Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people.
They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop, and equip their leaders.
One company that Chapman & Co. has a long relationship with is Meijer, a midwestern chain of grocery stores that currently has about 270 stores with 70,000 team members.
On this podcast, Barry Kirk, one of Chapman & Co.’s partners, has an indepth conversation with Dave Lopez and Josh Barber of Meijer. They talk about why Meijer began working with Chapman & Co. and share some of the results, as well as how they are trying to sustain those results. They also talk about a fascinating aspect of training that incorporates gamification. But most importantly, they share how they were able to let their leaders be leaders.
Transcript
Barry Kirk:
Well, Dave and Josh, welcome to the podcast today. We're really excited to have this conversation with you, talking about Truly Human Leadership and specifically Truly Human Service and what that means at Meijer. Maybe we can just start with you guys giving a little bit of introduction, who you are, what you do at Meijer, how long you've been there. Just let us go. Maybe Dave, go first and give us a little background.
Dave Lopez:
Sure. Sure, Barry. So, Dave Lopez, I manage our store operations training team within our operations side of our business. So, anything within our stores, it goes to my team, and we make sure that they have the tools and resources. I've been with Meijer for 36 years, so Josh may seem like I'm the old man of the group, but I've seen some really good things through Meijer and through the times I've had. So, it’s been a fun journey.
Barry:
And Josh?
Josh Barber:
Cool. Yeah, my name's Josh Barber. Excited to be here with you guys. Been with Meijer for 16 years. First 10 of those years were all part of stores and then the last six years have been part of our operations team. So, we've got the pleasure of being part of our customer experience team and our team handles kind of all things rolling out to stores for interactions with customers as well as anything and everything on the front end of the business. So, check out registers, service desk, things like that.
Barry:
So, you're the guys that basically make sure things happen at Meijer and keep happening, I guess. Right?
David:
We are a few of those people, yes. you a few of that.
Josh:
Luckily we have some friends with us, yes.
Barry:
I'm guessing that a lot of the listeners today have heard of Meijer or are very likely Meijer customers, but for the folks who maybe aren't as familiar, what would you tell us about Meijer? How long has it been around? What does the brand mean? What would you share with us about the organization?
Dave:
Sure, sure. I'll jump in first. So, Meijer got its start in 1934 in Greenville. So, the story is pretty unique, right? Hendrick Meijer was a barber in Greenville, came over as a Dutch immigrant, and since he had some space below his barbershop, he decided to try to open a small grocery store for the folks in Greenville. Did this on about $300 worth of credit at the time, was successful. And as the story goes, right, we are to where we're at now. He opened his first supercenter in 1962 in Grand Rapids, which had both general merchandise and groceries, which was unique at the time to have a one-stop shop place for everything. And since then, right, Fred, his son was involved in the business at 14. Now his sons are involved in the business and Meijer is across six states in the Midwest. Was raised in Michigan, so anybody in Michigan knows of Meijer, that's their hometown store. We all have our hometown stores, but we are in six states in the Midwest, right? Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin. We have about 270 stores currently and about 70,000 employees. So, it's a fun company to be with, a family-owned business. And yeah, I think anybody who jumps into Meijer knows of who they are. The one-stop shop, knows that the prices are good for them, that the quality of products are going to be really good. So, it's been a really good, fun company and to see that journey of how we evolved to where we are is kind of a really neat story.
Barry:
And since both of you guys have been at Meijer a long time, Dave, you a really long time it sounds like, what would you say is the culture at Meijer? We talked about, because obviously we have an interest at Chapman & Co., as you do, in leadership, but we know leadership exists within the culture and helps drive the culture of a company. If you had to describe that to somebody who's maybe a customer who knows it as a customer but doesn't really know what it's like inside, maybe Josh, I'll throw that to you initially. How would you describe the culture of Meijer?
Josh:
Yeah, that's a really good question. Meijer is proud and stands proud on their values and the values that they have. They established them many years ago and have been flexible kind of with the changing times and adding values, right, as needed as things came up. So, our core values of just taking care of familiness, freshness, things like that where there's opportunity to focus on the team members as well as the communities and the customers, all with a driving force of enriching lives in the communities. That's like ultimately what Meijer wants to do with business. And I think one of the coolest things I'm proud of is Meijer is one of those companies I'm proud to say I work for them because they stand by those values. They stand by that commitment to the community. They're not just out there to simply make a profit and simply grow and how many stores can we get to and how fast it's all about that like what are we truly doing to help the communities that we're in and how can we establish good partnerships with those communities to help that business thrive and help both sides, right. So, help it from the customer perspective as well as from the business side.
