Rentokil Pest Control

Rentokil Pest Control — Delivering effective transformational change

Phase 1.1: Changing the focus to a customer-oriented business
Phase 1.2: Focusing attention on the management cadre
Phase 1.3: Turning front-line staff into key agents of change

The business background

Rentokil Pest Control is part of Rentokil Initial, one of the world’s largest providers of business services.  Formed some eighty years ago, RPC has grown to become one of the UK’s longest established, best known and most trusted pest control service providers.

Until 2005, Rentokil Initial had been headed up by Sir Clive Thompson, known as ‘Mr 20%’ by the City for his ability to deliver double-digit earnings growth every year.  But when Rentokil finally failed to meet its own exacting targets, he was ousted in a boardroom coup.

It transpired that the numbers had been delivered at a cost to the business.  Incoming chairman Brian McGowan claimed Thompson had had a “silo mentality” and pushed prices to unsustainable levels.  “Costs were relentlessly taken out – often to the detriment of growing the business,” he said.  It was time for a fresh approach.

In the case of Rentokil Pest Control, the old profit-centric regime had given rise to a variety of problems, especially on the operational side.  When a new MD arrived – to take charge of a largely new management team – he spent the first six months understanding where the business was at before deciding how to deal with it.  “Don’t talk to the technicians” (i.e. customer facing staff) was the first piece of advice he received, “as they’re always moaning.”  It turned out that this advice was symptomatic of the malaise that needed addressing.

Wingivers’ involvement

The MD’s initial six-month review demonstrated a need to refocus the business along much more customer-centric lines. This strategy would require, among other things, a radical restructuring of business operations and the development of people for new management roles, facilitating the associated cultural change prompted by the MD and his Executive.  Wingivers was approached by the company initially to address the culture change but also, following a fact-finding meeting, to support related assessment and development issues.

As a result, Wingivers made a formal pitch outlining its proposals for delivering the turnaround.  These included developing the business’s customer proposition, which would then form the basis of all subsequent recruitment, training and development activity.  It was a characteristic Wingivers proposal involving a specific plan of action for a fixed price within a finite timescale, and focused on engaging the workforce fully rather than providing expert advice from the sidelines.  This proposal was duly accepted and the individual members of the Executive supported the work throughout.

The problems – time for change

Rentokil’s internal change programme – entitled ‘Time for change’ – sought to identify problems across the business and propose solutions.  The company’s own research revealed that, while the overall market was growing, sales were falling, profits were weakening, and business was being lost to competitors.  There were significant people issues – notably low levels of satisfaction and high staff turnover – which were largely down to poor management and lack of effective communication.

To remedy some of these problems, the new structure would see the traditional branch network replaced by local field based teams comprising both salespeople and technicians, a centralised inbound call centre replacing ad hoc contacts, and a much sharper focus on the customer, based on a thorough understanding of core market segments.  Pay and incentives were also to be enhanced, while all aspects of service conditions – from uniforms to vehicles and equipment – were improved.

Rentokil – Wingivers’ strategy

The overall aim of Wingivers’ framework for delivering change (expanded later in this case study)  was defined as helping the company to attract new customers and retain existing customers and key employees, thus arresting and reversing both the decline in sales and profits and the costly turnover of skilled labour.

This involved further developing the customer proposition, changing structures and processes, and – not least – effecting a new way of working.  All this work was designed and implemented with staff from the outset – developed with the people who actually deliver the experience to the customer.

Headline activities included:

There was a strong emphasis on developing the company’s existing management population throughout.  And while the strategy was evolutionary, the pace of the programme was revolutionary.  All managers and some senior technical and sales staff had to apply for the newly redesigned positions, and although this resulted in a few departures the process was extremely effective in identifying the right people for the right roles as well as understanding the development requirements.  As a result it succeeded in delivering a number of core managers who will be the shapers and enablers of the new culture – people with the skills and competencies to take the business forward confidently.

Providing the right resources

The programme designed for Rentokil Pest Control represented the largest and most wide-ranging project yet undertaken by Wingivers.  To implement it effectively, Wingivers harnessed the complementary skills of two other businesses with which it regularly partners – Beyond Design, who designed and produced all the internal communications materials, and Persona Partnership, who provided the recruitment and assessment elements.  Channelled through Wingivers’ lead consulting strategy, the specialist contributions of these closely associated businesses helped to ensure a seamless delivery of the project objectives.

A framework for delivering change

Within a tight five-month time frame, the project was effectively implemented in five phases.  In addition, the work on customer proposition – undertaken in partnership with the MD – and the assessment /development elements – progressed through HR – were dovetailed to create a coherent programme with consistent messaging throughout.

