Lines flow out the door nearly every day with their loyal customers picking up their favourite baked goods.   

advisory

DISCOVERY

Anna Chipperfield a member of the advisory team at businessDEPOT has been a loyal customer of flour + stone for many years.  As Anna moved into more client focused work, she noticed that Nadine Ingram, sole owner, needed some support and encouraged Nadine to participate in a discovery session to look at the business to see if we could offer further help and support.

PLANNING & ACCOUNTABILITY

Following a discovery session Nadine participated in a half day planning/review exercise, where the team, with Nadine looked at the business goals, long term plans, as well as drilling down on Nadine’s ambitions and where she wanted to take the business.  Nadine knew where she was headed but had it all in her head.

At the end of the session we not only had a 5 year and 12month plan, we had identified important resources and people needs.  We also identified a bunch of things Nadine needed to get rid of to be able to focus on the areas that would allow her to move the needle.

From that point, Nadine scheduled in regular meetings with Anna from the advisory team to help push forward on her plans, have a sounding board and keep her accountable to the things that were important for the Nadine and her business.

people + culture

HR SUPPORT

From the planning session, we identified a need for a level of support around the HR function.  Advice on performance management, documentation, compliance and getting the basics right made up the ongoing support that we provided.

THE TEAM

Through this guidance, we quickly established that Flour + Stone needed some visibility into the team and their motivations and what may be holding them back in their roles, so we carried out an engagement survey to help identify what might be going on.  

The engagement survey was a real eye opener and provided great feedback on some of the challenges the team were having.  This triggered a team workshop where we carefully facilitated a group session with the team to share their thoughts, learn and gain awareness as to how they are as a team player as well as how they could work together as a team to solve some of the problems they were collective facing.

The outcome of this session was not only a level of awareness of themselves and others which has really helped with communication but also a collaborative approach to some of the challenges they were experience in the kitchen, front of house and as a team.  The action plan the team took away from this workshop was right on point with the feedback from the engagement survey and important to improving their daily environment and overall productivity. They could instantly see how brainstorming and problem solving as team can achieve really quick wins.

• Some of the key things the flour +stone team implemented after this process were
• Regular team social gatherings to help with camaraderie
• A list of efficiencies for better production in the kitchen, that would help everyone perform their role better and in turn have more satisfaction and happiness.
• Training around workplace behaviour
• Role descriptions
• Performance review process that allowed for a better feedback loop

Flour + Stone now do a half yearly engagement survey process.

accounting

Through one of our more recent advisory sessions, we were talking to Nadine at Flour + Stone about her management accounts and noticed some discrepancies with their xero file.  On discovering a few financial anomalies, Flour + Stone were referred into the accounting team to review their structure and ongoing accounting processes. We discovered that Flour + Stone would benefit from a lot more proactive guidance and advice in relation to their financial reporting, in particular in relation to reporting on the ongoing financial performance of the business.  The accounting team now look after Flour + Stones Financial Reporting, Quarterly reviews and Bookkeeping Support. We also tie these meetings in with the advisory meetings during the year to provide a collaborative and holistic approach.

legal

Through regular touch points with the advisory team and talking about the plans for Flour + Stone, it was apparent that Nadine required legal assistance with trademark questions and leasing considerations.

The legal team has provided advice to Nadine and ultimately were engaged to take steps to protect the valuable goodwill that Nadine had developed in her brand and assist in lease negotiations of her expansion aspirations.