Barry:
Yeah. And Dave, what would you add to that, to the experience of the culture there? Yeah,
Dave:
Yeah, I think everything that Josh said, but I think another piece that really intrigued me in my 36 years with the business is just the familiness, right. I think the tight-knit family that in all of our states, Josh and I can go to any store and we know the store directors, we know their names, we've seen them, we've interacted with them. So it's not like you're walking into a store of strangers within your environment. You know the people. And I think that's a really cool thing about it. We get to know everybody. As big as we are in six states, we still get engaged with them and they understand who we are, how we can help each other and the sort. So, I think that that culture of familiness, along with what Josh said of being impacting our communities has been really cool for me to see. And I think for us, for me coming to work every day, right, knowing that there has really made my job fun.
Barry:
Yeah, I think as somebody who's directly partnered with both of you in the last few years on leadership work, I'm always amazed by that commitment that you have as an organization to serving the community and being part of it. And it kind of makes sense because the team members that are part of Meijer are also the community. They're not separate from that community. And remind me again, I think you might've mentioned, but how many team members do you have across all your stores?
Dave:
I believe it’s about 70,000, give or take.
Barry:
70,000. That's a lot of team members living within a culture. I'm curious what you might be willing to share about what are sometimes the challenges of that, though, particularly so you're in a niche part of retail, you're in grocery. Maybe some people would look and say you're also a big box store in some ways. I know that'd be interesting to see how you might describe that, but I'm assuming while you've got amazing team members that the space you're in also comes with some challenges of engagement of that team. What might you be able to share with us about just some of the challenges that you face that probably led to some of the Truly Human Leader work and the Truly Human Service work that we'll talk about today?
Dave:
Yeah, I'll go ahead and start. I think some of the challenges we see, right, with anything in retail is retail's a very fast paced business. We've been in it for many years from ourselves, but both of us working in stores and now in our roles, we have seen how fast paced it is. And it's times where things get hectic, right? Things don't always go the way we want them to go. Things have hiccups in the road. Anytime as we look at dealing with customers, there's always some difficult situations we get put in, whether it's because we don't have a product, whether because we don't have the pricing isn't correct or whatever it may be. And I think those are some of the challenges that we have, as well as making sure we have all the product in the floor, right. Our stores are big, we have a grocery side, we have a GM side, we have a front end service side.
So, receiving the product from the back of the store, making sure it gets to the floor for our customers and then that they get out with the products that they need through our checkouts and off to their home. So, I think that is always a big task to saying, how do I do my task as well as helping the customers, which isn't always easy to do with the folks we have in our stores or, you know, with the amount of customers we have. So, I think that is some of our big challenges is we have to make sure that we can do all of these things cohesively, which again, might not always happen, but how do we do all of these things cohesively to make sure our customers get what they need and can get in and out of our stores.
Barry:
So that sense that Josh, that the role that a team member has of getting their work done and serving and sort of greeting the customer, seeing the customer actually can feel like their intention with one another? I only have time for one of those. I've got to pick one.
Josh:
Absolutely. Yeah, that's a major challenge for sure of just trying to, it's the balancing act, right? Balancing act between I got to get all this work done and be nice and be even beyond nice, be more welcoming and actually keep that conversation going, keep the customer interest coming back in. That's a huge challenge that we face with what Dave was just talking about. About fast pace, environment, things change fast. There's lots of things, tasks that we have to complete, and it's easy many times to ignore or forget about the customer to just focus on the task, right?
Barry:
And what would you say is the goal that you have for what you want customers to expect when they walk into a Meijer store? What's that experience that you're trying to articulate to the team member that you hope they have the capacity to deliver?
Josh:
Yeah, we've had some conversations back and forth on like how to show that in the right way and how to explain that in a way that resonates with a team member, and you go down the path of familiness, that we already have the family culture dynamic within the store for team member to team member interaction. And how do you extend that warm welcome of a family, welcome into the store, but without being too awkward or too strange or weird, right? Because not every customer wants to have an interaction or wants to have a drawn out conversation. And sometimes it's more of just understanding and reading the room, right? That type of mentality of figuring out you've got to change your greeting for each customer that you have and trying to have those conversations and get the team member to think that they can be themselves, they can be who they truly are and interact in a way that's genuine versus a script versus this is the way you've got to say hi to everyone and ask 'em about coupons every time. But it's more just genuine. Bring your authentic self that way.
