The FOOF is in the pudding

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

The worst of the recession might over, but that doesn’t mean communicators have to wave goodbye to cost saving exercises.

It’s worth keeping in mind that, even if your company isn’t making lay-offs, budgets are still tight and engagement is more important than ever. But how do you tie in the two?

The answer is FOOF: Focusing On Our Future.

A term coined by Aggregate Industries, FOOF saved the business more than £30 million during the height of the recession and is a highlight of today’s ‘Fresh Ideas for Internal Communicators’ Melcrum member event in London.

Facing redundancies in 2008, the construction company refused to become a casualty of the recession, setting up a campaign in conjunction with communication specialist Top Banana with an aim to save costs, prevent more job losses, boost revenues and drive cultural change. Here are just a few of the initiatives suggested by Top Banana and implemented by the Leicestershire-based business which transformed the company’s cultural future.

1.    A cross-sector of employees were selected to attend a conference fronted CEO, Bill Bolsover, where they asked him business critical questions that mattered to them. Bolsover then challenged every attendee to think of a cost saving solution under the ‘Pinch and Inch’ programme, from one pound to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

2.    The 80 delegates who attended the first meeting were then asked to encourage others to watch a video of the conference. Every colleague who viewed the event was then given a blue badge.

3.    The ‘Pinch an Inch’ programme: Whether an employee saved a pound by carpooling or hundreds of thousands of pounds by re-negotiating a contract, every penny counted and was documented on the Aggregates Industries intranet. Individual employees logged each cost saving and others could then use these ideas to save the business more money. Employees were able to see their collective daily savings through a “Cashometer”.

4.    The Green Dot project was the final part of the savings programme. Employees were again encouraged to take part but this time place green dot-shaped stickers on things such as light switches and computer monitors as a reminder for colleagues to switch them off. A simple but extremely effective initiative.

Aggregate Industries, as a result of these cost saving actions, has now ingrained this method of working in every working practice in the business, saving a massive £30m. Chief executive Bolsover, a notoriously traditional and hard to please leader, said: “By the third quarter, people were talking about FOOF to me, not the other way around.”

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