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This franchise proves more engagement leads to more pies
With 20 years of experience under her belt, General Manager Susie Peever knows how to engage her staff to deliver exceptional customer service at her store in North Bay.
Susie’s management style is one that embodies a hands-on approach, but with more than 40 employees with a 35-year age span between them, she easily realizes the value of having a robust training platform to help keep a pulse on her workforce. That’s why Susie decided to volunteer her store as one of the first to trial the Axonify learning solution.
Thanks to Susie’s leadership style and the learning achieved on Axonify, this Topper’s Pizza store creates more pies at an increased rate—delivering them to hungry customers that much faster. Susie was kind enough to take some time out of her day to share just how much Axonify has helped her build an engaged and high-performing staff.
Q: Tell us about your role and how you spend your day-to-day?
A: I’m the general manager here at Topper’s Pizza in North Bay, Ontario. I’ve worked here fulltime for 20 years on the frontline, alongside the staff. I’m not the type of manager that sits in an office all day. I dedicate one day to office work, and the other days I’m out on the frontlines with my staff doing the same work as them.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face around training?
A: I have a really great, hardworking team—but managing such a diverse group of people presents its own challenges for providing an engaging, meaningful training experience. Are they following the rules? Are they doing the right things? This can be challenging to manage when you’re dealing with more than 40 people. And there’s not always senior staff here to ensure they’re getting it right. From an employee’s perspective, when they’re doing training, there’s just so much to learn. So it’s completely realistic that they’re not going to absorb everything that’s being taught (this is why we have charts with pizza recipes that employees can refer to). I find a combination of hands-on training and Axonify is a much more effective method.
Q: Does using Axonify help you better engage your team in training? What’s their feedback?
A: Very much so. I start every day by completing my personal training, then I’ll check the leaderboards, top performers and everybody else’s knowledge and confidence levels. I make it a topic of discussion every day, and it has started a whole new line of conversation within our business. Everyone talks about the new stuff they’ve learned or things they were surprised they didn’t know. Axonify has created great dialogue among the staff—and a lot of laughs too. It’s made learning fun and a routine part of our day. The staff are very happy, and I know they’re more engaged because their conversations revolve around making pizza, cleaning best practices, customer service and everything else they’re learning. And, most importantly, they’re speaking about all of it in a positive manner.
Q: So what did your training program look like before Axonify?
A: In the past, I would personally have to take every employee through every station of the store. Once I was satisfied, we would move onto the next, and so on. From there, I’d have to rely on the rest of my staff to monitor their behavior. Our company has also produced training CDs, where new and existing hires are expected to watch the content. Then they try to apply what they’ve learned in the kitchen. Unfortunately, most of the time, they’re not engaged or grasping everything in this 30-minute-to-hour-long video.
94%
Peak training participation rate
93%
Current knowledge levels
35
Franchise stores
500+
Employees
Q: What kind of incentives have you used to encourage your team to participate in training?
A: Even though training in Axonify is completely optional right now, the peak of our participation rate has reached 94%. Having contests and encouraging friendly competition is the best way to engage employees. It’s important to have something to strive towards, no matter how little or big it is. People want to win. People want to be number one—and they want to be rewarded for their work. There’s also a natural incentive that comes with people wanting to join in a conversation. If we’re all talking about what we learned in Axonify, or the games and points we’re winning, it motivates the few stragglers to log on so they can feel a part of the team and our culture.
Q: And has Axonify had an impact on your culture?
A: It certainly has. Axonify has made a positive difference in our culture in the fact that it’s engaging all employees. It gives them an open forum to talk about different things and to get to know each other better. We range in staff from 15 to 50 years old, so it can be hard to engage everybody in the same type of conversation. Axonify is something we’re all involved in and have in common—it really has created a great team experience for us.
Q: Speaking of different age groups, do you find it challenging to engage certain generations over others?
A: In the past, yes. But the Axonify platform is very age-friendly and appeals to all groups. Our company utilizes it in a way that makes the training all about our daily life here at work. So, no matter if you’re 15 or 50, we’re all doing the same thing. Because the platform is very userfriendly, it has engaged all generations and no one has had any issues.
Q: Have you seen any improvements in the business since you started using Axonify?
A: As I’ve mentioned before, I’m fortunate to have a smart, capable team—but now that we can actually measure knowledge growth, I have seen it improve with Axonify. This is because when you get a question wrong, Axonify continues to strategically serve it up until you get it right. I’m proud to say, the current knowledge levels of my staff have grown to 93% and I’ve seen great improvements in the business with how quickly and accurately employees fill orders and produce pizzas. They’re confident in their knowledge because they’re engaged in training and the business. I’m seeing a lot less checking of recipes because they’re learning about it all on Axonify, so they don’t utilize the charts nearly as much. This tells me that they’re actually retaining their training—and as a result, it speeds up our production rate.
Q: Have you observed any behavioral changes since implementing Axonify?
A: Our operators who take orders at the front counter no longer have to grab a menu to look up what’s on a particular pizza or what the specials are. For example, whenever we have a new campaign, all of the details are uploaded into Axonify. Training questions all focus on what’s included on the new specials and the pricing for it. It’s an amazing improvement from something that only takes about 3 minutes out of their day. And as a result, they know how to quickly and accurately answer customer questions, instead of having to search for a flyer.
Q: How has Axonify affected your job?
A: From a managerial perspective, Axonify has alleviated a lot of pressure. I feel like I don’t have to take time out of my day to watch over my staff as much or worry if they’re taking the right actions. I can log into Axonify on a daily basis, and within a couple minutes, I can easily find out where their knowledge is at and what they might need more coaching on. It’s a great feeling to be at ease when walking into the store, knowing which employees are confident in their skillset and can be relied on to help me train other people. Having Axonify as a part of my training toolset has allowed me to let go some of the hands-on training I had to do before and concentrate more on the management of the store—because I know, without a doubt, that my people really do know our products and how to deliver the best customer experience possible. Axonify provides me proof to confirm the knowledge and skillset of my people, which helps me help everyone else —and the business.