Developing Corporate Culture and Raising Awareness of Company Values

Background

As part of its structural and strategic transformation, the management of a global pharmaceutical company set out to renew its corporate culture and redefine its core values. The Hungarian affiliate employs nearly 2,000 people across three locations in Budapest and other regions. The organization covers commercial, support, distribution, and manufacturing functions, resulting in a highly diverse workforce. Around 60–70% of employees work in production, making it particularly challenging to engage them in communication campaigns due to their operational constraints.

Objective

The goal of the communication campaign was to make the company’s core values tangible and relatable through concrete, everyday examples, rather than abstract concepts. We aimed to ensure that all employees, whether representing the company externally or working on the production line, could understand and experience these values. Achieving this requires a comprehensive, multi-channel internal communication campaign.

My Role and Implementation

I was responsible for the strategic planning of the campaign and for managing its full implementation. The first step involved inviting employees to nominate colleagues who exemplify a particular corporate value. By providing reasons for their nominations, participants were encouraged to reflect on the meaning of each value and its practical application, actively engaging them in the interpretation process. Employees receiving the highest number of nominations participated in professional photoshoots, resulting in large-format posters displayed in communal areas for several years. Simultaneously, we conducted interviews with the featured employees; short films compiled from these interviews became a key part of the campaign, further reinforcing the emotional impact of the messages.

Outcome

The project generated remarkable employee engagement: nearly 300 colleagues participated in submitting nominations, resulting in approximately 200 employees being recognized. The personal and appreciative testimonials provided genuine peer-to-peer recognition, often described by participants as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The campaign kept company values in active discussion for weeks, while the posters and films contributed to embedding these values into the corporate culture over the long term.