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Setting a global standard

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May 2025

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Setting a global standard

Not all companies can boast the diverse, global footprint of Tetra Pak. Employing over 24,000 people worldwide, the Swedish packaging specialist has 87 sales offices, 27 market companies and 51 production plants, with 6 R&D centres, 6 Customer Innovation Centres and 8 Training centres. From small city offices to vast manufacturing plants, sites have different cultures, languages and expectations, each with unique functions and requirements.

Assessing and understanding employee workplace experience across such a wide base also has its own unique challenges. “We chose Leesman as our survey provider to measure our workplace experience,” explains Declan McDonagh, the organisation’s Workplace Technology and Insights Manager.

“Our goal is to bring our workplaces up to a world class level, and we knew we needed world class data and analysis to support this – Leesman was the clear choice. Alongside our food and facilities partners, Sodexo and CBRE, we use the data insights to focus on specific areas to build a better global workplace together.”

Perhaps not surprisingly for such a large and innovative company, however, Tetra Pak uses Leesman for multiple purposes beyond building better workplaces. As well as measuring and improving employee experience, they use survey data to benchmark itself against other companies; to inform and measure collaborator performances; plan future workplace strategies; and even design workspaces.

Leesman data works hard at Tetra Pak.

Going global

Faced with such a large and diverse real estate portfolio, they initially planned to measure workplace experience through a series of smaller surveys, taking in 25% of sites and 25% of employees at a time. However, this piecemeal approach was not providing the depth of data required. “We just weren’t getting any standard of feedback where we could look at trends and decided to move to a global approach,” recalls McDonagh. “Going global meant that we could look at our investments, look at day-to-day improvements, but also look more long term. That is the value for us.”

Leesman supported this new global approach in various ways. For example, surveys are in multiple languages and the formulation of the survey means the questions work for all sites’ specific function or requirements.

“When we say global, we’re looking at all colleagues: in the office, on the factory floor, colleagues working from home, field service engineers; we’re a wide scope. We’ve also obviously got many countries and many languages, so there’s a bit challenge there,” explains McDonagh.

“The majority of our colleagues speak English, but it’s important to provide a local language where we can. A lot of colleagues also have to physically remove themselves from the actual workplace to do the survey. So, we challenged Leesman to give us this. We wanted to make sure that everyone felt like it was worth the time.”

Constantly improving

The first and most obvious use for Leeman survey data is, of course, understanding, assessing and ultimately improving employee workplace experience. For example, they are currently working with the facility managers to strengthen its food and drink offering which was identified as an area where it could further improve.

The Food and Drink Programme was established two years ago, to understand and improve the entire offering, from presentation, quality and the overall concept to the types of food served and even food waste. The programme is aligned with the global sustainable food ambition of facilities partner Sodexo and supported by their global food waste management initiative, WasteWatch. The scores are already ticking higher, confirms Mohannad Alharbi, Global Compliance and Quality Manager.

The survey offered valuable insights into opportunities for strengthening communication. While Tetra Pak has made significant progress in reducing its environmental footprint through sustainable buildings and services, the results showed that awareness of these efforts could be improved.

“Even though we’ve implemented many initiatives, not all employees were aware of them,” says Alharbi. “This gave us a great opportunity to increase communication and make sure our people know how we’re investing in sustainable solutions and renewable energy. We’re already seeing improvements.”

Benchmarking benefits

Tetra Pak also wants to benchmark, not just against fellow manufacturers but against all companies. “The global benchmark is really valuable,” acknowledges McDonagh.

Leesman has been surveying companies since 2010, giving it a comprehensive and unparalleled employee experience dataset; every workplace measured by Leesman is given a Leesman Index workplace experience score (Lmi), and companies can measure themselves against the two core Leesman+ benchmarks.

“We benchmark within the organisation” adds Alharbi. “But it’s good to have an external benchmark with the global Leesman+. It has shown us where we are worldwide. We can see where we are on the league table and can work out our targets.”

Our two categories recognise elite
workspaces that provide significantly better
experiences than employees have at home.

Leesman+ Excellent
– Lmi 70.0–79.9

Leesman+ Outstanding
– Lmi 80.0 or above

Stronger partnerships

Within the organisation, service providers Sodexo and CBRE are not called contractors – they are, first and foremost, collaborators. Adopting an open book approach – where collaborators are provided with as much relevant information as possible – key performance indicators (KPIs) are designed, agreed and then assessed in partnership.

Alharbi says that before the vested approach was adopted, everyone worked separately and so inevitably focuses would vary. Now, he says, “we work jointly to design the KPIs. We work together: it’s not contractors, or third parties, it’s collaborators. It’s a win-win situation.”

Line Caspers, Sodexo’s Global Strategic Account Director, comments: “The collaborative approach and use of Leesman indicators really helps us continue to develop our services to achieve the best experience for Tetra Pak employees.”

Indeed, this collaborative approach also works with Leesman. For example, there were areas they wanted to measure that were not included in the standard Leesman survey. So, we co-developed an additional module to attach to the survey, thereby ensuring that what Tetra Pak wanted to measure was captured.

Future proofing

Longer term, survey data is also being used to inform the company’s global workplace strategy through the Future Work Experience programme. Launched in 2021, Future Work Experience is an ambitious plan to deliver world-class, purpose-based workspaces. A large-scale, long-term project being rolled out gradually. Analysing survey data gives an understanding of individual workplace requirements and expectations during the design process – there is no one size fits all blueprint for a programme such as this.

McDonagh explains: “All workplaces are individual. It’s understanding how people at one location might work differently, or how their rest and relaxation time is different; designing that space for them.”

Survey data highlights local nuances, ranging from practical needs—like space for bulky coats and boots during winter in northern offices—to the more subtle, such as the long-standing tradition of table tennis at the Lagos, Nigeria site.

The data is also shared with other collaborators, including architects TP Bennett and services firm JLL, and used to track employee experience post refurbishment. “The Future Work Experience framework is a moving document. TP Bennett and JLL have access to survey data and can use it to shape the presentations they give to us. It brings it to life, right?” says McDonagh. “Our results are improving and in terms of completed workplaces we’re well above the Leesman+ on those.”


Takeaway

Understanding the employee experience of a large, disparate workforce, spread over multiple countries and based in often hugely different sites, comes with challenges. Language barriers, unique cultural attitudes, variety of activities performed, and differing expectations will all play a part.

Done right, it can generate an extraordinary depth and breadth of data that can be put to myriad uses, from strengthening day-to-day workplace experiences – wherever and whatever those workplaces may be – to informing long-term strategies and supporting critical partnerships.

After all, as Alharbi sums it up: “The main purpose of the survey is not just to understand where we are – it is where to improve.”