Developing talent through inspirational training since 2003

Organisation - R&G Herbs
Dean Fowler General Manager

As growers, packers and distributors, R&G is a long established market leader in sourcing and supplying a comprehensive range of fully accredited herbs and fresh ingredients to UK retail, foodservice and wholesale markets.

We identified a need to grow as our client base was expanding. Our senior management team had grown up with the family run business with little if any structured training on leadership and management. We needed to focus on how we were performing and behaving if we were going to sustain a successful growth plan and future for the business.

Identified Issues

• Individual Skills
• Cultural
• Whole Organisation

Intervention

• The R&G Leadership Academy programme
• The Management Academy 
• Business Coaching

Length of time of intervention
4 months per programme x 3 programmes
                     
Expressions Team Member(s)

• Paul Cook 
• Simon Thorpe

         
Delivered Content
Leadership Academy | Management Academy | Business Coaching

Leadership Academy:

The Internal Compass – Starting with self before leading others. 
Navigation – Clear direction for the business and articulating this so everyone understands and acts accordingly.
Followership – Gaining desirable followership and engagement from the team facilitate growth and necessary change with the business.
Leadership Approaches – Utilising different ways of driving performance within the diverse range of people within the business. 
Learning to adapt for the best response.
    
Rationale of Delivery
4 one day sessions delivered one day a month for 4 months.
This allowed learning and best implementation whilst working within the daily operational demands of the business

Management Academy:

Being the Manager – What are the requirements of a manager at R&G Herbs.
Time and Life Management – maximising on productivity, prioritising and controlling for effective working.
Effective Communication – Setting objectives, active listening and maximising on outcomes from how we communicate.
Motivation – Understanding our people to create the right environment for them to contribute, achieve and succeed. This means we succeed as a growing business.
Lead2Succeed – Adaptable leadership to enable our people to be the solution we need to grow and flourish.
Recruitment and Retention – Recruit the right R&G people to facilitate our business growth and maximise on our retention of talent reducing the cost of port recruitment and selection decisions.
Delegate to Accumulate – We need to relinquish some of the day to day operational tasks in order for us to grow and dedicate focus on other business issues.
Performance Management – The essence of effective management through constructive feedback to progress our people to be the best they can be for themselves and our business.

Rationale of Delivery
4 one day sessions delivered one day a month for 5-6 months. 
This allowed learning from trainer and other delegates the open programme sharing some best practise and gaining ideas from others. 
Using homework to implement back in the business to demonstrate practical usage.

Business Coaching:
Working with the Owner MD and the General Manager focusing on specific issues within the growing pains of the business.
A series of 2 hour sessions focusing on current and future situations with free phone coaching to enable a progressive journey through the growing pains
         
Benefits (quantifiable in achievement as well as cultural)

• Restructured the senior management team playing to people’s strengths
• Greater appreciation of the different roles and responsibilities each member of the team plays.
• Better team working with reduced irritations within the team
• Reduction in product waste of around 5%
• Aided the retention of key customers
• Beat financial targets over the past year
• Clear direction from the owner MD through Town Hall style meetings where everyone knows where the business is going and what needs to be done to sustain this new and improved business.

Results
So What ?

• New recruitment and induction procedures centred around the values and standards of Customer Delight.
• Pride and ownership amongst the whole team across all departments.
• Greater appreciation of what everyone does in the company and how each area contributes to the other.

Feedback:
"Expressions helped define our standards and designed an interactive and pragmatic programme so all our team could deliver our standards. Everyone is clear as to our expectations and they are proud to deliver them. Our customers are happy with what we do for them. We are using Expressions for other learning and development within our growing organisations I would whole heartedly recommend Expressions if you are serious about improving the performance within your organisation."

Dean Fowler
Date October 2014 - February 2016