Create a plan
Getting the right feedback is critical during a turnaround but making the right decisions and having a plan for action is even more important.
“We sat down as an executive leadership team, and the first thing we did was went out to our operation-level managers who have the most day-to-day interaction with most of our employee base,” Anderson says. “We asked them specific questions regarding what we do well as a company. What we can improve upon as a company? What are the issues you deal with on a day-to-day basis with your employees? What are the things your employees are coming to you with? We did a very detailed survey process, and we took in information and then spent the better part of a week just combing that information and really seeing what our organization had to say about our current condition.
“Then we looked back and said, ‘If this is where we are today as perceived by our organization, where do we want to be in five years?’ That really started to develop the strategy of our five-year plan. We took where we were and asked ourselves, ‘What do we all think the ideal Express looks like in five years?’”
From that process, Anderson and his team developed several key areas of focus, including financial performance, employee retention, safety performance, customers and how customers view the company.
“We asked ourselves, ‘What must we get done in the next 12 months? What must we get done in the next two to three years, and what do we need to get done within five years?’ That is so far from where this organization was two years ago — that was very short-term focused that the only metric was a financial metric. Now we have so many other metrics and we know that if we perform well in all these key elements of the business, the financial performance is going to be there.”
