Below and Beyond: Creating a communication infrastructure to elevate engagement at Compass Minerals and DeepStore
Our advice for Compass Minerals provided strategic, yet practical solutions to strengthen cultural alignment between its two businesses – Compass Minerals Salt Mining and DeepStore. Our recommendations were designed to enhance the communication infrastructure and create the foundation for a more engaged and team-oriented workplace. Our suggestions for increased leadership visibility, structured recognition and elevated employee voice will position the business for long-term success and improvement.
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About Compass Minerals and DeepStore
Nestled 150 metres beneath the Cheshire countryside, Compass Minerals has been the UK's leading supplier of rock salt since 1844. This unique and complex operation, owned by a US parent company, is home to almost 200 employees who work across two interconnected businesses: Salt Mining and DeepStore. With offices above ground in the North West and London including a logistics hub, key operations take place beneath the surface, creating a distinct working environment unlike any other.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock salt is extracted from the mine, ready to be distributed across the country and used on icy road surfaces. The chambers left behind by mining activities, house commercial storage and retrieval business, DeepStore – where many of the nation’s documents and artifacts are kept.
The background
While the culture at Compass is friendly and embraces collaboration, there was an opportunity for us to forge deeper connections between DeepStore and Compass, to enhance communication and engagement across the organisation. After seeing some recent leadership changes and adjustments to their recognition process, the team needed our help to refresh their approach.
Digging for insights
We started with a communication audit to understand Compass Minerals’ existing processes and channels and to assess current levels of employee engagement. This included an onsite visit to the mine, a communication workshop with the Senior Leadership Team and HR, one-to-ones with the senior leadership team, plus focus groups with representatives from both DeepStore and Compass Minerals at all levels. This helped us to understand what the future drumbeat of communication and meeting cadence should look like and to develop a purposeful overarching narrative.
Shaping leadership visibility
Recognising the strong impact leadership has on culture and engagement, our recommendations included ways to enhance leadership visibility. Our approach focused on creating meaningful two-way feedback between leaders and their teams, as well as creating ways for leaders to collaborate more closely with one another; this included revitalising the Senior Leadership meetings.
We created guidance for leaders and people managers, helping them to understand their role in communication and engagement and providing them with best practice ways to communicate, also offering ways to identify those who needed more support to make sure everyone would have access to the training and tools they needed.
Creating a unified culture
Building on the organisation's desire to collaborate, our recommendations pinpointed areas to strengthen the relationship between Salt Mining and DeepStore operations. We celebrated the unique heritage of both businesses while creating opportunities for the two to interact with one another.
Recognition was a key focus, and we crafted an approach to celebrate success, from the specialised underground mining operations to the precise requirements of document storage. The aim was to make recognition more frequent and values-based, helping employees feel valued whether they were managing winter gritting demands or preserving priceless artifacts.
Exploring ways to enhance the employee experience was key, including creating more touchpoints for teams to share their stories and achievements, improving existing channels and colleague rest areas. Memorable moment ideas were recommended to increase social communication, encourage collaboration and build stronger connections across the business.
Tuning in to progress
Putting in place effective measurement metrics is vital to understand the impact of our recommendations and to ensure continuous improvement. Therefore, we recommended a blend of quantitative and qualitative approaches to capture the full picture of how communications were landing across both operations, maximising the use of anonymous feedback tools combined with anecdotal evidence to provide a richer understanding of sentiment and to capture the effectiveness of our suggested initiatives.
Setting the foundation for lasting success
Compass Minerals’ Head of HR was thrilled with our final recommendations, sharing:
"I just wanted to say how genuinely pleased we are with the professional, attentive and practical advice you all have given us. We so appreciate the effort that has gone into our communication project over the last few months. Thank you for your patience and your undivided attention. You are all clearly professionals in this area, and I’m so grateful to have found you and worked with you.”
The Enthuse difference
We build the complete foundation for effective internal communication, transforming how organisations connect with their people - from strategy through to sustained success. What sets us apart is our commitment to building lasting communication capability.
We don't just deliver tactical solutions that look good but lack substance. Instead, we work with you to create strategic frameworks, develop clear narratives, and implement sustainable processes that enable genuine connection between organisations and their people.
We believe everyone deserves to love their job and enjoy being at work. By transforming workplace communication, we help create environments where enthusiasm thrives and success follows.
Want to learn how we can support your organisation? Contact Andrea on 07812 343310 or at hello@enthuse-comms.co.uk.