Halfords Internal Communications Strategic review
Content • Internal Communications • Research • Strategy
Halfords, UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling products and services, asked Pimento to conduct a strategic review of their Internal Communications. The Pimento team gave recommendations to improve the effectiveness to both head-office and store staff. This was to ensure the timely imparting of divisional and group news across the business, plus to obtain feedback from all levels in the business.
Pimento engaged one of their business consultant members to conduct the project – Simon Oldfield, who has considerable Board-level automotive retail experience to call upon.
After taking the brief from a combination of the Marketing and HR Directors, a thorough audit of the existing internal communication channels and documents was made to understand the status quo. This was supported by visits to retail sites for both bikes and auto parts and Halford Autocenter service outlets, to validate with store managers and operatives their exposure to internal communications, their understanding of the available channels and any gaps that they felt were present in the current plan.
This groundwork was complimented by a review of best practice examples from other retail orientated businesses, where there are a large number of regional locations and large number of staff without a business email or regular access to company computers/networks.
Findings and recommendations were made to both internal stakeholders within a very tight time-line in order to provide feedback and recommendations to the group CEO.
The recommendations from the research included specifics in the following areas:
- Organisation structure and leadership
- Internal communications strategy
- Content structure and use of multi-media
- Use of digital channels
- Feedback channels
Client Feedback
The client was very happy with the work done in a very short space of time. Immediate short-term actions were taken to address some quick-wins identified by the consultant and the need for a co-ordinating function at a senior level was accepted as an essential way forward.
