Safeway
2006
Safeway Executive Case Study
National Winner 2002 National Training Awards
Flying Pizzas
Safeway had been trailing the other big supermarkets and was struggling to compete on the same terms as giants such as Asda (Wal-mart) and Tesco. The company needed to radically alter its strategy and compete on its own terms.
The company chose the St Katherine's Dock store near Tower Bridge in East London for a major refit and to pioneer Safeway's new fresh food format, Fresh to Go. It combines the creative elements of fresh food catering in a retail environment with tasty offerings such as hot noodles, pasta made to order, sandwiches and fresh pizza.
To ensure the success of the concept, store staff needed the skills and confidence to throw pizzas, juggle fruit, toss the noodles and wow the customers. Quite simply they had to bring the "theatre" of the store to life. New chief executive Carlos Criado-Perez calls it retailtainment.
Culture Change
Maynard Leigh Associates was commissioned to help with the culture change. Our mission was to free the staff from the operational restrictions and personal inhibitions constraining their behaviour within a traditional British supermarket. We set out to help people be bold, different and have the confidence to shine as individuals. The overall aim was for staff not to take their personality off when they put their uniform on.
Safeway decided to use our STAR service programme, which is a two-day workshop normally delivered to small groups of 12 people. It combines a series of energising activities with learning to: See the customer, take responsibility for the customer, take Action and build a Relationship with the customer.
We tailored the STAR service programme to the store's particular needs. Training included team building and coaching for the 25 members of the store management team, a one-day Star workshop for 30 members of the Fresh to Go team and five-hour Star workshops for the remaining 120 staff in groups of eight. There were also Dress Rehearsals with coaching and feedback on dry runs for the Fresh To Go Team.
The managers' commitment to the training showed in their support at all training events. If they were prepared to 'shake out', sing and occasionally make fools of themselves, in the spirit of fun and enjoyment, then so could everyone else.
Results
Safeway's National Store Training Manager, Sue Scoula Davison, sums up the impact as "fantastic and way beyond our expectations." External customer measures from independent market research agency Simpson Carpenter reported customer satisfaction in the store rose dramatically from 44% in the summer of 2000, to 90% in the early part of 2001. The average score for similar stores in East London was 54%. Sales have grown from strength to strength with Fresh To Go moving from £21k per week when the store re-opened to over £34k per week and rising.
Yet these macro figures hide the reality behind the store's transformation. Cultural change needs to be viewed from micro end of the telescope, where people's actual behaviour occurs. When developers succeed in affecting these they really do start to make a difference.
Particular difficulties arose for example, during the delivery of the programme. Amongst the challenges were language and cultural barriers reflecting the ethnic diversity of the store and local community. These were handled carefully and in an informed way. One individual, Habib, who was to work on the fresh pizza counter was very reserved during the early stages of the programme. He found it hard to participate. For him a typical branding exercise, for instance, would have surely landed with a dull thud.
With one-to-one coaching and encouragement, Habib became one of the most flamboyant members of the Fresh to Go Team. In Sue's words "the programme triggered a significant cultural shift. It generated a genuine team spirit, a common language and shared understanding of service expectations."
There has been singing and dancing in the aisles, promotional chants, bell ringing to draw attention to pizza tossing, Italian opera singing and much more spontaneous fun generated by individuals who had previously behaved in a traditional, restrained manner."If that isn't cultural change then tell us what is!"
Safeway asked Maynard Leigh to train a dedicated team of 20 Star trainers taking the "Spirit of St Katherine's Dock" into other refit stores such as Wimbledon, Woking and Fulham.
"We continue to work in partnership with Maynard Leigh Associates," says Sue "using their skilled trainers to train and coach our team of trainers. This ensures the underlying principles of the programme are maintained and the energetic and spontaneous nature of the delivery is sustained and with conviction."