Barry:
Yeah, I think that's that notion of I talk about, which is performative customer service, where it's obvious that the person is reciting a script. And I have to say as somebody who is, I'm one of those people that likes to put in my AirPods on and walk through the store uninterrupted, unmolested, whatever the word is, right? That's fine, but I might want to chitchat at checkout. So being able to understand what that customer needs and wants and letting the team member sort of live into that authentically sounds like a really important approach and part of what you do. Let's really quickly, let's divert just for a second. We've been talking about your team members, but when you think about the customers, what are the challenges that you face, though, in an environment where the operation of a store is happening constantly in front of the customer. You're operating, doing work? What are those challenges that team members face beyond just the attention of, do I have time for it? Are there other things that are maybe more human or interpersonal that you felt like, hey, at some point we've got to get better at this, or we want to be really good at this. What were the kinds of things that you were seeing that said there might be a need for an additional level of leadership development here in Meijer? Dave, maybe I'll ask you to take that one.
Dave:
Yeah, I think with that question, Barry, I think it is for us, one was having that same level of service, right. throughout our store. To your point, right, our customers come in, they all have different needs. We want to make sure that we are genuine with how we interact with them. I don't think in the old world we saw that entirely, which is why we had to adjust our service culture because I think one of the things is as we talk about, right, and you think of service, my head goes to every store is the front end. That's our service area where I check out with the cashier, as you mentioned, I have a conversation and I get out the door with the goods I wanted and paid for, right? To me, that was where I think service stood. So, for us is how do we have that experience for our customer to be very similar throughout the entire footprint of our store?
And sometimes that never happened, right?. I might get said hi to when I walk in, you go do your thing, don't talk to anybody. You see our team members head down, our leaders head down, right, and then you get your stuff and you exit. So there was never a think for us, a fully well-rounded program to make sure our leaders, now did we teach it? Yes, we taught some things in our leadership development that both Josh and I have probably gone through, but did we really see that engagement? And I think that was one of our struggles is right, how do we make sure that this customer feels comfortable in our stores, kind of our house, right, as a guest, and that they get exactly the treatment we'd want them to have. So, I think that was one of our struggles we saw.
Barry:
Well, let's talk for a minute about that leadership journey, because the focus that you've taken in the last few years to really own customer service as a brand was really preceeded by quite a few years where the focus was more internally on leadership development. So, can you talk a little bit about that? Since both of you were part of that experience as leaders at Meijer, experienced that, what was that about for the company? What did you see as leaders growing your careers at Meijer? What has that Truly Human Leadership journey been about for Meijer and how have you seen that grow over time within the organization?
Dave:
Sure. I'll start and then I'll let Josh add in here. So, for us, through our leadership journey and through what we've done with our leadership programs, Truly Human Leadership, we really were looking at how do we allow our leaders to be leaders. When I worked in the store as a leader, I was an actual leader and a doer of, you know we always had our task we had to do. So, how do we give those folks the tools to be leaders and to make sure that they treat their teams with dignity and respect, right, and allow them to take care of those in their span of care as they go through that, right, and make sure that, hey, everybody's taking care of, they have what they need. So, that was the journey we started years back with this program and make sure that our folks had those skills, those tools.
We've even seen it within our DE&I programs of how do we allow folks to be their authentic selves through this program of how do we lead, right? You kind of mentioned it earlier, right, that authentic conversation that I could have with you as a team member, as a leader in our store. So, I think that is one of the components we looked at. And, you know, I will tell you, when we looked at a service program, did I go to the leadership side of this? No. We were looking outside of the box and then, kind of, as I think maybe in conversations with you looked at how do we make this an additional link to this program? How do we keep building on this? That just impacts everything. So, that's kind of the journey we've seen, right? It's not like we didn't have things, but I think we had to change our culture to make sure we're taking care of our teams, allowing them to, you know, have the tools and resources they need, but us as leaders, being able to lead in the right manner to make sure our teams are successful and our stores and everything.
Barry:
Yeah. Dave, I really hear you saying it's both having the tools to lead but also being given the space to.
Dave:
Correct.
Barry:
Josh, how's that experience been for you as a leader within Meijer? I know we could just sort of talk about the leadership program, but I think it'd be more interesting just to hear what the experience was like for you as a leader.
Josh:
Yeah, absolutely. As Dave was talking, that's exactly what I was thinking through, right? So, I wasn't part of the group or wasn't part of the team that had the discussions of what needs to change, why do we need to change? So, I don't know so many of those reasons, but I was in stores at the time and got the teaching piece and kind of was able to take this on my own and then help expand it and then run with it, right? And with that really empowerment, I felt like it was a lot of empowerment coming from a company direction, almost, of the idea of it's important that you keep the business afloat, that you take care of your department, your products, your area, your customer, but it's almost as important if not more important that you take care of your team first and you understand what your team is going through.
