|
Reuters is best known as the world’s largest international multimedia news agency, but more than 90% of its revenue comes from its financial services business. Nearly half a million people in the financial markets worldwide use information and analytical and trading tools supplied by Reuters.
Reuters had experienced significant growth through the 1980’s and 1990’s on the back of stock market deregulation around the world. While stock markets boomed, there was an apparently insatiable appetite for Reuters’ trading systems and information products. But in 2001 Reuters was hit by the global economic downturn. Subscriptions to its information services fell 4% in 2002 and the Group posted a record loss of £493m for the year.
Over the last two years Reuters has undergone a dramatic process of internal change, which has taken it back into profit, sharpened its competitiveness and created a more robust platform for future growth.
Fast Forward
The 2002 results prompted Reuters to accelerate its business transformation by launching a three-year change programme called ‘Fast Forward’.
Tom Glocer described the aims of ‘Fast Forward’: “I believe that we need to become a much more competitive company, a more efficient company, a more service-oriented company, and a more aggressive company. However, it is much more than just changing our products or changing the architecture: it means changing the Reuters culture as well.”
In addition to simplifying its organisational structure and product offering, Reuters also addressed the attitudes and behaviours of employees which it recognised would be key to achieving lasting change.
Living FAST
Early on in the process, CEO Tom Glocer, led a two-day workshop of 20 key managers to identify the values that would underpin ‘Living FAST’, the desired characteristics of the new organisation.
FAST stands for:
Fast (working with passion, urgency, discipline and focus);
Accountable (being clear on performance, responsibilities, rewards and consequences);
Service-driven (understanding customer needs and then exceeding expectations through personal commitment);
Team (sharing, challenging and trusting).
But what would these values mean in practice? A “Living FAST Framework” brought together the key drivers of change into a single coherent plan covering internal communication, reward, recognition, learning and development, talent and performance management.
Communication
Revitalised internal communications, with increased participation by employees, has been vital to the success of the Fast Forward programme. Living Fast was launched on June 11th, 2003, via a global, 24 hour event involving staff in all of the 92 countries in which Reuters operates. Prior to and during this event, employees were invited to log issues they felt needed to be addressed, and Tom Glocer committed managers to respond to all of the 3400 feedback messages within the following three weeks.
The website established for the event of June 2003 has been maintained as the home for all communications about Living FAST. In addition, “Daily Briefing”, the company’s daily electronic newsletter for employees features examples of best practice, and “Talkback” allows employees to raise issues with managers on-line.
Performance development, reward and recognition
Tom Glocer is firmly on record as wanting a performance culture. FAST values have been integrated into performance review. Reviews are still held formally once a year, but there is now much more emphasis on informal performance feedback quarterly, or even monthly.
Fast Forward targets have been incorporated into bonus awards, and into a formal recognition scheme, which publicly rewards exemplary performance according to FAST values.
Reuters has also incorporated FAST principles into its managers’ training programmes.
Environment
Most of Reuters’ London-based staff, scattered across the city in a number of sites, will come together in a new headquarters building in Canary Wharf during 2005.
The working environment is being created with the new values firmly in mind. For example, in contrast to Reuters’ traditional preference for corridors and offices, open-plan will be the norm to encourage greater collaboration and teamwork.
Measuring success
In a survey carried out in November 2003, over 80% of employees said they understood and supported Reuters’ core values, and significantly greater numbers than six months before expressed confidence that Reuters would change for the better in the year to come. This confidence in the Fast Forward programme has been borne out by recent results. The reported figures for 2003 have seen the Group back into profit, and the outlook for 2004 is currently looking very positive.
Culture change of the scale being enacted at Reuters is not for the faint-hearted. Events have dictated that it act decisively. Its coherent, integrated approach gives it the best chance possible to meet its targets for recovery in the short term, and create an enterprise highly responsive to market challenges and opportunities into the future.
|
