How Flybuys Profited with Data-Driven Change Management

Business transformation is a defining moment for any organisation, and Flybuys, one of Australia’s most-loved rewards programs, embraced it as an opportunity to evolve. The re-organisation was about cementing Flybuys’ identity as a high-performing, independent business anchored in a Member-first strategy. Following a demerger in 2018 and a strategic reorganisation in 2024, Flybuys set out to unify its vision, strengthen culture, and accelerate delivery.

With 10 million active members, Flybuys has become a dependable life hack for part of value-seeking Australians’ lives, creating more value for members with rewards points at retailers like Coles, Bunnings, Kmart, and more. Founded in 1994, they are dedicated to providing simple, meaningful, and relevant experiences for their customers.

As Flybuys evolved through rapid growth and a new business operating model, the organisation encountered the natural complexities that come with expansion. Rapid growth created silos, blurred accountability, and slowed decision-making - challenging Flybuys’ ability to deliver at speed. Teams developed unique approaches and priorities, presenting opportunities to strengthen alignment and collaboration across the business.

“When I joined Flybuys, I saw a business with enormous potential across several teams. Unifying that potential into a single vision has been an exciting part of the journey." – Anna Lee, CEO, Flybuys

By 2022, with Anna Lee’s arrival as CEO, Flybuys embraced the opportunity to unify its vision. The leadership team, referred to as the “Leadership Collective”, including the ELT (Executive Leadership Team), SLT (Senior Leadership Team), and People Experience team, saw the transformation as a shared responsibility. Together, they led a data-informed journey to strengthen engagement and build momentum.

Challenge: Balancing rapid growth with strategic clarity

When headcount increases, organisational culture can easily be outgrown, and this was becoming true for Flybuys, which had quickly grown from roughly 80 team members to over 350 after the formalisation of their joint venture with Coles Group and Wesfarmers in 2018. While engagement had long been measured, the pace of change revealed new opportunities to deepen insight and unify direction.

“There was confusion about who was making decisions and misalignment across stakeholders.” – Sarah Ross, People Experience Business Partner, Flybuys

The Leadership Collective identified three key areas to address:

Team structures needed to evolve

• Functional teams had developed their own priorities, which didn’t always align with shared goals
• Subcultures emerged, making cross-team collaboration more complex
• Cross-functional teams were therefore structured to ensure aligned priorities

Strategic identity needed clarity

• Team members had varied perceptions of Flybuys’ autonomy and direction
• Connecting daily work to broader business goals was inconsistent
• Targeted and clear communication about Flybuys' strategy and priorities was undertaken

Adapting to new ways of working

Along with organisational consolidation, Flybuys introduced an Agile approach across the enterprise. The challenge wasn’t adapting - it was unlocking the full potential of Agile to improve collaboration and delivery.

• The new method of operations, along with new roles, workloads, and teammates, introduced uncertainty and some resistance among team members
• Misalignment across stakeholders created confusion about where to place accountability
• An array of priorities and beliefs about their role in the ecosystem made it hard to agree on a singular vision for the future

These interconnected challenges meant that operational or structural change alone wouldn’t be enough to unite the company around a shared direction. The Leadership Collective needed insight into how people were experiencing transformation across teams and levels, so they turned to Culture Amp to power the surveys that would help guide their data-driven change management approach.

Approach: Embracing change with real-time feedback

The company’s operations and vision were transforming. The Leadership Collective wanted to make sure that during this massive transition, Team members’ voices were centred and change management could happen in real time.

A new survey strategy

The Leadership Collective got straight to work with Culture Amp, designing a feedback approach that would meet the moment. Rather than traditional annual surveys, they implemented three check-in surveys over six months, with a pulse survey between the second and third. These Likert-style surveys focused on how people were actually processing the changes rather than rote engagement metrics, and included statements such as:

• I understand my role in the new operating model
• The reasons for this change have been communicated clearly and effectively
• The Leaders at Flybuys have communicated a vision that motivates me
• Agile ways of working are positively impacting my role

"These were short, targeted, and designed to capture real-time feedback. We encouraged verbatim comments and used the insights to take immediate action." – Sarah Ross, People Experience Business Partner, Flybuys

Gradual implementation and targeted support

The new survey cadence was only one part of a broader, foundational change management strategy. Rather than jump feet first into the new operating rhythms, Agile working style, and metrics – branded internally as “Orbits” – Anna and the team introduced a three-month “amnesty period” to ease the transition and improve the effectiveness of the transition into Orbits. The check-in surveys, along with Culture Amp’s Goal Module, provided a clear view of sentiment trends and helped track progress across the organisation.

