Continuous listening at Jumbo: How employee feedback fuels great customer experiences
Discover how Jumbo uses Effectory’s products and platform to stay closely connected with its employees across stores, logistics, and offices. By turning employee feedback into meaningful action, Jumbo has strengthened leadership, communication, development, collaboration, and workplace culture. Insights from Effectory’s platform help Jumbo leaders understand what matters most to employees and act on it to improve how teams work and grow.
Founded in 1921 as a family-owned wholesaler, Jumbo has grown into one of the largest supermarket chains in the Netherlands and Belgium. In 2021, the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary and was granted the honorary title “Koninklijke Jumbo Food Groep” (Royal Jumbo Food Group). Today, the group operates around 700 stores, half of which are franchises, and employs around 100,000 employees across its stores, logistics centers, e-fulfillment hubs, and offices. While most employees work in stores, Jumbo also has large supply chain and office teams supporting operations. The organization’s ambition is clear: to be the most beloved supermarket in the Netherlands and Belgium. And to achieve that, Jumbo believes the starting point is its employees.
As Jumbo continued to grow rapidly across the Netherlands and Belgium, staying connected with its employees became increasingly challenging. With tens of thousands of employees across stores, logistics centers and offices, and a mix of young store workers, supply chain staff, and head office teams, the organization needed a consistent way to understand how employees experience their work.
In a highly competitive retail market, engagement plays a major role in keeping teams motivated and customers satisfied. Jumbo’s own analysis confirmed a direct link between employee engagement and customer satisfaction:
“We’ve proven there’s a direct correlation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction,” said Hedwig Klarenbeek, Compensation & Benefits Manager. “When we put our employees first, we put our customers first.”
Back in 2021-2023, Jumbo already conducted surveys to gather feedback from its employees. While these provided valuable insights, the process was complex and not always easy to translate into clear actions at team level. The HR team wanted to make feedback moments more focused, structured, and meaningful, balancing regular listening with enough time to act on the results.
At the same time, Jumbo recognized that numbers alone wouldn’t create change. Real improvement depended on combining survey results with open team discussions.
“We ask everyone to speak up by completing a survey in order to be able to improve every day,” said Klarenbeek. “But it’s not just a survey. It’s always in combination with having the direct conversation with your employees.”
This focus on meaningful listening set the stage for Jumbo’s collaboration with Effectory, creating a structured way to collect, share, and act on feedback across every part of the organization.
In 2025, Jumbo implemented Employee Engagement Surveys at scale, covering recurring themes like collaboration, leadership, communication, and development opportunities — topics that remain consistent each year to track progress over time.
“We try to limit changes in the questionnaire as much as possible in order to track changes over time,” said Hedwig Klarenbeek, Compensation & Benefits Manager.
Alongside the Engagement Survey, they also measure eNPS, asking employees whether they would recommend Jumbo as an employer.
The partnership with Effectory focused on three key areas:
Central insights for HR and leadership
The survey results provide a clear overview of employee sentiment across the organization, allowing the HR team and leadership to identify patterns and address organization-wide themes.
Practical tools for managers
To help managers turn results into action, Jumbo uses Effectory’s dashboards, management summaries, and presentations alongside its own toolkit named “Samen aan de slag” (“Let’s get to work”). These help teams choose key focus areas, set improvement goals, and plan concrete next steps together.
“The dashboard is really appreciated by our employees,” added HR Analyst Rowy Derks. “It’s the go-to place to start the follow-up.”
Embedding feedback in Jumbo’s culture
Jumbo has built a strong communication process around its surveys. Each survey is introduced with video messages from HR leadership and clear instructions for managers, supported by internal campaigns with screensavers, WhatsApp messages, and SMS reminders to encourage participation. According to Rowy Derks, the SMS reminders alone have led to a significant increase in the response rate:
“Around 83% of our workforce is employed in our stores, many of them young part-time employees with different communication preferences. That’s why we chose to send SMS reminders. The SMS reminders alone increased employee response rates by 10%.”
Jumbo also ensures that all communication and reports reflect its own brand, from the visuals to the language used, so that employees feel connected to the process.
“We find it important to have a Jumbo look and feel, Jumbo wording,” said Klarenbeek. “It helps create the feeling we want to stand for.”
Through this partnership with Effectory, Jumbo has created a survey process that fits seamlessly into its culture, combining data with dialogue to keep employees engaged and heard.
With Effectory, Jumbo has built a structured approach to listening, one that makes every feedback moment meaningful and actionable. The survey results give the organization a clear overview of what employees think and feel, helping leaders act on key topics (collaboration, leadership, development, and communication).
The surveys are central to keeping employees engaged and, in turn, delivering the great customer experience Jumbo is known for.
The surveys also help identify patterns that shape business results. Jumbo’s analysis shows a link between higher engagement, stronger customer satisfaction, and lower turnover, reinforcing the value of listening across all levels of the organization.
By addressing central topics and supporting managers with practical tools and data, Jumbo has created a culture where feedback directly informs action. The Samen aan de slag toolkit and Effectory dashboards help managers and teams translate survey results into concrete improvements that employees can see and feel.
Looking ahead, Jumbo sees HR analytics evolving even further:
“AI will help managers deal with situations they face on the floor,” said Klarenbeek. “Imagine asking an AI agent about illness trends in your team and getting advice on what to do next. Engagement Surveys are part of that integrated data approach.”
While keeping an eye on future developments, Jumbo remains focused on listening in a way that keeps employees engaged and heard, using surveys not as one-off exercises, but as meaningful moments of dialogue across the organization.
