People Director Daniela Büchel one: Dr Büchel, Step up wants nothing less than to further develop REWE Group's culture of cooperation and leadership. More specifically, it's about how we want to work together in future, how we want to lead. Why are we embarking on such a major endeavour right now? What is the need behind it?
Daniela Büchel: There are several reasons why we are launching Step up now. Let me just make one thing clear in advance: The REWE Group culture is already unique today, before Step Up, and has carried us through past crises such as corona in particular. Firstly, through our cooperative principle, which makes us strong. And this, together with our other Business Areas, whether Discount, DIY store or Travel and Tourism, forms an unmistakable Group that acts for each other in all its diversity. To ensure that this remains the case in the future, however, we as an organisation must have a clear picture of how we want to work together throughout REWE Group. And this is where Step up comes into play.

one: You mentioned several reasons that make cultural development necessary...
Daniela Büchel: Yes! For one thing, there are our ambitious goals: We want to be number one for our customers, we want to be pioneers when it comes to Sustainability and innovations in retail and Travel and Tourism. We can only achieve these goals by working together. On the other hand, our environment presents us with a variety of challenges. Just think of the market development due to corona, the war in Ukraine and Israel or the changes in the labour market..

one: ...keyword "labour shortage"...
Daniela Büchel: Of course, we are also feeling the effects of this labour shortage. In order to find employees and retain them in the long term, we need to be an attractive, distinctive and credible employer. We also need a high degree of flexibility and adaptability for the future in order to achieve consistently good or even better results. This applies to both the goals we mentioned at the beginning and employee satisfaction.

„With Step up, we are focussing on personal responsibility, strengths orientation and dealing with mistakes.“Daniela Büchelone: With Step up, we now want to further develop our way of working together and leading. What does that mean in concrete terms?
Daniela Büchel: It means that we are focussing above all on personal responsibility, a focus on strengths and dealing with mistakes. And this is only possible with employees and senior managers who are willing to take on or hand over responsibility. In other words, with colleagues who show initiative and have the courage to try new things. Of course, this requires a certain willingness to change on the part of all those who follow this path.

one: You often only find solutions after you've made mistakes or ended up in a few dead ends.
Daniela Büchel: Of course, mistakes can - and do - happen. The important thing is that working through these mistakes is not about pointing the finger at the "guilty parties". Instead, our aim is to create a culture in which we learn together from these mistakes or dead ends.

„How we work together, how we empower people - that is what characterises us.“Daniela Büchelone: What kind of culture does it take to learn from mistakes together?
Daniela Büchel: The basis for this is talking to each other and trusting in each other's expertise - both our own and that of others. And a very important element of this is giving and receiving feedback. It helps us to focus even more on our strengths and give employees the opportunity to utilise their strengths in the right place. Because how we work together, how we empower people, whether they are employees or senior managers, whether professionally or in their personal development: that is what characterises us as a good and attractive employer.

one: What specific cultural changes can employees expect as part of Step up?
Daniela Büchel: We are currently initiating a lot, but of course we know that change takes time to become firmly established in an organisation. We are therefore currently working on four different initiatives. Firstly, there is Lead up, our Group-wide management programme for management level 3. This is important to us because senior managers have a role model role in such a cultural change process and we expect them not only to support the changes, but also to help drive them forward. We want to support them in this with Lead up.

Secondly, we are expanding the existing feedback tools and in 2024 we will increasingly remind people of the benefits of continuous feedback. And thirdly, with GO! Group Opportunities, we are promoting the Group-wide internal labour market, which we use to make the diverse career opportunities within REWE Group transparent and to simplify and promote internal job changes.

one: What is the fourth initiative?
Daniela Büchel: This is the one we are implementing first: We have revised the career and succession process (KNP) for administration in order to make the process more individual and flexible and to give employees and senior managers the opportunity for continuous dialogue. To put it simply: unlike the "old" KNP dialogue, the new process called STEPs - which stands for strength-oriented development planning - means that employees and senior managers no longer look back so much, but instead look forward together. And employees can look forward to the fact that the annual appraisal will be more closely aligned with the topics that are relevant to each individual, with a clearer focus on the respective strengths and their further development in future. In addition, the rather rigid framework of the annual appraisal does not have to remain the same. We invite employees and senior managers to provide regular and ongoing feedback.

one: And to what extent does this new process contribute to the topic of change?
Daniela Büchel: Possible development paths are discussed in STEPs and recorded in the talent pool. This internal talent pool is then used to look for potential candidates, who in turn are made aware of these positions. Internal transfers should then be simplified. For us, this clearly means that we want to develop employees who are ready for change for the Group and thus retain them and deploy them in the right positions. In turn, we want to retain employees who are happy in their jobs by offering them development opportunities for their respective positions.
„We have so many great jobs and so many attractive internal prospects at REWE Group. We want to showcase this.“Daniela Büchelone: Speaking of the Group-wide internal labour market: Step Up encompasses the entire Group in Switzerland and abroad. Is this intended to bring the company closer together?
Daniela Büchel: A resounding Ja!. Step up is our orientation framework and our clear commitment to how we want to work together and manage across sales divisions. And an initiative like GO! with the Talent Pool was created to promote and simplify internal job changes. We have so many great and interesting jobs in the Group, there are so many attractive internal prospects. As REWE Group, we want to showcase this and become more transparent.

one: Let's take a look into the crystal ball and look five years ahead. Where do we stand? What has changed?
Daniela Büchel: The world is so dynamic, it is constantly changing. In five years' time, there will certainly be further challenges that we can't yet foresee. But that is precisely why we are laying the foundations today with Step up, so that we don't see the constant changes as a threat, but as an opportunity.

In five years, we have become much more flexible and further increased our adaptability. Employees' and senior managers' initiative and willingness to change have increased. Room for manoeuvre is being used. With the REWE culture, we have created an even more attractive environment for our employees and are a very popular employer on the market.

one: To conclude, what are you personally looking forward to most about the launch of Step up?
Daniela Büchel: That it's starting now! We on the Management Board have been working on this topic for quite some time and now it's finally becoming visible to everyone. And every one of us is in demand. Step up also encourages me to reflect again and again on how we work together as a Management Board and how our leadership style shapes the way the Group works together. I am excited and looking forward to it.