How Volvo Car Retail strengthens its leadership with Winningtemp

Volvo Car Retail has 16 facilities in 3 regions, where they help Volvo owners with financing, service, repairs and much more. Their goal is to contribute to simple car ownership, free from worries.

The company is a relatively new merger of Bra Bil, Upplands Motor and Volvo Bil. Even before the merger in 2022, Bra Bil and Upplands Motor had started using Winningtemp to streamline and improve their corporate culture.

The challenge

Charlotte Sterner, Senior HR Business Partner at Volvo Car Retail who worked with Upplands Motor before they began using Winningtemp, says employee wellbeing used to be measured through annual surveys which were extremely inefficient.

 ”It was quite difficult at the time,” says Charlotte. ”Before we had gone through and compiled the results, a few months had passed and the results felt almost out of date. We clearly wanted a way to do surveys in real-time instead.”

In 2019 they switched to using Winningtemp and they noticed a difference immediately. With Winningtemp, they were able to quickly act on the insights from the results and work on the ”soft” questions in a clearer way.

”We know that soft values ​​lead to good results in the end. Therefore, it was very much appreciated to be able to have quick temperature measurements, to be able to follow up on feedback and to receive important information via the employees' comments,” adds Charlotte.

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‍The merger led to new challenges

 In 2022, Bra Bil merged with Upplands Motor and formed Volvo Car Retail. And although both companies had used Winningtemp before, the merger created new challenges, when two company cultures became one.

”The companies had not worked with Winningtemp in the same way, so it took a while before we understood how to use it together. But with 'commitment' as a common watchword, we ended up with an approach that everyone appreciated,” says Charlotte.

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Concern among managers

 There was also a challenge in getting everyone onboard. As a manager, it can be sensitive to be judged in such a concrete way, and when Winningtemp was discussed, there were doubts among the leaders.

”Not everyone thought it was a great thing, some managers thought it was pretty scary from the start. They were worried about getting numbers on how good or bad they were and probably didn't fully understand the benefits of such frequent examinations”.

 Solution

 As the usage of Winningtemp increased in the new company,more employees became aware of the advantages.

”The managers learned quite quickly that temperature changes are not something to be worried about, but are an opportunity to learn and take the organisation forward,” says Charlotte.

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Adapted based on the needs of the leaders

During the spring of 2023, Volvo Bil joined the company, and today there are a total of 800 employees in the company. Therefore there are many different teams and managers who have different needs. With that in mind, they don't have a common way of working across the entire organisation, rather each team gets to choose how they work with Winningtemp.

In our working method, the management group chooses a focus area, and then the leaders choose another - preferably together with their employees. Metrics are set jointly based on these areas and Winningtemp is a standing discussion topic in various forums every week”, says Charlotte.

Ultimately, Winningtemp is a leadership tool, but even the managers may need support from their teams, HR and other leaders, and therefore Winningtemp is a tool that everyone in the organisation can benefit from.

Results

 The leaders within Volvo Car Retail send out shorter pulse surveys every week, and have a response rate of around 70% - including many valuable comments. Charlotte emphasises the importance of high commitment and how it leads to better results and profitability.

”We believe that engaged employees lead to better results for the company. Winningtemp is an important tool in that journey, and that's why it's so fun that it's used so much by leaders and employees”. 

‍More control over well-being

Winningtemp use has led to several positive effects in daily work.

”Now we don't have to guess what the employees think, now we know. This means we can make better decisions when things need to be fixed. We also have better control and see that things are going in the right direction, even if not every single number is measured", says Charlotte.

 Now they don't have to wait for feedback for months, instead they can act faster and work more agilely.

”When any part of the organisation is about to get worse, we can quickly discover it and reverse the trend. We always have a clear overall picture thanks to all the comments that employees can submit anonymously.”

 The company culture is still evolving but Volvo Car Retail is on the right track to creating a more engaging and productive workplace - and Winningtemp is one of their most valuable tools along the way.

Do you want to work more effectively with employee feedback? Book a demo and see how Winningtemp can help your organisation.

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