Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Improves Retention Using Blanchard’s Situational Leadership® II CUSTOMER FEATURE:
Typically, an annual corporate growth rate of about 25% would be cause for celebration. But, when that type of rapid growth is coupled with extremely high employee and management turnover, the festivities are short-lived. The Los Angeles-based Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, one of the largest privately owned, familyrun coffee and tea companies, was facing this very dilemma in 2001 when Michael Serchia, director of human resources for International Coffee & Tea, LLC, was invited to attend a briefing hosted by soft skills trainer The Ken Blanchard Companies (Escondido, Calif.). “We were looking for a training program to help with our general manager retention,” Serchia told CTDA. “In 2001, our management turnover rate was 60% and our team member turnover rate was about 180%. It was really hitting us and we were looking for something that could help develop our general managers and our district managers, but something that was simple. We didn’t want a real complex program,” he said. Serchia has been with the company for six years and has seen it grow from 34 stores with 950 employees to 158 stores with more than 3,000 employees. After listening to Scott Blanchard, vice president of Blanchard’s client delivery segment and founder and CEO of Coaching.com, talk about Blanchard’s Situational Leadership® II approach to leadership at that briefing, Serchia shared what he had heard with his company’s executive team. Shortly after, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf began a blended training program for its district, regional and area training managers. The goal of the Situational Leadership® II program is to provide a set of tools for increasing the frequency and quality of conversations about performance and development between managers and the people they work with so that competence is developed, commitment is gained and talented individuals are retained. It is also designed to help
Typically, an annual corporate growth rate of about 25% would be cause for celebration. But, when that type of rapid growth is coupled with extremely high employee and management turnover, the festivities are short-lived. The Los Angeles-based Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, one of the largest privately owned, familyrun coffee and tea companies, was facing this very dilemma in 2001 when Michael Serchia, director of human resources for International Coffee & Tea, LLC, was invited to attend a briefing hosted by soft skills trainer The Ken Blanchard Companies (Escondido, Calif.). “We were looking for a training program to help with our general manager retention,” Serchia told CTDA. “In 2001, our management turnover rate was 60% and our team member turnover rate was about 180%. It was really hitting us and we were looking for something that could help develop our general managers and our district managers, but something that was simple. We didn’t want a real complex program,” he said. Serchia has been with the company for six years and has seen it grow from 34 stores with 950 employees to 158 stores with more than 3,000 employees. After listening to Scott Blanchard, vice president of Blanchard’s client delivery segment and founder and CEO of Coaching.com, talk about Blanchard’s Situational Leadership® II approach to leadership at that briefing, Serchia shared what he had heard with his company’s executive team. Shortly after, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf began a blended training program for its district, regional and area training managers. The goal of the Situational Leadership® II program is to provide a set of tools for increasing the frequency and quality of conversations about performance and development between managers and the people they work with so that competence is developed, commitment is gained and talented individuals are retained. It is also designed to help