Vicinity Centres, Bakers Delight and Curve Group receive highly commended for Best Learning Programme at the AITD Awards 2017

This recognition for Vicinity Centres follows the results of the ‘Everyday Leaders’ Programme significantly improving senior leadership skills with 92% agreeing that the programme has impacted their own leadership impact.

Following the merger, Vicinity Centres went through a period of transition and saw an opportunity to align people leaders on the new business vision ‘Making Things Better, Easier and More Enjoyable’. The ‘Everyday Leaders’ Programme was specifically designed to create a new mindset amongst the top 300 leaders of the business and gain momentum around the idea that small things, done well and consistently, that have a big impact on engagement and performance.

In close partnership with Curve Group, they designed a highly immersive, experiential programme to equip the leaders to successfully drive the transformation of the business. Over six months ‘Everyday Leaders’ comprised of peer coaching sessions, eLearning modules, a People Leader Portal, face-to-face workshops, anchored by the launch and graduation ceremonies.  

At the beginning of 2016 Bakers Delight recognised that the maintain competitive advantage in an ever-increasing pressured environment of supermarkets and artisan bakeries, it needed to delight and deliver on it’s brand promise and create a new customer experience.  A new learning & development program for frontline sale and service staff was launched to lift awareness of delivering great customer service, dealing with complaints and personalising each customer moment.

The ingredients of ‘The Delight Factor’ included participants joining a high energy workshop to play and get theatrical about why delighting customers matters. These jam-packed sessions were complimented by seven eLearning modules, a “Delight-o-meter” self-assessment, a bakery kit, product knowledge playbook. The programme has significantly improved front line staff development within Bakers Delight with XX% increase in confidence and capability. As a result of the programme, during the six-week period leading up to Easter 1,243,480 more hot cross buns were sold than the same period when compared to 2016.  These resulted in a 11.7% sales increase, driven by a 12 cent increase in the average spend per customer. An outstanding impact on overall business performance.

“Today as I walked through Centro Albury I was approached by a very lovely staff member of Bakers Delight, Nicola, telling me today they were doing random acts of kindness. She offered me a bag with hot cross buns. I was blown away! I asked her what for and she politely told me because they wanted to do something for people in the community. This is the nicest thing I have had happen to me in a very long time and I am so very grateful. My family has been having a bit of a rough time lately and this has given me such a boost. This act of kindness has exceeded anything I have experienced in retail.” – Customer, shortly after implementation of the programme.

Follow the night on Twitter @CurveGroup1

Follow us on LinkedIn