Dear colleague We have now presented Strategy 2020 to leaders around the world and discussed it with them. They will now work with their employees to translate the strategy into action within their organisations. This is a major and vitally important task if we are to achieve our goals of greater earnings and growth, to the benefit of us all. The strategy is concise and not difficult to understand. There is therefore much freedom to create more specific action plans to support the strategy. But this freedom also demands leadership and commitment from each Grundfos employee. 'Culture eats strategy for breakfast', as several books on leadership note. This is self-evident, because a company's culture will always trump business plans and strategies. Culture is the sum of us all – our habits, good and bad, our core values and our way of running Grundfos in an orderly, responsible and sustainable manner. This is why culture has been included as a Must Win Battle in our strategy. We must build on our strengths, while becoming even more customer focused and cooperation oriented, and all taking responsibility for the things that can be improved for Grundfos as a whole. In May we celebrated not only our first 70 years, in companies, factories and offices around the world, but just as much our unique culture, history, values and diversity. Grundfos has grown in size and stature over the years, and we have retained the originality, focus on quality and compassion our founder personified. We have also just held our seventh Grundfos Olympics, with 1,200 participants. It was my first Olympics, and I was overwhelmed by the festivity, enthusiasm and team spirit I witnessed. I am familiar with many companies, but none which so genuinely understand how to promote teambuilding and friendships across cultures, languages and borders. I hope your colleagues who spent some wonderful days in Bjerringbro will share their own accounts. We will hold the Olympics again in 2019! We have chosen our employees' satisfaction and motivation as one of the key metrics for our success with the new strategy. We cannot move in the right direction without the active participation of employees. We have therefore decided to conduct the motivation and satisfaction survey every year, rather than every two years, as in the past. This year's survey has just been completed, and shows that we have some work to do. 92 per cent of all employees responded, which is a record. Unfortunately the result was a score of 69, compared to a goal and 2012 result of 73. This level is still far better than the average in comparable companies, but below the very best, and less than we have achieved previously. The most important signals from the survey are that our company is still very strong despite a decline from a high level, and that our leaders are viewed as competent. This is a good foundation for improvements in the future. Our ability to work together received a high rating, and has improved over the previous survey. The key area that led to a lower result was a decline in the sense of job security in most areas, and especially in GMA in Denmark. This is not surprising given we had to sadly part with 405 colleagues in November last year. We naturally cannot make any job guarantees, but would like to repeat that it is not in our plans to make any major reductions in our staff. Like all professional companies, we must constantly think about how we can do things smarter – but all leaders have a responsibility to ensure we do things in a way which does not create insecurity. People who are insecure have a lower sense of well-being and cannot perform at their best for our company. The important task now awaits of ensuring actions are taken at each level of our organisation in response to the score. Have expectations of your leader and feel free to ask them questions regarding follow-up on the results. Group Management will do everything humanly possible to improve our score so it ranks among the very best again. It is only by having highly dedicated and motivated employees at all levels that we can make Grundfos an even stronger company. Mads Nipper Group President & CEO 2 Gmagazine July 15 6 The first steps towards 2020 have been taken 26 4 5 12 21 22 24 25 Brian turns fantasy into reality Team spirit wins at GOlympics Super shoppers pool orders Sport broke through Healthy pumps keep hospital running Customers look under the hood Local production sells pumps Broad organisation ensures knowledge depth
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