Stories for Work

Chapter 13 Australia Post Case Study

Australia Post is a self-funded government business with approximately 36 000 employees nationwide. Their core business still involves the service of letters and parcels, but the organisation now also offers retail merchandise in a network of over 4000 post offices, along with financial services such as bill payment and banking.

Technology has fundamentally changed how we live our lives, and this has had a flow-on effect in the postal service, with more customers shopping online and the number of mail transactions declining. As customers’ expectations evolve, so too must Australia Post.

The challenge

Australia Post has always had a strong sense of servicing its customers. In 2015 they wanted to refocus their existing emphasis on customers and introduce new shared values (shared across Australia Post and Startrack) and a new brand campaign.

Lauren Trethowan, Head of Enterprise Culture, established an engagement program to help everyone understand and connect with the new values. In her previous roles at PwC, Lauren had experienced many large-scale organisational changes with varying degrees of success. So she had an idea of what worked and didn’t work; however, this was bigger than anything she had managed before.

The opportunity

The change program was called the ‘Grapevine’. The grapevine (introduced in chapter 8) is the hidden, often unacknowledged network that exists at the crux of any organisation. Every employee is part of it, whether ...