And you understand, as Dave mentioned, those within your span of care. They're not just employees that are doing a job for you, but they're really part of your team and you're responsible for their success, ultimately. You're not just responsible for them clocking in and clocking out at the right times and putting product up on the shelf, but you're responsible for their success in the organization, minimal success of, yes, getting product up on the shelf as quickly as possible, but also career growth, career opportunities, giving them stretch assignments where they can kind of step in and show their own creativity and worth that they might have that they can help bring to the organization, the team, your team and then the rest of the store, right? So, I felt like that Truly Human Leadership journey that we went on, the different classes, was all about really putting the ownership back in each individual as a human being and reframing the mindset of let's take care of those within your span of care and help them grow and develop and then allow them to kind of blossom from there, right?
Barry:
And Josh, both of you have mentioned that phrase a few times, span of care, which is sort of the replacement for I'm a manager with people reporting to me. If you had to explain how span of care is different than that, how does that show up differently for you as a leader or how you think about the team that you're … have in your span of care?
Josh:
I think one thing that's cool for me is it was a really strange phrase at the beginning. People weren't used to hearing that, and you would have some leaders that would say that, some leaders that would just say my team or my employees. But now it's almost the same thing as saying hello, right? People have gotten used to using it, and it's part of that larger culture now. And again, it just ties back to that it's a change in mindset once you think of the employees that work for you on paper, their employees or whatever, but when you think of them as your job is they're part of your span of care and you're in charge of their development and growth, it helps you reset how you're interacting with them and then you're treating them differently, as Dave said with that dignity and respect. You're treating them with a direct conversation of, tell me what's going on, tell me why you thought about it this way, and let's see how we can get to a common ground understanding of what's going on.
Barry:
Yeah, it's pretty amazing how it's really a three word phrase can completely reframe how you think about a thing that you thought you understand really well. I know Bob Chapman often says that we for a long time in business throw around, and many companies still do, the word manager, and yet nobody wants to be managed. Nobody comes in saying, please manage me. We don't want it as leaders and we know team don't want it. So, I love that sense of span of care and how you've developed that at Meijer. So, there was a point, I know in this journey where you started to think, well you know, team members are in our span of care, but absolutely there's another group in our span of care, which is our customers. And so there was a new focus of your Truly Human Leadership program, which went to Truly Human Service, and that was really a focus on engaging your team members around Truly Human Service toward the customer. Dave, can you give us some sense of what were you initially hoping to accomplish from that? What were the goals? You said, hey, if we do this well, this is what we're going to see on the other side that maybe we might be seeing some of today, but we want to see more of that. What was the objective of that?
Dave:
Yeah, I think, Barry, as we looked at this, and I mentioned a little bit earlier, right? Our current service model was I would say a little stale, right? It was making sure we're saying hi and we're greeting, right? It was a standard customer service. And I think as we looked at this approach was how do we take care of not only our own teams, but our customers better, right? What do we need to do better as they're in our stores? And that was our mindset and our frame of mind, right? And as I mentioned earlier, it wasn't just through the front end, it was through the entire store. How do we get this culture built throughout the entire store that no matter if I'm walking in the door or if I'm toys or I'm grocery, right, I have access to that same customer experience and should be getting that.
So, I think that was one of the components because, you know, the customers are our business, right? And I think, you know, we always talk about Fred's quote, right? Customers don't need us, we need them, right? And as we look at that, right, that is so true. And so how do we take care of them when they're in our store and how do we treat them with the dignity and the need that they needed to? And we knew Josh and I as we went through this, this was not going to be an easy lift. I mean, I never thought it would be a culture. We actually kind of figured it'd be a program to get us going in a direction. So, for us to see that as how do we take care of our customers, right, they're human beings, they have needs. How do we take care of those needs when they're in our store?
And if we can't get that exact need, what can we do to satisfy what they need so that they can continue to shop at us? As I mentioned earlier, every customer has their Meijer store, I have Meijer store, Josh has his Meijer store. You hear it out in the field, this is my Meijer, you know. And they have a pride as customers that they're coming into that store and they expect that to be to their level of expectations. So, we as stores have to make sure that we provide that for 'em. So I think that was one of the biggest things that we do is it wasn't just for our teams. How do we give them just another program? It was how do we make this a culture that we continue to build on from when we launched it in 2023? So, that was one of our thinkings as we rebranded and relaunched this.
Barry:
And it's interesting in retrospect, it probably seems pretty just a given. Like of course, that's how we interact with customers. But I'm sure at the beginning of this, it seemed like a tall order. We've got to get team members who are really focused on their work, who might reasonably think it's somebody else's job, the front of the store's job to give customer service to suddenly say no, everybody's customer-facing. And it might mean that you've got to step away from that task at hand that you still have to get done, by the way, so that you can have this human interaction, even if it's just for a few seconds with a customer because they're in our span of care. So, I want to pivot now to the solution that I know that we helped you with that we put in place, which was a little bit of an unusual solution.
