cleaning the floors at fresh & easy

This week I was spotted cleaning the floors of our store at Glassell Park, in Los Angeles.

Why?

Because the senior team that runs fresh&easy swapped our jobs to run this store for a week instead. And not just the trading part of the team - Hugh, our HR guy, Tony, who buys our property, and Mary, our legal counsel, were also to be found in their green t-shirts, on the shop floor.

Why?

Well, this was no photo opportunity (although I did look quite fetching in an apron and cap on the kitchen table.....not!).

Rather, it's simply part of the way we do business, all over the world. You can read reports, and hear people tell you what things work, and what could make things better and easier for our customers and our people. But there's no substitute for experiencing it first hand, together, as a team.

Unloading the trucks, filling the shelves, doing the mark-downs, collecting the carts, helping customers through the checkouts - we were doing it all..... although we did have a few people from the store there, coaching us if (when) we got stuck!

I have to say, a lot of customers noticed - probably because we were unusually slow! But the number of them who then took the time to tell us just how much they liked the store, and in particular how great our people are, was really amazing.

We came away, as ever, with a number of opportunities to make the business even simpler.

But more than that, with an even greater respect for our people.

Together, we're creating something really special. And that, of course, is how it should be...