a discontented workforce and
turnover far exceeding the national average, Brocket contracted Lane4 training to
help build a new cohesion at board level, beginning with one-to-one coaching
sessions to prepare executives for off-site training.

"Off-site events can be a blood bath," said Brocket. "I
wanted to have productive conversation and to create the right climate you have
to have open-mindedness."

Brocket oversaw a programme of leadership team meetings, workshops,
individual coaching, upward feedback and applied learning projects.

The programme has resulted in greater interaction across functional
barriers, higher employee commitment and a better appreciation of training
across the organisation.

He said that managers and staff at CCE valued HR because it understood the
issues they faced and was able to help shape solutions that meet the company’s
business needs.

"In some companies, HR dislocates itself and becomes HR in a black
box," Brocket said.

"It is not able to connect to the business strategy and then when it
generates its disconnected product, it just throws it out and hopes for the
best."

By Michael Millar

How Coca-Cola prioritises HR projects

Project prioritisation criteria                                     Weighting

Contributes to business performance                             10
Promotes early delivery of business benefits                   4
Maximises employee engagement                                  8
Improves or simplifies people management activities      5
Supports legal or regulatory compliance                        2

Leadership behaviours and
organisational commitment

Vision

– Identifying and articulating a vision

– Being an appropriate role model

– Fostering acceptance for group goals

Support

– Providing individualised support

– Providing contingent reward feedback

Challenge

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

– Setting high performance expectations

– Offering intellectual stimulation

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
CRE urges SMEs to tackle race and benefit bottom line
next post
UK executives too scared to ask for flexible working

You may also like

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

Occupational health on the coronavirus frontline – ‘I...

21 Aug 2020

Occupational Health & Wellbeing research round-up: August 2020

7 Aug 2020

Acas: Redundancy related enquiries surge 160%

5 Aug 2020

Coronavirus: lockdown ‘phase two’ may bring added headaches...

17 Jul 2020

Unemployment to top 4 million as workers come...

15 Jul 2020

Over 1,000 UK redundancies expected at G4S Cash...

14 Jul 2020

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+