Increased Retention
SUCCESS STORY
Leadership Development Boosts
Productivity and Retention
Len Busch Roses is a second-generation, family-owned small business in operation since 1965. It produces and sells over 7 million stems and pots each year in 15 acres of greenhouses. In addition, Len Busch Roses sources flowers from around the world to provide customers with a full line of the world’s best flowers.
Enable Growth By Training Team Leaders
The executive team was concerned about how to meet aggressive growth- and financial targets while also expanding its employee base and experiencing high turnover. The leadership team realized it must address the company’s people strategies and practices to reach its business-and fiscal goals. Len Busch Roses contracted with People Spark Consulting to develop coaching skills in their managers, supervisors, and leaders. Since working with People Spark, Len Busch Roses has experienced:
- Decreased turnover for greenhouse positions.
- Increased employee engagement and productivity.
- Increased confidence of managers, supervisors, and leaders.
Limited Training for Team Leaders
In 2018 Len Busch Roses was at a critical point. The company had brought on a new president, established aggressive growth- and revenue targets, and was rapidly growing its impact with large retailers. At the same time, Len Busch Roses had grown to almost 200 employees and was experiencing almost 80% turnover in greenhouse roles. The alarming rate of retention was in part due to having inexperienced team leaders who typically were promoted from within the company without coaching or leadership training.
“Our organization has a strong focus on external customer satisfaction and process. Erin and Kristen have tremendously helped our leaders to develop active listening skills and coaching skills that have improved the bottom line through increased employee engagement and reduced turnover.”
— Jeffrey Marone, President Len Busch Roses
Developing Leaders To Sustain Behaviors
In the discovery phase, People Spark Consulting met with leaders and managers across the locations to better understand the company’s goals and practices, as well as the behaviors needed to drive business success. Next, People Spark pinpointed specific actions to address key challenges identified during discovery including:
- Conducting assessments and establishing individual development plans with the leadership team.
- Creating and implementing a 1.5-day Coaching Training focused on simple, practical skills for leaders and managers to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement and productivity.
- Providing learning opportunities for 90 days post-training to reinforce and sustain new skills and behaviors.
- Building an on-demand video library for managers and leaders to continue to learn and reinforce key leadership skills.
“People Spark Consulting listened, understood our needs, and introduced a simple coaching model that we’ve incorporated into our everyday expectations of leaders. Our investment in PSC has already paid off in spades.”
— Anne N. Broking Director of Operations, Len Busch Roses
Lower Turnover, Higher Productivity, More Skilled Team Leaders
Since working with People Spark Consulting, Len Busch Roses has seen:
- A nearly 25% decrease in employee turnover in the last two years (from 59% to 35%).
- Increase in confidence of team leaders.
- Increased levels of employee engagement and productivity.
“One employee told me she’d thought daily about quitting but chose to stay after her leader’s behavior changed as the result of the training.”
— Erin Schueller
HR Manager, Len Busch Roses
Len Busch Roses has benefitted from developing team leaders and establishing a common language and process for increasing employee retention, engagement, and productivity. That is why new supervisors and leaders now enroll in the People Spark Consulting® Ignite to Transform for Team Leader program upon hire or promotion. In addition, Len Busch Roses continues to work with People Spark Consulting to continually advance leadership skills and people strategies across the company.
People Spark Consulting is a Minneapolis–Saint Paul, MN based consulting company that specializes in transforming business cultures through human resources and people strategies.
