MARCH - APRIL 202419Step 4 ­ Our customers are our guiding lights We all say customers are our priority, but do we really have it embedded in our way of living? Exceeding our customer expectations is a key part of our vision; therefore, ensuring we develop a cus-tomer-focused program is fundamental to our success. We started by carrying out a deep dive and reaching out to our customers to understand their priorities, which informed our strategy. Assigning a Kerry lead to partner with our customers was also an important part of building trust and engagement. We have also been heavily involved in external customer and industry events, and in a recent customer service survey, quality was voted the number one area. Step 5 ­ Do we have the right people in place with the correct skills and knowl-edge to execute the strategy? Ensuring we have the right people and the right talent with the right technical knowledge is crucial to delivering a transformation. We developed a Global, regional and plant model to ensure the right capabilities are available for this journey. People development is anoth-er area where we have implemented a number of initiatives to ensure our teams are operating at the right level. Kerry's Learning Academy was launched earlier this year, which is a tool to enable people to drive their careers and help employees identify their career path and how to build their skills in order to get there. More specifically, we have invested in sanita-tion excellence Globally, Regionally and locally, partnering with Ecolab at a CEO level as well as improved micro expertise ­ we have new and redesigned environ-mental programs across our network. We have also developed and promoted 8/10 leaders into higher responsibility areas, including female leaders, and now have a 50/50 split in the EHS & FSQ Leadership teams. We also take very seriously our en-gagement feedback; people need to have a smile on their faces to be effective. Step 6 ­ How do we know when we get there? We need to have a clear compass to understand the dial is going in the right direction. That's why we created a digitalization platform that allows us to see KPIs in real-time and, make adjust-ments as we go, and ensure we are en route to the right destination. We defined KPIs ahead of time for each milestone of the journey. These KPIs help us with continuous improvement and monitor any adjustments that we need to make in our road map, including moving from reactive to preventative. Some examples of the results and KPIs we have seen are a 50 percent reduction in customer complaints, a reduction in TIR by 60+ percent, a 64 percent reduction in withdrawals and reaching over 95 percent compliance in our LIFE safety audits. KPIs have been adjusted as we progressed to move from reactive to preventative. Conclusion - What have we learned? A transformation is mostly about people; these significant changes have to start with support from the top. Behavioral changes take time, continuous improvement and re-lentless efforts year after year. A good way to define culture is what people do when no one is looking. As people lead safety first, quality always across functions and the company, you know you have arrived at the right place. We as professionals must ensure that we work not only in minds but also, and even more importantly, in hearts. Here's to a fantastic journey of excitement, improvement, and excellence. Lastly, leadership is about opening doors so our people can make extraordinary things hap-pen. Food safety is equal to good business, enabling company growth. Driving a food safety culture is about much more than training, it's more than audits and inspections, it's more than testing, fundamentally it is about how we influence people's behaviors
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