Why the trucking giant is well down the road to becoming a learning organisation
“Our L&D strategy isn’t pink and fluffy – it’s about saving millions of pounds”
For a business with a tongue-twister of a name, Norbert Dentressangle’s approach to learning is refreshingly straightforward – and remarkably effective. The French-owned logistics, transport and freight group employs large numbers of drivers and packing operatives, and while its work “isn’t rocket science”, according to Chris Dolby, the logistics division’s L&D manager, it would be easy to overlook the contribution L&D can make to organisational development.
Not so at Norbert. It recently took home the people development trophy at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport awards, and can also demonstrate the value of learning to the bottom line: in 2012, work-based L&D projects accounted for savings of £2 million, says Dolby.
“For the last five years we have been operating in a difficult market and we have continually grown our investment in L&D,” he says. “That additional investment in people has had a real impact on the business.” It also constitutes Dolby’s ultimate measure of return on investment – he would have to “do some soul-searching” if profitability took a nose-dive.
That doesn’t seem likely at the moment. A few years ago, a Briton’s best chance of encountering Norbert Dentressangle would be spotting one of the company’s distinctive red lorries emerging from the Channel Tunnel, or on the shelf of a model truck enthusiast (Norbert spotters are a rival faction to Eddie Stobart fanatics). Since a major acquisition at the end of 2007, the group has grown considerably. Its UK logistics division employs nearly 13,000 people and manages 2.5 million square metres of warehouse space. Pop into M&S for some new shoes and you are probably trying on a pair of size fives that spent time in one of ND’s warehouses; pick up some fruit and veg from Tesco and it will have been moved in trays that are washed and replenished by the firm.
“We move stuff from one place to another,” says Dolby. “Our competitors use the same sorts of warehouses and similar methods so ultimately the difference between us and them is our people. We have to be more effective, more reliable and closer to our customers.”
This in turn requires staff who are engaged, motivated and entrepreneurial: “We don’t have huge layers of management. We empower people to manage their team and make decisions as if it was their own mini business. For them to be able to do that we have to train and develop them.” This long-term aspect of L&D is built into the company’s strategy under the strapline “You grow, we grow”. If staff help the company expand, it will in turn create more opportunities for their own development.
In the shorter term, it’s all about increasing efficiency. Take the annual management development programme (MDP), which costs around £78,000 for 30 people. “At the start of the MDP, participants are each given a project: to make £4,000 savings in their part of the business,” says Dolby. “As a group they always smash that target.” Last year’s trainees managed £1.1 million through ideas such as consolidating routes and changing how empty trailers are managed.
Money is not the only consideration, of course. Another of the business’s core KPIs is that 60 per cent of its vacancies have to be filled internally, meaning Dolby has to make sure the right people get the right development. A few years ago, however, he realised there was a gap in the L&D package: the business had no programme to develop talented shopfloor employees who had the potential to move into management. His solution was to rebrand ND’s two-year graduate scheme as a fast track talent programme open to internal applicants as well as university leavers. Most still come from outside, but it has also drawn attention to some impressive internal potential, he says.
Rebecca Smith started her ND career stacking shelves and picking stock at a Marks & Spencer warehouse in Hardwick, Cambridgeshire before joining the fast track scheme. “In her first six months, she was placed at M&S head office, where she made savings of around £120,000 by making the customer returns process more efficient,” Dolby says. In her third placement, she introduced performance management measures that led to “significant” savings. She’s now on her final placement, at a transport improvement charity in Tanzania, and recently won Women in Logistics’ Young Woman of the Year award.
The savings made by Smith and her colleagues do not necessarily come directly to ND. At sites where it runs “open book” contracts – where ND’s profit comes from an agreed percentage – any reduction in operating costs has a much more direct benefit for customers. But strong relationships with happy clients can only be beneficial to the business, which is always the ultimate measure of L&D’s worth. “It is all about delivering performance that improves the bottom line,” says Dolby. “It’s not pink and fluffy. It’s about hard-nosed strategy that delivers profit.”
✶ The CIPD’s Learning and Development Show takes place on 30 April and 1 May 2014 in London cipd.co.uk/events/learning-development-show