Crown Relocations rewards excellence

Citation

De Maria, A. (2012), "Crown Relocations rewards excellence", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 11 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2012.37211baa.009

Crown Relocations rewards excellence

Article Type: Rewards From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 11, Issue 2

Short case studies and research papers that demonstrate best practice in rewards

Anna De MariaBased at Crown Relocations.

Crown Relocations is a leading global mobility and relocation specialist and is part of the Crown Worldwide Group. Crown provides mobility program management and relocation services for a wide range of organizations, private customers and governmental organizations. Crown Relocations supports more than 2,000 diverse organizations and over 100,000 international relocations every year.

Experienced in all aspects of private and corporate relocation and mobility services, Crown Relocations manages personalized packages that can include the shipment and storage of household goods, destination services, cultural training, program management (including on-assignment support) and global expense management, among many others.

Our approximately 5,000 worldwide (250 UK) members of staff are experienced professionals, trained to deliver consistent quality and value to clients. Crown Relocations’ business strategy and business conduct is based on our following five core values, the first of which reflects the value and emphasis that we put on our staff:

1. 1.

   Our people are our greatest asset.

2. 2.

   Our strength is our network.

3. 3.

   We positively impact our communities.

4. 4.

   Delighting the customer is our mission.

5. 5.

   Growth and profit are imperatives.

Crown Relocations has recently been awarded a highly sought-after accreditation as part of the “Best Companies Accreditation” initiative, which is run by Best Companies (www.bestcompanies.co.uk). Crown’s “Ones to Watch” status is recognition of the company’s achievements in staff engagement. The prestigious accreditation measures employee engagement through comprehensive staff assessment, and highlights Crown Relocations as a company committed to employee investment. The key outcomes from the survey demonstrated that employees are proud to work for the relocations organization and have confidence in its leaders.

Valuing our assets

At Crown we recognize that our staff are our biggest asset and we invest in training, development and reward packages to demonstrate how much we value the great work that they do. Crown Relocations holds Investors in People (IIP) accreditation, which was awarded in recognition of our attitude to staff training and development. IIP focuses on people management practices and how they contribute to a company’s business performance.

At Crown we are committed to effective staff engagement and to making sure that staff understand and buy into the company’s overall strategy, understand how they can best contribute towards it and are highly motivated to do so. For example, in 2009 we launched an initiative called “Holding Hands,” which focuses on training employees throughout the business on areas such as cultural awareness and communication behaviors. Holding Hands also promotes ideas generation from staff to support the company’s service and business development and improve customer service. Since launching the scheme for employees we have seen an impressive improvement in customer satisfaction levels – with 97 percent of customers saying they’d use Crown again (94.3 percent in 2008 rising to 97.8 percent in 2009). We also saw an increase in nominations of 53 percent for Employee of the Month, which is one of the measurements of our Holding Hands program.

Gaining and maintaining employee trust and commitment means seeking staff’s views and feedback, understanding any issues and seeking to address them. This is something we are always seeking to do at Crown, by engaging and involving staff with questionnaires, presentations, meetings and roadshows.

Recognizing our staff’s performance

The dedication and loyalty of Crown’s employees is encouraged and recognized via a number of schemes that reward their hard work, commitment and enthusiasm. We actively promote employees’ personal growth and development and employees are encouraged to apply for other roles within the company in order to develop their skills and career. We also advocate recognition in the form of thank you cards, instant rewards, peer recognition, etc. Crown has many employee recognition schemes in place and always strives to introduce new initiatives as a way to reward employees for their efforts and we have since expanded the program to include the following wide range of recognition initiatives.

Employee of the month

This is an award given to an employee who has received the most nominations from customers for their exemplary service. Nominations are gathered through a customer feedback system where we invite customers to name specific individuals who have impressed them with their service. The winner receives UK and Ireland wide recognition and a financial reward, as well as a personal thank you from the company chairman.

Employee of the year

This is an annual award given to an employee who over a 12-month period has received the most nominations from customers for exemplary service. It is the accumulation of the employee of the month nominations and the winner receives worldwide internal recognition and a financial reward, as well as a personal thank you from the company chairman.

