Ukrop’s Super Market, Inc.
Ukrop’s Management Enhances Leadership Skills with "Leadership Foundations^SM"

The Company
Ukrop’s is a family owned chain of supermarkets located in Richmond, VA, and the surrounding metropolitan area. The company has grown rapidly over the past two decades. Offerings at its stores have changed over the years to provide customers with more options. Most notable is the increase in freshly prepared foods such as pre-cooked meals, salads, breads, cakes, pies, cookies and other consumables. Ukrop’s ranks in the top three chilled prepared food programs in the country. The company runs three manufacturing facilities 24 hours a day, six days a week to keep pace with the public demand. In 2000, this 400-employee group, called Ukrop’s Food Group (UFG), accounted for $40 million in sales, which would place it in the top quarter of Virginia’s 7,000 manufacturers.

The Problem
UFG has embarked on a Lean Transformation for over two years. As part of this transformation, management wanted to enhance the leadership skills of their first-line, and other management personnel.

The Response
Virginia’s Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership (VPMEP) suggested that these leadership-enhancing objectives be achieved through a structured “Leadership Foundations” course. This course consists of 24 one and one-half hour classroom sessions conducted over a period of one year. VPMEP recommended that UFG engage Dr. Emily Sterrett of Performance Works, LLC. to deliver a three-hour orientation workshop to the Ukrop’s trainers; a train-the-trainers activity.

Sessions for supervisory and management personnel were conducted by Ukrop’s HR, and other senior management members, using the “Leadership Foundations” materials as developed by Dr. Sterrett. The enhanced leadership skills and practices of selected personnel helped to promote lean transformation activities and contribute to reduced costs, as well as improving retention of associates.

The Results
The first class of “Leadership Foundations” included production managers and assistant production managers, a total of 15 students with two facilitators. A second class was started concurrently with 15 team leaders – UFG’s front-line leadership. Not only have leadership skills been improved, but the consistency of application of HR practices has also improved. The team has defined better measures to use in operations, and has identified several ways to improve processes.

Management’s Comment
According to Stephen Melton, Director of Manufacturing Operations, and one of the facilitators of the program, “Leadership Foundations has engendered wonderful results, not the least of which is leadership associates understanding their accountabilities and taking ownership of improving operations and associate relations.”

" Running this program as we have, with sessions every two weeks over a one year time frame – allows the leaders to use the skills as they learn them – and these new skills are becoming ingrained – things are sticking!"
-Pam Grafton, General Manager of the Central Kitchen

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