I think you recognized there was a need to get in front of all of these team members to help them see their role differently, to help them understand their relationship to the customers maybe in a new way. But there was I think maybe some discussion that traditional training that maybe senior level members of the organization might be okay with, just was not going to fly with frontline store workers or leaders who were both leaders and doers as Dave, you said you were at one point. And the solution was essentially a gamified version of training, maybe gamified is the right word because it was literally a board game concept at the beginning that we talked about. Frankly, I would say early on in our work with you, we were sort of surprised that you guys were willing to go there because not every organization's going to say yes to that. What was your thought initially about, yeah, that makes total sense. We should do a gamified version of training. That's the answer here, versus something that might've been a little more predictable. And maybe where you actually sold on at the beginning, or was it a pretty big leap of faith?
Dave:
That's a good point right there. I'm not sure I was even sold on a game board game, you know, for our leaders because, you know, as we look at this, right, we want to make sure that whatever we do from a training is impactful and sticks. So, when you, I think you guys brought up, hey, let's try a game board, and our minds were thinking fun, and I know Josh and I, you know, love to have games and stuff like that, but from a leader's perspective, it was kind of, are they really going to like this or are they going to think it's maybe corny, right? I think that was. And so I will tell you, I was not sold at the beginning, but we also knew coming out of Covid, right? We were coming out of Covid for a couple of years. We have done so many things virtually with our leaders, right? So, they become kind of numb to some of those trainings as you have to sit and learn and what's the best way, as we talked with you guys of doing this, making sure that we can have those great conversations and stuff was try to do something in person.
And so we gave it a shot with the game board, right, And I will with everybody, I think we were surprised when we tested it out with our regional vice presidents and market directors, I think at our corporate offices, right, of just us standing back looking and seeing the engagement and the discussion they had within that training and, you know, how they become competitive. I will tell you, our teams are competitive. So, to not lose by not having enough points. So, it was in the end, I think it was a great way to do this, and, you know, feedback from our leaders at the end of our trainings and when we completed them in 2023 and early 2024 was really good feedback of what we did. So, not sold at first, but glad we went down this route because I think the discussion that we generated with just real-life things made the impact I think, of how this really was able to get taken back to their stores and taken down to their team.
Barry:
What about you, Josh? Did you realize how genius the idea was from the beginning or did you have to be sold on it as well?
Josh:
I was definitely not sold at the very beginning game idea with adults, right? Instantly you're like, yep, nope. That's going to be corny, especially in a business setting. You think about those strange icebreakers and team building kind of like exercises that you do to try to build some of that camaraderie. That was where my brain went first. But Barry, I got to give you a little bit of credit, a lot of credit for myself, I should say. What clicked for me was in one of the very first sessions that Dave brought me into with the team, and we were just having the initial discussions like of what are we thinking this next thing is? We didn't even have Truly Human Service, like even the title figured out. And we were just like, hey, Chapman & Co. are coming to the office. Let's get together. Let's have a conversation. And Barry, you kind of had a presentation where you shared some different things, asked for different feedback from different folks, and I think you already had the board game idea planned for us to kind of put together and build our own board game type style.
But what you said that resonated was from our childhood, what are things that we remember the most? And it was the crazy games we made up as kids, right? And I think you even asked the rooms, what rules do you guys remember? And people had crazy rules that they remembered from when they were 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, right? And like that stuff sticks with you, but you don't remember all the things you sat in a college lecture or even a commencement speech, graduated from high school or something like that. You don't remember all those things that those individuals said. And those were profound individuals with like great learning, and I'm sure it was fantastic like information that you got out of that and probably helped you for the first couple of years, but you don't remember it after several. But the game rules you do from when you were five years old, right? And so to me that was like, oh this can work. It can stick because you remember those things.
Barry:
Yeah, I really appreciate that you recall that, Josh, because the question is really what games did you play when you were seven or eight years old? And I'm sure people listening right now are already, they have the answer in their head. It doesn't take anything to recall it. That's how powerful those are. You know, I think we were sold on the idea for two reasons. One, there is some pretty compelling research that says in the training environment, gamified training has a much higher retention rate of the information because it's just more engaging, it's way more interactive, it's less transmit. The other thing that I think we knew that was specific to your environment is that every minute somebody spends off the floor in training is costing the business. It's not just the cost of training itself, but the time away for productivity. So, where in another business you might be able to say, oh yeah, we're going to put people in four-hour training or all-day training. You had a need to train a significant percentage of your team members in an hour, an hour and a half at most, right? Do you think that helped the short time limit that the gamified version of it fit that well?
