CorpComms Magazine

When Haden Building Management rebranded as Balfour Beatty WorkPlace (BBW) in 2008, the decision had not been taken lightly.

Established in 1816, the company was a market leader in facilities management and technical mechanical & electrical services to both public and private sector. Almost 200 years on, the Haden name carried a considerable reputation. And while it had become part of the Balfour Beatty Group in 1986, Haden was not under pressure to align itself to the Balfour Beatty name.

The International Facility Management Association defines its industry's role as 'coordinating the physical workplace with the people and work of the organisation. It integrates the principles of business administration, architecture and the behavioural and engineering sciences.' Facilities management services companies can manage anything from property to infrastructure, as well as 'hard services' such as maintaining grounds, lifts or fire-fighting equipment, and 'soft services' such as waste management, catering or electronic security. Such an all-encompassing offering can lead to enormous annual contracts, particularly in the public sector for buildings such as hospitals or government departments.

Misplaced identity

But despite having developed an impressive range of services over the decades, Haden was often mistakenly perceived as solely a hard facilities management specialist. 'But in reality, we deliver much more than that,' emphasises Tania O'Neill, who was the company's communications manager at the time of the rebrand.

'The perception was that they were very good at delivering on the technical side,' explains Brigid McMullen, founder and creative director of brand communications agency The Workroom, which worked with Haden to reposition its brand strategy. 'It was very difficult to up the ante in the way that they needed while retaining the same Haden identity. It would have been like walking through treacle.'

Faced with an increasingly concentrated market, with competitors such as Johnson Controls, Carillion, Mitie and Interserve, Haden needed to stand out from the crowd. 'There is a lot of competition out there... we wanted to stand out in what is a maturing market,' explains O'Neill. 'We needed to reposition ourselves as we were now so much more than our reputation. The reason for such a radical change in positioning was to support a company strategy of ambitious growth plans.'

Those plans included growing turnover from £411 million to £1 billion within five years, improving tender conversion rates and reversing a downward trend of client satisfaction.

Finding a starting point

McMullen explains that when The Workroom first started working with Haden, what was lacking was a clear articulation of the meaning of the business. 'If there is no clear vision of what the business is for, you can't expect people to believe in it. There's no guiding light.

'It was difficult for them to communicate externally to clients what the business stood for, why it was a benefit to work with them. That's what was missing.'

To get the ball rolling, Haden convened focus groups to ascertain the opinions of a variety of the company's stakeholders. Clients, senior management and some frontline staff were asked to consider what they felt were the company's values.

What emerged, says O'Neill, was the picture of an organisation with passion and determination, with a strong sense of teamwork. Now all that was needed was a new sense of the company's purpose and strategy, into which that passion could be channelled.

It was also felt that the repositioning warranted a name change to reflect a new sense of purpose.

It wasn't a straightforward decision,' says McMullen. 'Being 'Balfour-Beatty-something' comes with potential drawbacks. As you can imagine there's a comms piece here, explaining why, explaining the benefits, making sure they didn't lose loyalty from the current customer base.'

But the shift from Haden to Balfour Beatty WorkPlace was considered essential in order to get away from construction-esque terminology and move towards a more service-oriented attitude. 'In the facilities management arena, it's all about service delivery, communication skills,' says McMullen. 'It's a very different style of working than construction.'

Defining the brand

The Workroom identified the core values that drive the business as teamwork, responsibility, enterprising and heart. The 'brand essence' - the company's raison d'être - was identified as 'Freedom to Perform'. Meanwhile the end benefit that the brand delivers to its clients is reflected in the strapline We work. You excel. which appears on all client-facing material.

The strapline acts as a 'brand promise' to clients. In practice, the idea is that Balfour Beatty WorkPlace is a catalyst for its clients' success. Its ability to relieve clients of the 'noncore' aspects of the business affords that business the opportunity to excel.

McMullen describes the 'Freedom to Perform' brand essence as a 'call to action' to Balfour Beatty WorkPlace staff. It is an articulation of the fact that the company's presence should leave the client's employees free to perform their role to the best of their ability.

Intuitively this might seem like an obvious mission statement for a facilities management company. But it was the act of articulating such a brand essence that paved the way for employees to recognise the company's Mission Statement and act on it. By ensuring that the notion of 'Freedom to Perform' is at the heart of everything they do, Balfour Beatty WorkPlace staff are encouraged to consider themselves as more than a receptionist or a maintenance worker. They are expected to go out of their way to facilitate the smooth running of their client's business.

The brand essence also extends to the staff themselves, in the sense that Balfour Beatty WorkPlace allows them the freedom to perform as well.

