Europe Snacks: Taking engagement global

Who are Europe Snacks?

Europe Snacks is a leading food manufacturer renowned for creating affordable, innovative and healthier snack options. The organisation partners with customers across Europe and the UK, offering a wide range of crisps and snacks.

With more than 2,150 employees across nine factories in the UK, France and Spain, Europe Snacks is known for its innovative flavours, high-quality ingredients and much-loved brands, including Burts Crisps.

Its values of Entrepreneurship, Excellence and Care are central to how the business works. Europe Snacks is committed not only to producing quality products, but also to building a supportive, inclusive and high-performing workplace culture.

Working with People Insight has helped Europe Snacks turn that commitment into a structured employee listening programme. Through our employee survey platform, benchmarking, survey communications and expert support, Europe Snacks has been able to measure engagement, understand what employees are experiencing across different sites and take focused action to improve.

Building a Foundation

Our journey with Europe Snacks began with the UK division, where a formal employee survey programme was not in place before 2021. Despite a longstanding commitment to employee engagement, the company relied on informal check-ins rather than a structured engagement strategy.

For a growing manufacturing organisation with multiple sites, informal listening could only go so far. Europe Snacks needed a more consistent way to hear from employees, compare results, understand site-level differences and identify the actions that would make the biggest difference.

People Insight helped Europe Snacks build that foundation. The first step was to create a structured employee engagement survey programme that gave employees a clear voice and gave leaders reliable data to work from.

This provided Europe Snacks with a stronger evidence base for decision-making. Instead of relying only on anecdotal feedback, leaders could see where engagement was strongest, where support was needed and how employees felt across different areas of the business.

Recognising the importance of amplifying employee voices and fostering a culture of feedback, Europe Snacks embarked on the journey to establish a robust employee engagement programme from scratch.

Related: How PRS for Music created an incredible engagement strategy

A new approach

In search of a survey partner, Europe Snacks prioritised collaboration, understanding and flexibility.

With two large manufacturing facilities in the UK and plans for expansion, it was crucial to implement a structured listening strategy that could work across locations, languages and operational environments.

People Insight stood out as the ideal partner because of our commitment to understanding the business in detail, our experience supporting complex organisations and our ability to translate surveys into multiple languages.

Our benchmarking capabilities also gave Europe Snacks valuable context. As a company without previous survey data for comparison, Europe Snacks needed to understand not only its own results, but also how those results compared with the wider manufacturing industry.

This is one of the strengths of People Insight’s approach. The platform provides clear reporting and benchmarks, while our consultants help organisations interpret what the results mean and decide where to focus next.

For Europe Snacks, this meant employee listening became more than an annual measurement exercise. It became a practical way to strengthen engagement, build trust and support long-term business growth.

Setting the stage

In their inaugural survey with People Insight, Europe Snacks achieved a strong 55% response rate and an 81% engagement score, laying the groundwork for future surveys.

These results gave the business a valuable starting point. Leaders could understand how employees were feeling, identify strengths to protect and spot opportunities for improvement.

But the real power came from what happened next.

Following People Insight’s recommended best practice, Europe Snacks introduced an intentional pre-survey comms strategy ahead of the next survey. This included posters, countdown messages and a you said, we did campaign reminding employees of actions taken based on feedback from the first survey.

Europe Snacks also introduced “Coffee Sessions” with the new HR Director Cheryl Sharp and MD Rikin Lakhani. These sessions created space for face-to-face dialogue, helped build trust and prepared employees for the next survey.

This combination of survey communications, visible leadership and action-focused follow-up helped employees understand that the survey was not just a form to complete. It was a route to being heard.

People Insight supported this shift by helping Europe Snacks connect survey insight with action and communication. The goal was simple: make sure employees could see that their feedback mattered.

Surpassing expectations

In their second survey with People Insight, Europe Snacks saw remarkable improvements.

Following concerted efforts to boost pre-survey momentum and demonstrate the impact of action planning, the engagement score rose to 85%. Participation also increased significantly to 83%.

This was a strong signal that employees were becoming more willing to engage with the survey process. Higher participation suggested growing trust, while the improved engagement score showed that the actions taken after the first survey were beginning to land.

Europe Snacks also qualified for People Insight’s Outstanding Workplace Award, reserved for organisations that achieve standout engagement results.

The results show why action after a survey is so important. Employees are more likely to take part when they believe their feedback will lead somewhere. By communicating clearly, acting visibly and using survey results to guide decisions, Europe Snacks strengthened confidence in the process.