Dave:
Yeah, I think it did. I think to your point, right, we had about 6,000 leaders, if I remember offhand, we had to get through in a very short period of time, right, with retail business, right, you have maybe a small window before holidays pop in and, you know, our stores get busy. So yeah, I think we had to think with you guys and I think through some conversations helped us to get to a point of what makes the most impact. So, for us, you know, I think we did have to think through this, right? Of how do we get the masses completed very quickly and make sure that they are getting the information to take back to the stores on this program. And so, you know, I think, yeah, we talked this through, and you sold us on it, but I think that was one of our criticals, right? I think this was our only way to do this with having market trainers out in the field, which we had lots of those as we trained about 80 market trainers that were out on our roads training this program to our leaders. And that was one of our ways we could really connect and do multiple sessions daily for a time period and get all these leaders through. So, yeah, it did make sense once we started seeing it and some of the content that we could provide into this and making sure that our teams had what they need in this short timeframe.
Barry:
And you'd mentioned Dave, that the game, which was really, it was a board game, but it was also a scenario-based game. So, we gave them scenarios and said, you've learned Truly Human principles. How does that apply to solving this customer or team member challenge? And so, it was really letting the leaders interact with each other to try to solve it, but through the lens of Truly Human Leadership. But you mentioned that the first group that went through was your regional vice presidents and market leaders. What was the thought behind that? Because somebody else might say, well, let's just take it straight to the frontline leaders in the stores here who are supposed to be trained. And yet here we are with a room full of regional vice presidents who were literally the first people in front of the board games, rolling the dice, going through the scenarios. Why was that an important step in this process for Meijer?
Dave:
So, for us, it was important that we started in that level, which we don't always do. You're right. We probably go break to the stores with something, right, and then work our way backwards. How we wanted to do this differently because we knew of how big it was and the impact it could have with our stores and our customers and our teams was really start with those folks there at the regional and the market levels to really gain one, their support on this and give them the tools to then to be able to coach down as we went through the different levels, right, so they could start sharing this information prior to some of their leaders going through the training. And then once they went through the training, right, now they have a layer of support above them to continue to push down our structure, our methods that we wanted to really build off of this.
And then it just kind of trickled down from there, right? So, we went with our regional folks, our market directors, what we call 'em. We then went with all our store leadership as our next group, and then our last group that we launched was our team members with a e-learning module. But it made sense, right? Because we start here, we set the culture, set the tone, and then we trickle it down. So, by the time it gets down to our team members, they're already hearing about this, right? They're hopefully seeing it within their leaders of how things are changing, how they're engaging with our customers. And it just made sense that way for us to do that. And I think we saw very good value in doing that that way with some of the things that Josh mentioned we saw with metrics and things just changing within that short three to four month period very quickly than if we would've done it differently.
Barry:
Yeah, I agree. I thought it was so important as we work through it, as we work more closely toward the frontline workers to be able to say that your leader above you, the leaders regionally have all been through this experience and so they validated it. And the other thing we know is that we actually improved the experience along the way too as we saw them interact and what we might need to fix, which Josh brings me to a question. I want to ask Dave in a second what results you have seen from this. But we did make changes along the way, we did make improvements on the fly sometimes. Somebody else who might be considering this as an approach for their leadership journey. Are there other, anything you might call it say, well, it didn't always run as smoothly as we might've thought from the beginning or any lessons learned that you'd say, yeah, if we were going to go back and do it again, maybe now we kind of know this about it. Or maybe it was a perfect journey the entire way and there were no mistakes at all. What would you say about that?
Josh:
That's a really good question. I hadn't thought about it that way. I think for me, first listening a little bit to what Dave was talking about and starting with the regional and market group, something that, honestly I was nervous kind of starting out with that group, almost like a pilot scenario and the excitement that was in that room playing the board game, getting competitive, bouncing back and forth, as well as the lack of checking phones and making phone calls and things like that. Like it was like, wow, they're engaged. And so, then it transitioned into answering your second question there of like all right, how it was almost more how can we keep this excitement going? And I think what I would do different is some sort of check-in with our regional and market trainers that we set up to keep the excitement going and some more checks and balances with the overall feeling of how the training was getting disseminated out to the masses, we'll call it.
