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Being best at fresh is about product range and quality, store formats, availability and customer service. The key to being best at customer service is to train and motivate our colleagues more effectively than our competitors. Over the past two years we have made significant progress towards this goal.
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Fiona Bailey Director for Culture |
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Jim White Human Resources Director |
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We now have three regional training centres – in Burton-on-Trent, Alloa, near Edinburgh and Hayes. Designed to support the development of a wide range of fresh foods skills, these centres are self-contained units equipped to support our “Fresh to Go”, Fresco and Deli operations. The centres at Hayes and Burton are also equipped with systems facilities which will improve our store systems training.
We are now extending the training we provide in these centres to include our more traditional fresh foods skills in meat, fish and bakery.
Industry-leading partnerships
We are also continuing to develop partnerships with leading agencies at industry level both to ensure that the training we provide is of the right quality and to acquire formal external recognition of our activities. For example, we have worked with the Meat and Livestock Commission and the Sea Fish Authority in developing butchery and fishmonger skills, including vocational qualifications. We have also worked with the Bakery Training Council and the Scottish Association of Master Bakers to accredit our own Safeway bakery skills programme with a National Vocational Qualification. Over 100 bakers have now gained this qualification, with 50 more nearing completion. The long-term future of these programmes is being secured through the development of our qualified assessors. Safeway remains in the unique position of being an Approved Centre recognised by City and Guilds.
Star Service
Our investment in craft skills training and product knowledge is complemented by our Star Service programme, designed for colleagues in our reformatted stores. This programme focuses on the behavioural aspects of customer service and embodies the concept of “retailtainment” – a distinctive characteristic of our “Fresh to Go” stores and of the Safeway brand. With the assistance of specialist consultants, this approach to customer service encourages colleagues to let their own personalities shine through when serving customers. Over 15,000 of our colleagues have now experienced Star Service and we will continue to roll it forward in line with our reformatting programme. We have measured the effect of this training on customer satisfaction and we are confident that Star Service is helping us to create a New Safeway service culture. We are now supporting this investment with additional training in supervisory and management skills for senior teams in stores to help them motivate and inspire their staff.
Our training centres, fresh foods programmes and Star Service together represent a substantial annual investment which we will continue to make this year and which will help us achieve our goal of best customer service in our industry.
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