Blinds to Go
Executive Summary:
The case, based on the company Blinds to Go, emphasizes the importance of staffing in stores as they expand to meet their growth objectives.
Being a manufacturer and retailer, with a unique sales model - 100% commission based and focus on customer service gave the company an advantage over its competitors. According to the senior management Quality of staff was paramount and hence their original compensation system motivated best performance and fostered a high energy, sales hungry culture at BTG.
To attract more recruits for its expansion phase, the management changed the compensation system from full commission to salary on the recommendation of a newly hired vice president. Sales declined and the overall staff turnover increased. Seeing this the company brought back the old culture and experienced a sales turnaround. This shift also caused another huge turnover in stores. A large percentage of voluntary turnover occurred in the first four months. The higher turnover after eight months was partly due to termination because of sales performance.
The biggest challenge the company now faced was understaffing. The need for additional staff was further aggravated due to its continued push for growth and the tight US and Canadian labour markets. Another concern to be addressed was that the company had planned for 80 per cent of its expansion in US where the employees preferred the fixed pay than the company’s commission based pay structure. During this period BTG had tried several recruiting methods with varying degrees of success.
With an IPO in the pipeline and plans to add on average 50 stores per year for the next five years, it was critical for the company to come up with a staffing strategy with focus on Quality of the staff and low employee turnover. The Company:
Blinds To Go (BTG) was a retail fabricator of window dressings. It was started by David Shiller in 1954 in the
Cote-des-Neiges district in
The case, based on the company Blinds to Go, emphasizes the importance of staffing in stores as they expand to meet their growth objectives.
Being a manufacturer and retailer, with a unique sales model - 100% commission based and focus on customer service gave the company an advantage over its competitors. According to the senior management Quality of staff was paramount and hence their original compensation system motivated best performance and fostered a high energy, sales hungry culture at BTG.
To attract more recruits for its expansion phase, the management changed the compensation system from full commission to salary on the recommendation of a newly hired vice president. Sales declined and the overall staff turnover increased. Seeing this the company brought back the old culture and experienced a sales turnaround. This shift also caused another huge turnover in stores. A large percentage of voluntary turnover occurred in the first four months. The higher turnover after eight months was partly due to termination because of sales performance.
The biggest challenge the company now faced was understaffing. The need for additional staff was further aggravated due to its continued push for growth and the tight US and Canadian labour markets. Another concern to be addressed was that the company had planned for 80 per cent of its expansion in US where the employees preferred the fixed pay than the company’s commission based pay structure. During this period BTG had tried several recruiting methods with varying degrees of success.
With an IPO in the pipeline and plans to add on average 50 stores per year for the next five years, it was critical for the company to come up with a staffing strategy with focus on Quality of the staff and low employee turnover. The Company:
Blinds To Go (BTG) was a retail fabricator of window dressings. It was started by David Shiller in 1954 in the
Cote-des-Neiges district in