We kind of brought all the market traders into the corporate office, had a full day session with them. First, ran 'em through the game scenario so they could understand it, and then gave them the tips and tools of how they can facilitate and kind of lead that class. I think something that I would have loved to do, which we just didn't have the time or the resources to do it but is a little bit more check and balance with that group, right? Follow back up with them. We had a couple spots where we got some feedback and it was always the same five to six leaders that were willing to share and would talk about it and give us tips on change this, this doesn't make sense, why is it written this way or whatever. But we had, what, Dave, 50 I feel like, right? Like market trainers and we only heard from like, you know, 10% of them. So, I would love to get some more of that feedback and be in person to the more of the sessions to hear how it's going just to ensure that the same excitement is kind of happening in each of the different sessions.
Barry:
Yeah, that's a great point. And also, I think the other thing might be, the gamified training itself can be such a peak experience that you then have to say, well, what comes after that as well? So, can you keep that going consistently across as you roll it out across a large organization? And after that, what do you do, right? And that's some of the other work that we've done, which is how do you sustain that, is really important. But part of that is also saying is it actually having impact? So, it's one thing to say that people went through a training experience and had a good time and enjoyed it. You hope they remember it, but almost certainly you were looking at more long-term metrics or more business-focused metrics. Dave, can you share anything about that at all of what you looked at or what results have you seen that make you feel like, yeah, that actually moved the needle for us?
Dave:
Yeah, there were some metrics that we looked at as a company, right? As us as a leadership team on the service side of the business because, ultimately, we see those metrics that come in from our customers, right? And, you know, just overall, how did the store do? I think it's a couple of metrics we saw just from the training. If I step back, Barry, for the training piece, right? This was the highest ever attended and enrolled training we've had at Meijer, in our company, which was very cool to see because I think there was an itch one to get out to the field again and do some in-person training. But I also think that they were very engaged to, Josh said, of everything we saw and phones down and discussions and everything. And I think that was really cool of how we really saw what we were nervous about, really take a hold in that.
So, that was one of the things we thought was really cool, just from a training piece of how well attended and how well enrolled this was getting into that program. From a metrics perspective, we have seen our, you know, our metrics from our stores increase from a customer experience, right? We've seen them go up from a time being where before we had this program to a year after into now, we came to see, you know, some things such as friendliness, those metrics scores are really good, team member engagement, you know. Some of the things that our customers were lacking and we're seeing those metrics continue to build. Not saying it's perfect, right? We have opportunities, but I think, you know, Josh and I have seen some things where we said, man, this is really cool to see. And some stores are doing really, really great. And some stores we have some opportunities, as I mentioned. But I think just to see that incline of stats in how our customer service scores have increased has been really cool to see, you know, over the last year and a half and where we're going to continue to push these. So, it's been really cool.
Barry:
And what's ahead now? So you've had great results from it, but obviously you've got to stay on top of it. You've got to keep your attention focused on customers that are going to be pretty demanding. I know you guys always have to deal with holiday season and the big demands of that. How do you plan to sustain the impact of that and make sure that the team members hang onto this and keep living it out? What are your plans for that?
Josh:
The sustainment tool, man. The sustainment, sustainment, sustainment. We talk about it a lot. We talk about a lot with different leaders. We just had a couple of different store director seminars that we got all the store directors together here towards the end of the year before the, like, bad rush for holiday start. And our portion of, like, the customer experience conversation was all about keep the message going, and we can't keep the message going unless the top continues talking about it. So, as long as the store directors, market directors and regional leadership, if they're talking about it, about customer before task and human being before just someone buying goods from the store, that's really the sustainment piece, right? And I feel like we've been able to already grab some tools and get some things where we're keeping the message alive. And I feel like from our side, Dave, almost everything that we're sending out to stores, pushing to stores, all has that Truly Human Service branding on it so that our message is consistent that hey, this is important. This needs to stay top of mind and top of focus. And then that helps the stores just reremember in the busyness of the season so that the store leader doesn't get too focused on the task at hand of putting product out on the shelf and that they themselves slow down and still interact with their team and with customers.
Dave:
Yeah, Josh. And to add to that, right? You know, we just chatted with our store directors as you mentioned, right? We shared some things. How do we keep this? Just because we stopped training early 2024 to get the remainder of our folks through it, we have done many things through the year to keep this in the forefront for our leaders to do as they walk the store, making sure they're looking at service components. Are there teams helping customers? Are they greeting right? If they're not, how do they continue to have that conversation? We send down some things for, you know, quarterly huddles, right? Have a conversation. One of our things was, you know, how do we continue to welcome, care and appreciate our customers as we go through this? So, it has not gone away. We continue to reinforce. And then of course, as you know, Barry, we're going to do a 2.0 version of this course here in 2025 of really, kind of, how do we take this and put these tools more into action with some real-life scenarios as well as some other things we're doing with a leadership toolkit and some things like that just to keep these things going and front. And I think the things we heard this past couple weeks from Josh and I was some really good excitement in some of the tools we shared with them that we're launching here and how we're going to use those. And I think, so, the appetite is still there for them to continue to do some things. I think they're asking for more and we're going to give them more. So, we're excited of what we have coming down the pipeline here just through the holidays a little bit. And then really into 2025 to keep this sustainment going.
