Challenges, Changes & Colleague Successes

Deal or no deal? – Brexit outcome

With the imminent key decision on the horizon for Brexit; the Society already has in place a weekly strategic group chaired by myself to consider the Brexit scenarios. 

The strategic group is in place to assess the risks and possible implications, from disruption of supply chains to changes in consumer behaviour such as stockpiling of groceries, medicines or increased purchasing of foreign currency. These considerations are a number of appropriate steps we can take to minimise the impact on the Society, member, colleagues and customers.

In addition to this, we are looking to reassure our valued EU Colleagues at this time of uncertainty and will be providing support to them in any applications for settlement status including covering the cost of applications.

 

Trading Places with Bev Capewell

You may remember in November 2018, I took part in the Trading Places programme with Bev Capewell, People Development Manager from Childcare. So last Friday, it was my turn to ‘Trade Places’ and experience the valued work that Bev does.

As part of my day, I attended a Learning and Development (L&D) meeting with colleagues from across the business who deliver learning and development support. We covered a number of topics including a Q&A session with myself and discussed the priorities for the year ahead in each Trading Group by looking for synergies in which they could work together more efficiently and each colleague shared their top three highlights of the year.

We used the ‘Go MAD Thinking’ problem-solving tool, to take part in some possibility thinking around how to create a ‘self-directed’ learning culture. Some fantastic ideas were generated and actions were then allocated across to the team to progress including me!

I highly recommend this programme and it has been a great experience to see the benefits of it being a two-way trade. To take part in Trading Places please login to the i.Learn platform here. and keep an eye out for next week’s Trading Places video on Colleagues Connect.

‘Trading Places’ meeting with Bev Capewell

The ever-changing energy market

You may have seen in the news this week Coventry based supplier Economy Energy collapsed, with their group having a registered customer base of 235,000.

Following a warmer winter than expected, this has had an effect on peak demand in gas and electricity during the Christmas period and ultimately impacting trading. Focusing particularly on our Energy business we are forecasting a significant downturn in profits due to rising wholesale prices and aggressive competitor activity which will adversely influence our profit margins.

Within our Energy business I can assure you that we have the most hardworking and committed colleagues that any organisation could ever wish for but the market challenges are difficult so I will continue to work with the senior team to meet the many challenges ahead and to ensure our member’s interests are at the forefront of everything we do.

 

Recognising our Colleagues success

This week saw the annual awarding of the Colleague Support Services Awards which took place in our Warwick Head Office and recognised the contribution of colleagues who have gone above and beyond in their field of work.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the colleagues that were nominated, it was inspiring to read why they were nominated and they would have all been worthy winners in their own right! You can click here to find out a bit more about who won and why.

Our Colleague Support Services award winners!

 

Our Food Christmas performance

The Food performance over Christmas has always been the busiest trading period for Midcounties, where there is aggressive competition from both the high and low end of the market.

Key retailers have endured a tough climate over the Christmas period such as Sainsbury’s whose sales fell by 1.1% and Marks & Spencer’s down by 2.1%; I am pleased to report that we had a good performance over the festive period with like-for-like increase in sales of 2.33% for the three weeks ending 5^th January 2019.

The update also includes a fantastic record trading day for the Society with sales on a busy Christmas Eve exceeding £2.6m, demonstrating that customers shopped much later this year than in previous years.

The overall focus was on delivering strong availability and high store standards to ensure we traded effectively throughout the Christmas period.

Did you know we sold an unbelievable amount of Christmas goodies including:

-        180,000 mince pies

-        30,000 packs of Brussels sprouts

-        35,000 litres of cream

-        68,000 advent calendars

-        150,000 tins of sweets

I would like to thank all our Food colleagues for delivering this pleasing result and hard work over the festive period that has given us a great start to 2019, let’s keep it up!

Food group rollout of Kronos Auto-Scheduler

Coop Food is proud to announce that from 14^th January 2019, the Kronos Auto-Scheduler will recommence in our stores. This follows on from an initial 11 store trial within our supermarket group just before Christmas and will improve our scheduling to provide accurate colleague schedules for up to four weeks in advance.

Kronos Auto-Scheduler ensures that we have the right colleagues, in the right place, at the right time to deliver the best possible customer experience. This is a significant project for Food that will continue throughout the first half of 2019.

That’s all for this week on my blog. If you do have any thoughts on any of the above topics, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment below. I hope you have had a great week and I look forward to sharing more with you next Friday.