'We encourage people to go above and beyond their responsibilities,' explains O'Neill, giving the example of a Balfour Beatty WorkPlace employee who was a school janitor in Scotland. 'He noticed there were some fairly plain flowerbeds outside the school. He asked for £30 to plant some flowers in the flowerbeds.' The result? A more attractive environment, positive comments from the parents and increased respect of the school grounds from pupils. Balfour Beatty WorkPlace allowed its employee the freedom to perform and in turn he afforded the school - the client - the same opportunity.

Along with a clearly articulated brand strategy and a new name, The Workroom created a Tone of Voice guide and a new visual identity, to allow the Balfour Beatty WorkPlace brand to 'flex its individuality while ensuring the company's alignment to the Balfour Beatty Group'.

'Tone of voice is instrumental in understanding what the personality of the business is like,' explains McMullen, who said that previous material was riddled with jargon and very dry. 'We were trying to get them speak in normal English and give them a spirit in the way they talk. If done well, it's something that people can learn to do better.'

Balfour Beatty WorkPlace's tone was established as 'confident', reflected in precise and assertive language; 'bright', achieved by getting to the point and using simple terms; 'open' as a reminder to remain accessible; and 'committed', which requires emphasising the positive outcomes and benefits of the company's work.

The guide advises cutting out unnecessary words, avoiding clichéd metaphors, and reading the text aloud to ensure it sounds credible. It also encourages the use of 'we' over 'Balfour Beatty WorkPlace'.

But the need for precision and clarity does not preclude the company's personality from shining through. A clever extension of the duality found in the We work. You excel. strapline allows Balfour Beatty WorkPlace materials to incorporate wit and word play. Headlines include Less energy. More delivery. for Royal Mail, Ideal conditions. Critical care. for the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Sound investment. Pitch perfect. for Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, where the company provides mechanical and electrical maintenance, ensuring perfect live broadcasting conditions.

The brand's new visual identity crafted by The Workroom incorporates silhouette drawings of more than 650 tools, workers and environments, to reflect the breadth of Balfour Beatty WorkPlace's services. While the corporate colour palette consists of shades of blue, the secondary colour palette contains a rainbow of colours to give life to communication materials and ensure that its brand stands out among other facilities management companies.

The Workroom also created a toolkit of design templates to enable flexibility of design while ensuring the visual identity would be correctly portrayed on tender documents and communication materials. 'We held a series of workshops,' explains O'Neill. 'Brigid and her team created a suite of materials that had the strength of the brand behind it. One thing I was insistent on was that we didn't restrict ourselves. You can play with [the design] and create all sorts of scenarios with the silhouettes.'

A dramatic turnaround

After the launch of the new brand at the end of 2008, Balfour Beatty WorkPlace smashed its two-year revenue objective in the first year. Its 2009 turnover of £580 million was a 41 per cent year-on-year increase - 20 per cent more than predicted, seeing the company well on its way to reaching the five-year target of a £1 billion turnover. By the end of 2009, the company saw a 33 per cent year-on-year rise in the average annual value of orders. The tender conversion rate increased from 25 to 33 per cent. By May 2010, it had reached 50 per cent.

Meanwhile, an independent annual survey recorded a seven percentage point rise in client satisfaction over 2009. This came after the survey recorded a two percentage point drop over 2007. The company also saw a 27 per cent drop in staff absenteeism rates and a 116 per cent rise in graduate applications. Balfour Beatty WorkPlace became the talk of the industry, with 14 unsolicited articles written about the company in early 2010 compared to two in the whole of 2008.

Balfour Beatty WorkPlace incurred no additional marketing costs in the rebranding process, and all design budget costs were recouped within the first four months after the rebrand. The design toolkits will also help to keep future design maintenance costs down.

All down to a rebrand?

All too often it seems that the latest 'rebranding' initiative involves little more than a new logo, a lick of paint, and a few column-inches' worth of hype - hardly something to turn around a business single-handedly.

But it all comes down to what is understood by a 'brand', and therefore what it really means to 'rebrand'. McMullen explains the notion of 'brand' as encompassing everything a company has to offer, both internally and externally, from its promise to its clients and its tone of communication, to its attitude towards its employees. A new logo or visual identity is, if anything, the final step in a complex process.

'A rebrand is so much more than a visual communication,' says O'Neill. 'As a tool it's done a huge amount for the company. It's meant increase in employee satisfaction. Giving people freedom to perform. People really bought into every element. They are pleased to be with working for us.'

So, is a rebrand worth the hype? Perhaps it depends whether or not there is potential to considerably improve the public's perception of the brand. A brand whose services are already well known and sought after, and whose strategy is well articulated, might not achieve much by a full strategic rebrand. Haden, on the other hand, had the ability to offer a wide range of services and had passionate employees, but suffered from underestimation of the scope of its services.

In such cases, it is clear from Balfour Beatty WorkPlace's results that a genuine rebrand, one which involves clear and considered repositioning of values and strategy, can indeed reverse the fortune of a brand.

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