Barry:
Yeah, I think it really reinforces that notion that being a Truly Human Leader is not something you go to a class and learn or a few techniques you pick up and you try out and then you get back to the day to day. It's something that you commit to as the way you show up, the way you behave, the way you interact with your team. So, you both have been part of a company that for I think almost 10 years now has been on a Truly Human Leadership journey, eventually also growing that into a Truly Human Service journey. Could we end today, maybe with each of you just talking just briefly about what that has meant for you as leaders, leaders at Meijer, leaders at a company that has this commitment to Truly Human Leadership. Kind of thinking about the leaders you are today, what does that mean for you? What does it mean about how you show up? What's important to you about that? Josh, maybe we'll start with you on that one.
Josh Barber"
Sure. It comes down to a lot of examples, right? And kind of seeing the example within the Meijer culture, and similar to how we already discussed today with Truly Human Service, how we started at the top. And that kind of rolled down and there was excitement and interest from the region and market leadership. And so, as it went down to stores, it worked and flowed really well. I would say same thought process for me has been seeing the example of senior leaders or my direct leadership having the Truly Human viewpoint and conversations to then that's an easy example now for me to follow. And because it kind of starts at the top, we see our executive leaders already acting that way and interacting with people. The executive team will slow down in every store and talk to team members, say hi to them. They'll ensure that they're talking to customers as well. It doesn't matter their title or the quality or cost of the suit that they're wearing, right? They're still going to slow down and, kind of, have that human interaction, that human conversation. I see that as a great example and just like, yeah, this is where I want to keep on working and that's what I want to keep on doing. And then kind of live that out on my side too.
Barry:
And, Dave, how about you?
Dave:
Yeah, I think a few things there too, Barry, is, you know, it’s been really cool to be a part of this journey, right? A couple years ago when we started, I didn't think I would be as involved in this piece of it as my team is, but it's been really cool to see, and, you know, as Josh mentioned, it's cool to see that this is just not talked about in a service piece. And he mentioned how senior leadership share this thing and they do it, but we also hear it from our corporate partners as they're rolling out programs. I've heard it saying, we got to make sure we're doing this in a Truly Human Service aspect, right? And it's kind of funny that you don't think that from maybe a merchandising perspective that you would hear that. But we are hearing that that is always something in their mind too as they're rolling something out, what's best for the customer and some of the things we can do and those sorts of things.
So, for me to see the journey, I've been a part of most of the 10 years here with the leadership journey with this and now with Truly Human Service, even from my side, how do I even work with my teams, right? How do I, not just, to your point, I'm not just a manager. I am also, you know, making sure that they have what they need, that I think our teams internally as we launch this, we take care of our teams, right? Do they have the great work-life balance? Do they have the tools that they need, you know, all the things to keep them happy within their roles? And we have those conversations and one-on-ones every other week that we have. And how are you doing? What can we do for you? Is there anything you need? I mean, we have those. I think it's just become part of our natural culture now, which we may not have seen 10 years plus ago, right?
And for us to see our prior leaders, some of our prior leaders sharing this, and then kind of how we learn from them and how we take our teams in the stores is pretty cool. And I think to add to Josh's one more thing is it's kind of cool to see our senior leaders recognize the team members in the store. I don't think we've mentioned this, right? We have a recognition program that they can recognize anybody in a store that has gone above and beyond, whether it's in their store, their community, within their job, that they get recognized by, you know, their senior leadership or by their senior leaders in their store to see that recognition that brings some happiness to those teams, right? Because it’s a proud moment that I get this, you know, this coin of recognition, right? And that has been something really cool to see too that we've seen. And so yeah, for me it's been a fun journey and for us to continue to live this and share it when we're out in the field is really exciting.
Barry:
Well, I want to close with recognizing both of you for sharing so much with us today for, I've seen firsthand what great leaders you are and what you bring to Meijer, and it's really just impressive to see an organization like Meijer that is committed to this Truly Human approach to leadership and really being able to show it's not just about people, it's about business too, and that it's about business because it's about people. And it's a virtuous circle there of that. So, really appreciate you sharing the inside view of that today, and excited to see where a pioneer like Meijer is going to take this next. So, thank you both for joining us today.