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Fosters Bakery - Ten ideas to improve skills – and profitability – in your business

 

1.      The boss has to lead the way  (Speed of the leader = Speed of the team)

 

All the directors have studied the IOD’s diploma.  The passion for skills and training has to come from the top and is the inspiration for the rest of the business. 

 

There is a succession plan for everyone in the business, outlining the skills everyone will need to progress.

 

2.      Set a goal for every employee to be qualified

 

Fosters pledged that every employee would achieve NVQ Level 2 in the appropriate subject.  The vast majority have now achieved this – the few who have not are working towards this and will achieve it soon.

 

Fosters workforce has a number of people who do not speak English as their first language.  The company’s policy is that everyone working with them must speak English – and they have set up their own language school with a training provider to do this.

 

Fosters believe that having health and safety signs in foreign languages is not a safe policy – what if you mistranslate or omit a language.  In the process of setting up the school, Fosters discovered that many employees with English as their first language, could not read and write well.  The school also teaches literacy and numeracy.

(Additional learning point: everyone must speak the same language)

 

3.      Cascade the enthusiasm and training

 

When Fosters started their training drive, they had an open day in their canteen to explain NVQs and sign up the first group to train to NVQ Level 1.

 

Sixty people signed up initially.  By the time they were achieving their first certificates, the next group of 60 was asking to sign up.  This enthusiasm has cascaded through the whole business to all 250 employees.

 

Fosters has a policy that if anyone leaves, they cannot come back to the business.  In the past, employees might leave if they were bored or wanting to try something else, then come back later.

Because the option of returning is now closed to them, employees make more effort to speak up if they want more out of their job – John Foster says it is usually because they are not doing enough training and development. Abseenteeism and staff turnover is now at its lowest in ten years. Learning point: You’ll never make a champion if you change your sport every two minutes.

 

4.      Trade fairs

 

Fosters’ people go to a lot of trade fairs – from all sorts of sectors, all over the world. They are encouraged to drive to these fairs whenever possible (either in the UK or from the airport in another country) and stay another day or so in order to pick up the culture, eat in local places and try local food – including breads and cakes.

 

As a result of joining a Trade mission to Singapore, Fosters invited four food students from Singapore Polytechnic to shadow their four directors for six weeks.  John Foster says:  “Having young people from the other side of the world constantly questioning everything you do, really makes you look at your business in a new light”.

 

At the end of their visit, the students spent the last two weeks developing new products, which they then presented to the Fosters sales team.  People from Asian cultures are drawn to food that is green in colour, in the way the West is drawn to red – tomatoes and strawberries.  Among the products they developed were green tea scones; mint choc chip brioche; and green chocolate éclairs – but also high fibre and high calcium bread, which has gone into the Fosters product line.

 

Quote: Vice Admiral Sir Peter Austin: “Seldom is time spent in reconnaissance wasted”

 

5.      Local business networks

Work with local businesses – Fosters developed their first formal quality system by copying that of a local glass factory.  The process for manufacturing glass is almost identical to that of baking bread – except for some of the terminology, and “dough” reaches hotter temperatures. 

Learning point: There is more to learn from other industries than you think.

 

6.      Quality standards v Innovation

 

John Foster says to be careful about over complex quality standards – they can stifle innovation. Likewise too radical and hurried innovation can lead to quality problems.

 

Fosters has supercharged their communications to add value in their understanding of customers and speed of their response, such as:

• The system looks for order requests with unusual ingredients in, and informs the buyer immediately in case he needs to obtain supplies in a hurry

• Complaints are automatically emailed to John Foster’s phone and to the specific account manager – who will pick up the phone to the customer immediately.  Appropriate managers are also informed immediately in case any corrective action is needed.

 

Learning point:  Rapid innovation is better than innovation.

 

 

7.      Work with local college

 

Fosters has developed a close relationship with Barnsley College.  They are helping develop the new bakery school and recruit apprentices in baking, engineering for their maintenance team and business admin.

 

8.      Work with universities

 

The bakery is working with a number of universities.  A graduate came to them on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership two years ago to set up an HR function in the business.  She now works part-time in the company and part-time lecturing in HR at the University. Fosters’ second KTP mapped all the company’s business processes and set up the new IT systems and infrastructure.

 

9.      Work with government organisations

 

Look out for the support and help available, create partnerships.  Fosters has worked with

• Yorkshire Forward – who funded a bakery school within a prison, which Fosters helped to specify and set up the training.  Fosters now recruits prisoners with baking skills.
• Working with manufacturing advisory groups – developing a robot to lift trays in and out of ovens.  Fosters does not want to automate the whole bakery – they are still a traditional baker – but automate areas such as lifting trays to eliminate muscular skeletal problems.

 

10.   Creating an innovative culture

 

Fosters’ company values are based on “OIL” - which “lubricates” the business:

 

Open-mindedness

Integrity

Loyalty

 

Forgiveness is also critically important.  You cannot innovate without mistakes – and the business has to be prepared to forgive these, provided we all learn from them.

 

 

FOSTERS BAKERY

 

Fosters are a family business of specialist bakers and confectioners, selling to well known names such as Pret a Manger, Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Waitrose and Asda, as well as to airlines, hotels and railway operators.

 

Baking to strict nutritional and technical specifications and tight margins has meant that the business has always sought to harness local expertise and build skills partnerships with the community, despite the challenges of a recession.