Packer of the year

This is also an annual award and is given to an employee who has demonstrated his/her skills and knowledge in a controlled assessment. To take part in this competition, an employee has to be regularly recognized by customers as giving a high standard of service to them. As well as receiving a financial reward, the winners are recognized within the company and externally through the trade association and publications.

Outstanding achievement award

Line managers can nominate up to two employees within their branches/departments per year for this annual award. They submit a detailed explanation to support each of their nominations, generally for employees who are non-customer facing. The winner is presented with an award and a financial reward and is invited to an awards dinner.

Account team of the year

This recognizes and rewards the hard work of client account teams, based on a set of criteria relevant to their areas of business. This new award was created in 2010 and measurement includes client and transferee feedback and satisfaction levels, employee of the month results, financial performance and cash management.

Length of service award

This recognizes five-year service milestones. Employees receive a personalized plaque and gift for every five years they have been employed. In addition employees are awarded with one extra day of annual leave after every five years’ service milestone, up to a maximum of 30 days per annum. Employees also receive an extra one week’s annual leave if they have achieved ten years’ service and then every five year milestone thereafter.

CSR award

New to 2011, this award is for the individual and team who have best demonstrated the company’s core corporate social responsibility value. Our CSR goals link to Crown’s core value “to positively impact our communities” and include supporting the company’s nominated charity (through raising funds or volunteering time) and minimizing our impact on the environment and reducing our carbon footprint, for example through our operations with “Plant-a-Tree-Today.”

Local heroes

Managers nominate a local hero (an employee who has gone “the extra mile”) within their teams and reward them with a simple gesture such as a bottle of wine or vouchers. Nominations are sent to HR along with a brief summary of the recommendation each month and are then publicized in quarterly business updates by the regional managing director.

Employee suggestion scheme

This is designed to reward ideas and innovation. Employees are encouraged to contribute their own ideas in support of the company’s goals of greater efficiency, improved customer care, quality, etc. All suggestions are acknowledged and any ideas that are implemented are recognized and rewarded.

QUEST pin awards

These are awarded to Crown employees who demonstrate the following:

• •

  Go beyond the call of duty to address and solve a service related issue and delight a customer; e.g. via unselfish behavior that enhances the Crown brand and reputation.

• •

  Inspire a corporate client to take the time to write to Crown expressing their delight with the service offered.

QUEST hall of fame

This is an award given to an employee who over a length of time has given a consistently high standard.

Rewards for every part of the business

We have different reward and recognition schemes in place so that we can reward employees in different roles. We have created different schemes to reflect the different responsibilities associated with each role, e.g. some roles are customer facing and some more office based/behind the scenes. We have measures in place that allow us to recognize and reward the achievements of our employees, no matter what role they perform within the company.

We also have some generic recognition schemes in place that apply to all employees within the company. The “length in service” award is one good example. We introduced this award to thank employees for their commitment and support to the company over the years. It allows us to show our employees that their commitment to the company is recognized and appreciated. One of Crown’s main goals is to become an employer of choice, and the various schemes we have in place help to increase our staff engagement, which in turn increases our retention.

Intangible benefits

One of the key things about working for Crown is the family feel that the company has, despite being a global company with over 5,000 employees worldwide. Our staff are very loyal – we have several employees who have been with the company for over 30 years. Our regional managing directors know all their staff by name and founder and chairman James Thompson is affectionately referred to throughout the company as Jim.

Our regular staff surveys and high levels of staff engagement mean that our staff are truly committed to going the extra mile for their clients. We have been using the “Best Companies to work for” accreditation to gauge our employee engagement since 2009. According to Best Companies analysis our employee engagement was 65 percent in 2010 and increased to 75.88 percent in 2011. Engaged and motivated staff take pride in their work and really live the Crown mission “to delight the customer.” Reward schemes that HR deliver to benefit our staff have a demonstrable benefit for the business and our clients.

About the author

Anna De Maria (Chartered MCIPD) joined Crown Relocations in 2006 and is the HR and training manager, UK and Ireland. She has 13 years’ HR experience working within the public and private sector. Anna De Maria has been CIPD qualified since 2003. She has a Higher National Diploma in business and personnel and a Postgraduate Diploma in HR management from Middlesex University. Anna De Maria can be contacted at: ademaria@crownrelo.com