(1) Understanding the context

The initial phase involved fact-finding: meeting people, building relationships, and getting to understand the prevailing culture and the problems associated with it.  This was emphatically not just an objective data collection exercise but an essential preliminary to future collaboration, providing the basis for a genuine partnership approach.  Its underlying premise was that progress would only be achieved by working together, rather than by Wingivers supplying ready-made solutions.  Winning the trust and respect of the existing workforce was therefore crucial: the focus was not on evaluating how things were done currently, but on identifying and acknowledging existing problems, and discovering how things could be made to improve.

One practical outcome of this initial phase involved communicating the proposed change programme to management: how and why the structure would have to change, and why jobs would have to change with it.  Rather than concentrating on HR minutiae, the message was firmly centred on the business rationale for change: without it, the company simply could not be turned round.  It was big-picture stuff: ‘we’re changing the way we run the business, and we’re going to start by developing you’ (i.e. through assessment centres).  The communication programme was also realistic in acknowledging that previous internal communications had been inadequate.  It stressed that the new, more open climate would require managers to communicate more effectively with their staff, encouraging their questions and thus creating a genuine dialogue.  In addition, a help-line was set up, enabling staff to speak directly to senior management on aspects of the change programme and how it could affect them individually.

(2) Developing a new way of working

Instead of being made to feel that they were being subjected to a process when working with Wingivers, managers were actively helping to shape and develop the activity themselves.

All the information from the fact-finding and discussion sessions was fed into the design of the assessment centres.  Their aim was to help refocus the business along more customer-centric lines, looking at everything from corporate values to individual job design in the process, and seeing how managers could begin to implement the new approach in their day-to-day operations. 

Once people had been reappointed as managers, they started to implement the new thinking immediately – making evidence- and data-based decisions, rather than being exclusively action-oriented; working collaboratively with team-members, rather than merely instructing them; and understanding the impact of the new processes as they replaced the previous increasingly ineffective modus operandi.

At the same time, key work was being done on the customer interface.  Stressing the need for alternative ways of working, this involved working alongside and talking to people at all levels within the organisation to identify existing pockets of good practice and circulate them more widely.  At every stage, people were encouraged to believe that their contribution was valued and their views were respected.

(3) Workshops to reinforce change

A series of workshop days helped to embed the new strategy in the way people approached their jobs.  These covered a whole range of topics, from the change curve to problem analysis to communications.  But instead of simply disseminating new policy and practice, they focused on getting people to talk about their experiences, using real-life examples of business problems.  By developing ideas that came out of the assessment centres and linking them back to business aims, people were able to gain ownership of and responsibility for the new approach, enabling them to take effective action.  One key outcome was to make managers realise that expectations of them had changed radically (in effect, many of them had not really been ‘managing’ at all before).

Although the process was something of a roller-coaster for individual managers, the whole assessment process with its three-way feedback was seen as highly effective.  Immediately after receiving their own feedback, managers went straight to being trained as assessors in order to assess their own people and train them in readiness for the new-style organisation.  There was real optimism that things were indeed changing for the better – and belief that there was now genuine support for overcoming the difficulties facing the business.

(4) Conferences to sharpen the focus

Two major conferences were convened – one for everyone in management, and one for everyone in sales.  Developed in close consultation with the executive and deliberately contrasted with previous conference formats, they were designed as ‘statements of difference’ focusing strongly on the new customer-centric approach.  They featured work-focused group sessions with clear outputs such as how to get things right, how to generate more sales leads, how to communicate the new approach to customers, and how to keep people enthused and engaged against a background of change.  Meanwhile Wingivers’ sessions on the customer proposition helped to reinforce core concepts – such as separating out general customer service principles from specific sector propositions – and brought these propositions to life through a programme of interactive communications materials, theatre and events.  At every stage, the emphasis was on practical, easy-to-use outputs.

Following these conferences Wingivers planned a series of orientation workshops up and down the country for front-line staff.  While their development was facilitated by Wingivers, they were effectively designed and owned by managers.  Wingivers played a pivotal role in engaging a cross-section of the Rentokil Pest Control workforce to develop the process for the orientation workshops.  These were interactive and collaborative, respecting the contributions of all.

(5) Review and reflection

With the programme completed, the focus shifted to embedding the new culture and business approach.  This merely required some light-touch ‘temperature-checking’ to ensure that everything stayed on course.  In reality, the programme succeeded in enabling managers to facilitate the embedding process themselves. 

The Wingivers contribution

Rentokil Pest Control had already identified many of the changes which it wished to see.  What Wingivers did was to translate the underlying principles of the change strategy into the kind of specific, day-to-day operational details that would actually deliver the required results.  In effect, Wingivers provided the means for Rentokil to deliver its business transformation agenda, raising both performance standards and expectations in the process.  According to one of the Regional Directors, “It’s going extremely well.”  Just three months on from the final stage of the programme, green shoots are already appearing in all the key result areas, from new sales growth to greater employee engagement, reduced staff turnover and a renewed sense of common purpose. As a result, discussions are currently taking place about the possibility of similar programmes within Rentokil’s European businesses.

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