Pop Vriend Seeds
60th Anniversary
Family company Pop Vriend Seeds, seed breeder of, for instance, spinach, beans and red beets, celebrated its sixtieth birthday in 2016. A milestone to be mindful of and to look ahead. On the one hand to celebrate the festive event extensively with the 75 employees and on the other hand to connect the festivities to a component regarding the content: the improvement of the mutual connection within the organisation and development of its culture.
A challenge, made for D&B Eventmarketing, because: the anniversary year can be a springboard for long term ambitions. The theme for the anniversary calendar was Pop Vriend Seeds 60 years: FEEL THE BEAT!
75 employees 1 anniversary trajectory 5 heartbeats 1 POP group
FEEL THE BEAT
Throughout the years, the company expanded. Of course, this can be understood in a positive way, however, the downside was that the original family values were no longer as self-evident as before and some were also in need of renewal. All the more reason to use the anniversary year to redefine the core values. Together with our internal branding specialist Nieske, the anniversary activities were also utilised as a boost for the culture. Sometimes during fun sessions, other times with a content focused ‘Heartbeats Survey’ amongst the employees in order to be able to take a baseline measurement at the start of the year. All with the ultimate goal: to breathe life into the core values in the minds and hearts of all employees.
CELEBRATION & DEEPENING
The anniversary calendar consisted of two elements: Celebration and Deepening. In order to celebrate the anniversary, there was a festive barbecue in a beach pavilion with fun activities, an anniversary breakfast, a pop-up restaurant in their own greenhouses,
Pop Vriend Seeds made a client film and to cap it all, the company hit the road for three days during the anniversary weekend where the values played an important part. The deepening was affected with a connecting HR trajectory including composing a so-called Pop Group; five people who served as sounding board within the organisation. At the end of the year, a concrete evaluation could take place with 0 and 1 measurements.