Comfort is Sweden’s largest confederation of plumbers. In spring 2011 their internal tracking showed that co-workers lacked a sense of pride in sharing the company name.

Taking pride in your work is probably the most important aspect of human resources. And pride comes from knowing that your job serves a purpose. But how do you boost pride among plumbers. It’s not like they save lives, like firemen. Or do they? Could they?

In fact, 4 000 people die in fires every year in the US. This is the same as the number of children that die every day from lack of safe water in the world. So it was clear that we had an unsung hero to make self-aware of their importance.

Comfort therefore initiated a project designed to secure safe water for the people who need it the most, and engaged SOS Children’s Villages to guide them there. The project included production of custom made mobile water cleaning systems, as well as working on-site in Benin, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Niger.

The Queen of Sweden highlighted the project as a role model at the annual World Child and Youth Forum. National radio, national and local press, business media and owned channels gave the project an external reach of 2.2 million – PR that was used to boost pride through internal channels.

Internal tracking showed 84 percent awareness for the project, 50 percent feeling of social responsibility, and increased pride in being part of Comfort by 14 percent. The project proved that external actions provide the best internal information.

As a direct result, six new companies were added to the franchise, resulting in five percent growth of the total turnover. The project was used as employer branding towards schools educating plumbers, which lead to a 300 percent increase in visits from young, future plumbers at the national construction- and water convention. This is important for the future since there is a lack of plumbers in Sweden. Franchise companies also got new business because of the publicity they received in media.

But most importantly, the custom made water purification in Benin gave 120 of the most vulnerable children access to clean water. In a personal letter to the CEO of Comfort, the national director of SOS Children’s Villages in Benin explained how the water purification had led to a significant decrease in water-borne diseases, in the end saving lives.