Building on the success of the partnership in the UK, Europe Snacks made the decision to expand its survey programme across the entire international group, including operations in France and Spain.

This was a bold next step. Launching a survey programme across multiple countries required careful planning, clear communication, translation support and a flexible platform that could capture both group-wide and local insight.

People Insight worked closely with Europe Snacks to design and implement the international survey programme, helping the organisation scale employee listening without losing local relevance.

Europe Snacks’ continental survey success

Europe Snacks’ third employee survey showcased the strength of its evolving employee listening programme.

Strong Group Participation

Despite expanding the survey programme across the entire Europe Snacks group, the organisation achieved an 81% group response rate. This showed strong employee willingness to participate and contribute to the company’s future.

The overall engagement score reached 79%, reflecting positive sentiment across the group and surpassing industry benchmarks.

For an international manufacturing organisation operating across several locations, this level of participation was especially meaningful. It showed that employees across different sites and countries were prepared to share their views when the process felt clear, accessible and worthwhile.

Targeted Stakeholder Insights

Launching a multinational programme required a tailored approach.

Different countries, sites and stakeholder groups had different needs. People Insight supported this by designing a complex survey that incorporated localised questions, while still giving Europe Snacks a consistent group-wide view.

This allowed the organisation to understand broad engagement trends while also identifying specific issues at a country and site level.

That balance is important for international employee surveys. Leaders need a clear overall picture, but managers also need local insight they can act on. People Insight’s platform helped Europe Snacks bring both together.

For manufacturing organisations, this type of insight is particularly valuable. It helps leaders understand the different experiences of office-based, operational and site-based teams, and supports more relevant local action.

Find out more about People Insight’s work with manufacturing organisations.

Consultancy Support

Europe Snacks maximised the impact of People Insight’s consultancy support by engaging our team for a comprehensive results presentation.

Created and delivered by People Insight, the presentation gave senior leaders a clear understanding of the survey results, key themes and priority areas for improvement. It also provided guidance on how to focus action planning and respond to workplace challenges.

This expert interpretation was vital. Survey data can show what employees are saying, but consultancy helps leaders understand what it means and what to do next.

People Insight helped Europe Snacks move from insight to action by translating results into practical recommendations. This supported better decision-making and helped leaders prioritise the areas most likely to improve engagement and employee experience.

Outstanding Performance in the UK

The UK division maintained exceptional standards, achieving an 88% engagement score.

This result earned Europe Snacks the Outstanding Workplace Award for two consecutive years, highlighting its sustained dedication to employee engagement and continuous improvement.

The UK result also showed the value of consistency. Europe Snacks did not treat employee listening as a one-off project. By surveying regularly, communicating progress and acting on feedback, the organisation built momentum year after year.

What’s next?

Looking ahead, one key aspect of Europe Snacks’ future plans is the continued evolution of its survey partnership with People Insight.

Annual surveys will remain important, but the organisation also plans to incorporate more frequent and targeted pulse surveys. This more agile approach will help Europe Snacks stay closer to employee sentiment, monitor emerging issues and respond more quickly.

Pulse surveys can be especially useful for large, multi-site organisations. They allow leaders to check progress between annual surveys, understand whether actions are landing and keep the employee listening loop active.

Europe Snacks also aims to integrate employee feedback into its broader organisational strategy. By aligning engagement initiatives with business objectives, the organisation can continue building a culture where employee voice is valued as a strategic asset.

People Insight will continue to support this journey through survey design, platform reporting, benchmarking, communications, Prism-supported insight and consultancy.

For Europe Snacks, the next stage is about making employee listening even more embedded, more responsive and more connected to business performance.

Get started today

Europe Snacks’ journey shows what can happen when employee listening is structured, supported and acted on.

Starting with no formal survey programme in the UK, Europe Snacks built a strong engagement foundation, increased participation, improved engagement and successfully expanded its listening strategy across Europe.

People Insight helped make that possible by combining an intuitive employee survey platform with expert service. Our team supported Europe Snacks with survey design, translations, benchmarking, communications, results interpretation and action-focused consultancy.

If your organisation is ready to build a more effective employee listening programme, People Insight can help you:

• launch an employee survey programme from scratch
• understand engagement across multiple sites or countries
• compare results with relevant benchmarks
• translate surveys for different employee groups
• improve survey communications and participation
• turn survey results into action
• use pulse surveys to track progress over time

Ready to embark on your own journey to workplace excellence? Reach out today and start your transformational journey like Europe Snacks did.

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