George's conclusion was that "buying a prepackaged program is a good way to get a training program started, but it can't truly be successful until you personalize it." She decided the package would have to go, although she wasn't prepared to toss $25,000 worth of material out the window. Instead, she launched a drive to customize the curriculum to Scandinavian Design's way of doing business. It was to be a gradual process.
But then came the first spurt of growth, and with it, Darvin and George realized they were going to have to move faster. Stores began opening without proper staffing, and what managerial talent the company had on hand became depleted. Because so many of Scandinavian Design's employees were young, few had held managerial positions before. Most of them needed fairly intensive training in leadership skills before they could be promoted. About the time George and her fledgling human resources -- department staff began planning for those needs, things started going wrong in some of the New York and New Jersey stores. New employees didn't understand what Scandinavian Design was about, and the company found itself continually hiring and firing. Turnover doubled -- from about 7% to nearly 15%.
Darvin and George took a number of steps to deal with the problem, including the institution of more rigorous pre-hire interviewing and testing. But they believe it was their improved education and training program that caused the turnover figures to stabilize. They were even more convinced of the wisdom of their decision to establish SDU.
Two years elapsed between the decision to customize the education and training program, and the establishment of SDU, and they were busy ones. A new curriculum was written, the old curriculum was rewritten, and Darvin, George, and the human-resources staff gleaned all the ideas they could from books and seminars. They established a library, and they created so-called train-o-grams, which contain monthly tips on selling, merchandising, and displays, as well as a recorded message to employees called the "talking book."
Then came the "big push," as George calls it -- the retraining of first managers, then employees. In the first five months after the debut of SDU in January, training was held on 93 separate days. Some 144 people went through the two-day sales-training program, and 170 attended the day-long product-training course. There were also factory tours, warehouse visits, special seminars, and training-oriented meetings in individual stores.
But one of the more important lessons learned from pre-SDU days is that training alone is not enough. "It's just the beginning of the cycle," George says. "You have to monitor each employee's performance and coach them on their weaknesses."
Scandinavian Design salespeople know that they are under constant scrutiny. Darvin and George sometimes drop in on a store or call with pointed questions designed to shed light on what is going on. They enlist their friends to go into stores and critique them. They also require outside sales representatives who visit the stores to fill out questionnaires detailing how the store looked and how the employees treated them.
Meanwhile, each employee's sales performance is tracked by computer. Regular reports chart sales figures by the month, for the year to date, and in comparison with previous periods, and the figures are posted in the back room of each store. Not only do employees know how much they have sold but they know exactly what merchandise they have sold. That tells them, their co-workers, and their superiors, exactly where they need work, where they need "coaching." It could mean getting some drilling from general sales manager Aud Kaalstad or perhaps doing some role-playing with the store manager. Books and tapes may be recommended, or the employee may be sent back to class.
"But the message is not 'You'd better shape up or you'll lose your job,' " says Darvin. "It's, 'Let us help you improve."
Darvin and George are still trying to improve SDU -- still fine-tuning the existing courses and adding new ones. But the focus now is on broadening the educational experience. Reciprocal agreements are being explored with other corporations, with an eye toward joint seminars and speaker exchanges. Mindful of the fact that only about 5% of Scandinavian Design's employees have taken advantage of the Continuing Education Program and its opportunities for study at local colleges, Darvin and George are attempting to develop closer ties with more institutions, some of which could result in jointly sponsored degree programs.
The biggest dream, though, is to build a structure to house SDU. Not only would it save Scandinavian Design about $400 a day in rented training space, Darvin says, but"it will [also] make it more likely that our employees will see it as a real school." He smiles wistfully. "Then, perhaps when they leave us, they'll put on their resume that they attended Scandinavian Design University for retailing. That's what I'd like to see."
You notice Darvin said "attended," not "graduated."
"We don't ever want people to graduate," says George. "We want to give them certain credits and completions, but learning is a lifelong thing. There'll always be something else. We'll always give them new challenges."
