 Leadership
case
study: Goodwill staffing services,
goodwill industries of the Chesapeake
By
Heather Peeler, Senior Consultant,
Community
Wealth Ventures
Annual
Revenue (2005): $1.2 million in revenue; $90,000 in profits
Social Return (2005): 135 men and women started as temporary
employees and gained permanent employment as a result of their
on-the-job performance. This is the highest total ever for the agency.
Years of Operations: 10
Venture: A full-service temporary employment agency committed to
delivering outstanding service to local business.
When Goodwill
Staffing Services (GSS) experienced a declining customer base a few
years ago, the venture’s parent agency, Goodwill Industries of the
Chesapeake, knew it needed to take drastic action. Faced with the
prospect of shutting down the business for good, the management team
instead engaged in an intensive business planning effort to overhaul GSS.
No stone went unturned in the process. The management team scrapped the
previous pricing structure, and marketing materials. It shifted the
target market from local government to private industry. It even
reconfigured the process for identifying temporary workers. “Our
approach was to deconstruct everything and reconstruct it to make it
work,” explains Philip Holmes, Vice President, Career Development.
Bringing a critical eye to all aspects of the venture's operations
proved to be an exhausting ordeal. However, the biggest change was also
the most difficult. Several months into the overhaul, senior management
officials realized that they also needed to make a drastic change in
GSS’s longstanding leadership.
Making Change at the Top
Once GSS recognized the need to shift target markets, the management
team realized it also needed a new sales strategy. Customer referrals
became a prime driver for sales. “We knew we had to find out if we were
providing value to our customers and then leverage the satisfaction of
current customers to get new customers,” Phil explains. This process
entailed unrelenting sales calls, e-mails, letters, and a comprehensive
approach to marketing communications and sales.
This new approach required a venture leader that was also a salesperson
who had not only great listening skills and sales savvy but also a
bottom-line orientation. “We realized that we needed someone with a
strong sales and marketing background who could build on our existing
customer base,” continues Phil. It also meant that the venture leader
had to be able to cope with doors slammed in his or her face and calls
not returned.
GSS’s manager, who had been integral to the venture’s restructuring
process, was the first to realize that she didn't have the expertise to
take on the responsibilities for the newly configured enterprise. She
had been the director of the staffing agency for several years and had a
deep commitment to the venture’s social mission. In a courageous move
that meant ultimately sacrificing her job, she encouraged Goodwill to
search for a new director.
Luckily Goodwill’s senior management recognized the value of her talents
and experience and asked her to take on a role in a different division
of the nonprofit.
Mining From Within
Because Goodwill operates multiple ventures, it was able to mine other
areas of the organization in its search for the ideal candidate, and
ended up tapping an employee from the retail division who had turned
around and operated three retail stores.
The changes did not start and end with the personnel at the top. Through
market research conducted during the business planning, Goodwill learned
that it had to hire more people. “We thought you could ring out more net
income by hammering down on cost,” explains Phil. “Instead we increased
our costs. We hired two additional staff to do sales and marketing and
as a result, yielded much greater sales.”
New staff – new sales staff in particular – ushered in other changes.
First, the sales staff had higher salaries. Second, the staff forced
everyone to use performance metrics. “We listened carefully to how the
new sales staff measures the success of their work,” Phil continues. “We
are looking at how to apply a base and bonus incentive plan that
resonates with bottom-lined people.”
So far, the changes have paid off. Now, a little more than a year after
the restructuring, GSS has experienced unprecedented growth. Annual
revenue has increased from $720,000 to more than $1.2 million.
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