INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
Greater participation
for personnel
Mützig 33-cl for Rwanda
3
3
t iti
Heineken ski piste
in Japan
1
Heineken
sponsors Shipwreck
Number 18
February 1989
Contents:
Murphy Brewery Ireland Limited launches Employee Participation Programme
Murphy Brewery Ireland Limited recently started an
employee participation programme. The programme's aim is to
ensure better dissemination of information from management to
employees and vica versa and to ensure better communication
throughout the Company as a whole. The ultimate goal is to set
up a participation forum which would involve all areas and inter
est groups within the company.
Steering Group
In mid-December the Mützig 33-centilitre bottle was intro
duced in Rwanda. This new pack form is an extension of the
range, as Mützig had already been available for some time in the
65-cl bottle. After
African country
small bottle. Müt-
which is 70% Hei-
i
\UttUW
Cameroun, Rwanda is the second
in which Mützig is on sale in the
zig is brewed locally by Bralirwa,
neken-owned.
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Bahamas
Water purification
Page
lekken Beer
Recently Australia has been a-bustle with all sorts of activities
relating to the Bicentennial, the celebration of the 200th anniver
sary of the country's discovery. Many of those activities dealt
with the history of the continent. One of them was 'Ship
wreck!', an exhibition which toured all of Australia's major
cities. At the beginning of March the exhibition will be held for
the final time in Sydney. Heineken Australia was one of the
sponsors of this exhibition which attracted big crowds of visi
tors.
International personnel magazine. Published six times a year in Dutch, English, Spanish and Italian by: Corporate Public Relations, Heineken N.V., P.O. Box, 28, 1000 AA Amsterdam. Tel. 020-70.22.68.
Since Heineken's acquisition of
Murphy's in 1983, the company has
undergone a remarkable transition
from what was essentially a tradi
tional brewery to a modern brewing
unit. This involved the installation
of new brewing equipment and tech
nology. These changes presented
new challenges to employees and
the results were dramatic. Heineken
lager has become the largest selling
lager in the Irish market. Murphy's
Irish Stout sales continue to grow on
the home market and.the U.K. mar
ket. Amstel beer recently launched
in Ireland continues to grow.
With such rapid change and devel
opment the need for better com
munication was identified as vital if
MBIL was going to cope with con
tinued growth. In February, 1988
Mr. Pat Savage of the Irish Produc
tivity Centre was asked to identify
methods of developing better com
munication. After consultations
employees, Mr. Savage presented a
report to all the interested parties:
management, unions and employees
in May 1988.
The report identified two major
steps which would ultimately lead to
the desired result. Firstly, communi
cations in the company needed to be
improved and secondly, greater
employee involvement was needed.
For those to be progressed, the need
for training at all levels within the
company was identified.
To improve communications
within the company, management
plans to introduce a new system of
Employee Communications. The
system will provide for regular
planned face to face communication
sessions between managers and
their work teams. The system will
be management-led and also incor
porates the use of an information
bulletin which will be issued to sup
plement the verbal communication
with a large cross section of process.
A core element of the employee
communications system will be the
dissemination and sharing of rele
vant departmental information. The
communications system will pro
vide for a genuine two-way inter
change of information.
A communications training pro
gramme is presently taking place to
support the successful introduction
and operation of the new communi
cations system.
Increasing the involvement of per
sonnel will be achieved by means of
a body which will be called the
MBIL Participation Forum. An in
terim Steering Group was set up to
draft the constitution and draw up
the terms of reference for the new
torum. The Steering Group received
external presentations from repre
sentatives of companies in Ireland
who had set up similar forums with
experience in this sphere. The work
of the Steering Committee is now
practically finished and its recom
mendations are with the interested
parties. It is hoped that the participa
tion forum will have its inaugural
meeting in early March, 1989, fol
lowing elections. Mr. F. van der
Minne, Managing Director, is
expected to chair the Forum in its
inaugural term.
The introduction of the new bottle
took place during a gala evening
attended by some 300 guests. They
included a big party representing the
major customers. A government
delegation, including several minis
ters, was also present.
The launch of the 33-cl bottle
gives added emphasis to the pre
mium character of Mützig in
Rwanda. Market research had
revealed that a promising market
exists in Rwanda for this pack form.
Sales in the first month after the
introduction were certainly promis
ing: a sales increase of 80% was
booked.
Peineken a
join forces
You have to imagine the snow for
yourself, but the Heineken Ski
Resort in Harajuku, a district in the
Tokyo city centre, offers everything
else that the skiing enthusiast could
ever want. The Heineken Ski Resort
consists of two bars, a central room
and a ski piste on which the skier has
the feeling that he is whizzing down
a snow-covered slope.
The piste is only 11.40 metres
long, 2.50 metres high and just over
six metres wide. The skier (natural
ly, wearing skis with the Heineken
logo!) makes the ski-ing motions
whilst a mechanism ensures that the
ski slope moves upwards at a speed
of 1.50 to 3 metres a second.
Japanese downhill racing skiers
have still got until 3 March to perfect
their technique on the Heineken
slope and alternate their sporting
activity with a bite to eat and a
drink.
The exhibition recounts the story
of Australia's discovery by display
ing objects recovered from wrecks
of Dutch and British ships which ran
aground and sank off the Australian
coast in the eighteenth century. The
visitor also gains an impression of
the methods used in exploring for,
preserving and protecting the items
recovered from the sunken ships.
As many objects were salvaged
from Dutch vessels, the exhibition
has a pronounced Dutch character.
Which was reason enough for Heine
ken Australia to offer a helping hand
to the organisers by providing drinks
during the official opening cere
monies of 'Shipwreck!' in the vari
ous cities.
To emphasise Heineken's Dutch ori
gins ladies in Dutch costumes served
Heineken beer during the reception