Together, these initiatives provided Anna and the team with the timely insights they needed for a successful transformation rollout without introducing too much too fast. They were able to pinpoint where the changes were taking hold and where they would need to focus additional efforts.

Solution: Driving accountability from the top down

While the surveys served to ease the transition into the new Orbits that helped shape teams’ day-to-day, they also revealed a stark disconnect between leadership and employee experience of the shifts. Engagement evolved from a People Experience initiative to a leadership imperative, embedded across every team. Survey data revealed a stark disconnect: 98% of ELT and SLT expressed positive sentiment and clarity on the new strategic direction, compared to just 56% among team members. Something was getting lost in translation, and something had to change.

“Once you get the data, people can't run away. I was not going to give anyone any room to hide and blame someone else." – Anna Lee, CEO, Flybuys

From individual to collective ownership

The Leadership Collective recognised that engagement couldn’t sit with one function alone, it needed to be embedded across the business. Initially, engagement had been largely driven by the PEX team, but the data showed that this responsibility couldn’t sit with only one function.

The solution was a shared accountability model across their Leadership Collective. Together, they became collectively responsible for driving initiatives across the business and would all own their respective team’s engagement.

Some of those initiatives included:

• Appointing their GM of Strategy to be the OKR business owner who oversees engagement metrics and check-in survey results
• Using Culture Amp’s heatmaps to pinpoint exactly which departments were struggling with engagement and hold the right leaders accountable for improving it
• Supporting leaders with communication training and scripts to deliver consistent messaging about organisational direction
• Mandatory metric tracking and feedback implementation across leadership
• Restructuring monthly leadership meetings to reinforce strategy, review performance, and define top-down messaging

With this new approach to engagement and strategic alignment, engagement became an element of leadership, not just a metric to track. The data showed Anna and the Leadership team exactly where communication gaps existed, and now they had the accountability structure to address them systematically.

Results: Turning feedback into tangible change

The new approach to engagement and accountability took hold. The frequent check-in surveys, renewed ownership, and heightened accessibility were initiatives driven by data – and the data showed they were working.

"This responsiveness helped rebuild trust. People felt heard, and they saw their feedback being acted on. Real-time feedback wasn’t just a metric - it became a trust-building mechanism that turned uncertainty into confidence" – Anoush Hoekman, General Manager, People Experience, Flybuys

Flybuys has moved from turnaround to growth - stabilised, reset, and ready to accelerate.

Engagement Strengthened

Most companies take a significant hit to engagement post reorganisation. But with a strong foundation of change management, Flybuys experienced the opposite. Before the restructuring, engagement sat at 59%.

It grew to:

• 61% after two check-in surveys, five months after restructuring
• 76% after three check-ins and one pulse survey, eleven months after restructuring

Not only did engagement improve across the business, but there were significant strides on individual teams as well. One team initially reported only 22% positive sentiment toward the organisational changes in August 2024. By February 2025, this had rocketed to 60%.

Change management propelled financial success

The new approach to both culture and operations was the combination Flybuys needed to cement their business strength after the transformation. They achieved their first profitable month in December 2024 and continued to exceed financial targets as time progressed.

Beyond operational wins, Flybuys also focused on elevating the member experience. And they were delivering on business initiatives that had been stuck for years:

• Significant progress in addressing member friction points to uplift the member journey experience
• The Flybuys App launched in only three months, after years of stalled progress
• A new data platform was implemented, expanding internal capacity that had only ever been discussed
• A 1:1 communications platform rolled out across the business
• The Service Centre tech stack was brought in house and upgraded with new AI capabilities

With cross-functional teamwork and vision, clear progress was being made.

"We don't want lightning in a bottle. We want sustained success and great outcomes consistently." – Anna Lee, CEO, Flybuys

Using data and systems to harness the momentum

Flybuys set up a data-driven system that could keep up with the momentum their transformation was building. That meant they could build on success rather than catch up from a deficit caused by the restructuring. They rolled out more tools from Culture Amp to support their ongoing objectives:

• Goals to help define, track, and align employee goals to organisational ones
• Performance to keep the transparent feedback loop open
• 1:1 modules to continue to spotlight employee voices

With this foundation, decisions are anchored by real employee feedback. Data highlights what’s actually working and what isn’t, while new accountability measures ensure that data turns into action.

For organisations facing their own transformation challenges, the lesson is clear: intentional change management, robust feedback, and defined accountability can turn potential chaos into measurable momentum that lasts. These outcomes reflect Flybuys’ commitment to making regular remarkable, delivering meaningful value to customers and team members alike.

Want to learn how real-time feedback and data-driven accountability can support your team? Get in touch to learn how Culture Amp can help.