The Warehouse Group leadership development

The Warehouse Group is New Zealand’s largest retailer, with 260+ stores and distribution centres across New Zealand, and more than 12,000 employees.

In 2019 the group recognised they had leadership gaps that forced them to recruit externally to find quality store managers. This was costly and time consuming, and reduced employee satisfaction, as their team saw less opportunity to advance internally.

Store managers needed to know how to empower their team, support them to realise their potential and create a sense of shared purpose to deliver a fantastic in-store experience.

The group lacked a training tool to encourage these attributes in their store managers. Inspire Group won a tender to co-design and develop two bespoke leadership programmes.

“I came into this course wanting to learn how to make everything around me better. But I learned there were areas where I needed to become better in how I manage workflow and the way I interact with people.” - Leadership programme graduate

This project was a partnership between The Warehouse Group and Inspire Group. Design began with understanding where learners are at before they embark on a programme. Then the team defined a clear vision for the way great store managers behave.

The co-design team agreed on:

• the change the programmes needed to deliver in mindset, beliefs, behaviours and knowledge
• measures of success, with clear metrics for each measure
• how we wanted learners to feel about the programmes
• the design principles for the programmes
• the learning journey and deliverables for each stage.

The Warehouse Group’s leadership behaviours and values became cornerstones of the programmes. Existing tools, language, and real-life scenarios from the shop floor were woven through the learning journey to make the programmes relevant and relatable to learners.

“I learned how important reflection is day to day, using reflection after every conversation to understand how it went and what I can do better.” - Leadership programme graduate

This leadership development initiative includes two programmes:

Emerge: for new and emerging leaders with a track record of results.

Evolve: for more established leaders delivering results and seeking advancement.

Both programmes are delivered annually through a combination of digital learning, virtual workshops, peer-to-peer coaching and practical exercises, culminating in a graduation event where learners present their journey to their peers.

The learning journey

The programmes begins with a rigorous application process. If a leader is accepted (and it isn’t a given) they embark on an intensive journey to learn how to lead themselves and others.

Participants prepare for four virtual workshops with digital learning modules and printed resources. During the online workshops, exercises, virtual breakout rooms and whiteboards encourage interaction and collaborative problem solving.

After each workshop, learners participate in peer-to-peer coaching sessions revisiting key concepts. Throughout the programme, learners work on a real business challenge they’ve identified and complete assessments, including a 360° appraisal and reports on their insights.

At graduation, a panel of senior executives asks questions to help the new graduates reflect on how they can apply their learnings to their day-to-day work.

Programme delivery

The two programmes are delivered by the Warehouse Group’s team of learning facilitators.

Training the trainers began with a workshop to introduce facilitators to the programme content. A further session helped the team become confident facilitating virtual workshops to create energy, engagement, interaction and impact. Facilitators were also given guides and resources, and Inspire Group learning experts supported them with regular check-ins.

“I’ve learned to delegate a lot more, to trust people and let them fail. Failing isn’t failure in an individual, it’s their first attempt at learning.” - Leadership programme graduate

Business impact has been strongly positive.

• 189 leaders have enrolled in the two programmes since they launched in 2020.
• 56% of graduates have already been promoted within the Warehouse Group.
• Turnover in store leadership roles has reduced since participants have been on the leadership programmes.
• The average employee Net Promoter Score has increased 9 points from 14 to 23 in the last year.
• There has been more movement between Warehouse Group brands. Before the leadership programmes launched, store leaders lacked awareness of the other brands in the group. Since the programmes, awareness and consideration have increased.

Other positive impacts include reducing the organisation’s carbon footprint as a result of less travel for training. Feedback from learners is enthusiastic and inspiring, sharing how the programmes have helped them be more effective leaders, not only at work, but in life.

The Warehouse Group was so pleased with results that they adapted the learning framework and launched a third invitation-only programme, for senior leadership in 2021, called Enable. Thirty four senior leaders have taken part in Enable since.

“The transformation I’ve seen, not only in myself, but in everyone else in this group, is absolutely night and day" - Leadership programme graduate