John West Foods

Background
With 100 employees across various locations, John West Foods recognise that a consistent approach to ‘Crew member’ development is imperative to their success. Two major initiatives help them deliver this goal. The JW Controller group is a team of 12 cross-functional department heads providing a succession pipeline for the Exec team. A suite of workshops and training to support the development of group members includes: the Dale Carnegie leadership programme, designed to create a ‘common and strong management culture’; ‘Future proofing John West Leaders’, a day- long business simulation exercise; and behavioural aspects of situational leadership.

Through active engagement in strategic business projects in collaboration with the JW Exec team, the group members have grown in confidence and capability with one member moving onto the Exec team as part of the succession planning process and another taking a global role with their parent company, Thai Union.

"Building engagement, focus and resiliency at every level in the business"

Approach
Recognising the need to support the wider JW Crew, they also created the John West Academy to foster a culture of excellence and a Crew who are business and brand ambassadors.

Comprising six modules, the Academy is designed to improve knowledge and expertise of the industry sector and, ultimately, to improve external customer service. The course content is written and delivered by existing Crew members from relevant business functions.

Outcome
In 2017 they created the first Level 2 module in partnership with WWF who also delivered the workshops to which all Crew members were invited. Since then, John West have continued to build online learning modules and further develop Level 2 to form an integral part of the on-boarding process.

Linda Mountford, TUE Northern Europe Commercial HR Director, says “Our Crew is our greatest asset. I am delighted that these development programmes are genuinely building engagement, focus and resiliency at every level in the business.”