Section 1:
Shellie McWhorter is the manager of the Yankee Candle Company store in the Wilton Mall in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her tenure with the company began in 2004 as a seasonal sales associate and after a few years of spending time as an assistant manager became the full-time manager in 2007. Yankee Candle Company was founded in 1969 in Deerfield, Massachusetts and primarily sells an assortment of fragrance candles as well as flameless products and car accessories. The company is now owned by a multibillion dollar company called Newell Brands who also owns products like Rubbermaid, Sharpie, and PaperMate. Yankee Candle currently employs over 1,000 employees in the U.S. while manufacturing remains in Deerfield. The store that Shellie manages in Saratoga Springs employs 5-6 people in the spring and summer and 7-8 in the fall and winter months. The company carries a long and impressive tradition and history of providing outstanding products that can’t be matched anywhere else in the industry. Yankee Candle operates under a strict bureaucratic model as there are multiple departments of the company that all work in unison to succeed. Power is distributed in a pyramid fashion with the CEO of the company controlling the most power and influence with the amount trickling down to the Presidents, Vice Presidents, Regional Managers, District Managers, and Store Managers. As store manager of a Yankee Candle, Shellie’s responsibilities include scheduling staff, receiving and processing shipments of products, maintaining the store’s appearance and resolving employee requests and issues. In addition to these responsibilities, she is required to report to monthly regional meetings and file reports on the financial standing of the store. At the point when I interviewed Shellie, the staff of her store included a first and second assistant manager and three sales associates including myself. I began working for the company for just under a year and have been working for Shellie for about 7 months. Relative to other stores, the staff at Shellie’s store is very small. For example, the staff in a store in Albany, New York employs around 12-15 people. Everyone I know who works for Yankee Candle say nothing but positive things about the company and all find working for the company an excellent experience. The associates I’ve talked with who work for Shellie too say she is “a great role-model and one of the most efficient and passionate managers they have ever had”.
Since Yankee Candle Company operates in the retail industry the organization is extremely focused on selling and the experience the consumer receives. Every interaction with the customer is amplified and broken down to what we say, how we act, and even how we dress. Shellie periodically receives messages from higher management that include changes in how we interact with the customer and then relays that information and instruction to her staff. In this way, Shellie acts as an example in how to communicate and interact with the customers. As we discussed in our interview, Shellie’s biggest challenges are the following: inspiring her staff to want to excel without a physical reward and complimenting her staff members when they succeed. She agrees that she takes a more Theory Y focus when trying to motivate employees because she believes every person she has hired genuinely cares about the company and product (Burke). We talked about how the make-up of the staff has evolved over the years and she said that, “the average age of my staff goes through fluctuations, three to four years ago I had a much older staff but now my staff’s average age is probably in the mid to low twenties”. She explained that the age fluctuation doesn’t change how she treats her staff but does require her to use different motivation techniques. For example, with a younger staff she may need to use more physical rewards as opposed to an older staff who may be more intrinsically motivated. Although she doesn’t prefer to use physical rewards to motivate she says they are still effective and help in “shaping a worker’s mentality for them to want to succeed by themselves”. When members of Shellie’s staff excel and succeed at a task she assigned; Shellie finds it hard to compliment the individual while remaining sounding sincere. She explains that what is hard about this situation is “explaining the reasons why they did a great job and avoiding just saying, “good job” to a person”. For example, if I sell four personalized large jar candles to a woman who was only coming in to buy a few votives then this would be a huge accomplishment. The easy thing to say as a manager would be “good job” but a great manager and leader would explain what I did or said that made the accomplishment possible so that I could repeat it again. Even though Shellie states this as a challenge for her, I notice she takes the time to work with her staff to make sure they are the best they can be. She mentions that no one person is perfect and that we all have our weaknesses and if we a step by step approach to working on our weaknesses then we will always continue to improve.
Section 2:
In Yankee Candle, personal experiences and relationships mean everything. From the relationships made between the staff and customer to between staff members and with upper management. Since Shellie has taken over as manager, she has made it a point to create a family atmosphere with her staff that carries over into how the staff treats its customers in her store. An environment like this values respect, productivity, accountability, personality, and serving others. This kind of environment is extremely difficult to maintain in an industry like retail due to high turnover rates. To combat high turnover rates, Shellie puts a lot of time and energy on the hiring process to ensure she is bringing in the right kind of people who will blend well in the store setting Shellie has created. She looks for people who are “outgoing and talkative and can interact with people without feeling awkward”. An online business forum called Harver cites the reasons for high turnover rates in retail from a highly competitive job market and the low wages that retail companies can offer (Harver). Communication in any retail store is important but at Yankee Candle this is heighted dramatically because the company’s product is priced higher than any of the competition and so demonstrating the quality of the product as well as creating a first-class experience is necessary. Only a person who is passionate about the product and comfortable communicating with others could fully provide the productivity Shellie and the company is looking for. On a personal level for Shellie, turnover affects her more than having to fill a void in her staff. Saying goodbye to someone whom you’ve created such a close relationship with can be incredibly hard but more times than not it is ultimately for the best. She has said that she feels the most accomplished when she is able to tell her bosses that one of her assistant managers is ready for a full-time manager position. “Watching someone you have taught and developed turn into a great leader and succeed is an amazing feeling and it gives you a personal boost for a while”. I find a great parallel to this situation is a parent watching their kids grow up and learn to become successful and excel on their own. Shellie takes time to work with her assistant managers and to teach them everything they need to know as a parent would do with their child.
Throughout Shellie’s time working for the company, she has made it a point to do anything she can to support fellow workers and company branches. Up until a few years ago, Shellie had volunteered to travel to other Yankee Candle stores and serve as a training store manager. In the interview she shared a story about a trip to Queens, New York she made a few years ago. I believe it demonstrates the type of leader Shellie is and the level of impact she makes for the whole company. Shellie had to take two weeks away from her own store to help jumpstart a brand-new store in Queens whose staff was completely new to the company and primarily spoke Spanish. Shellie became very frustrated initially but persevered on and made significant steps forward by the end of the two weeks. She mentioned that she would have liked to have stayed for another week or two to complete what she started. Nonetheless she takes pride in assisting and improving the company in different ways and her trip to Queens exemplifies that. Shellie is a true leader in that she explicitly goes out of her way to assist others and help make positive strides for Yankee Candle.
Over the course of Shellie’s tenure as manager of the Saratoga Springs store, she has consistently produced great financial numbers in comparison with her district and regional stores. This sort of consistency for over a decade is a testament to Shellie’s management and leadership style and execution. A large part of this prolonged success has to do with Shellie’s hiring process and training of her staff. “The product of a store is only as good as its parts” and this is extremely accurate when talking about longevity of success at this store. Over the years many workers have come and gone but Shellie has remained and every person under her had to be trained, motivated, and integrated into the team. Shellie performed all of these tasks and her consistency in these directly resulted in the consistency of the store. Even after 14 years, Shellie continues to make working for the company fun and interactive and brings the same amount of energy and enthusiasm that she brought on day one. This makes working for Shellie less like a job and more like an activity. I have never felt burdened to come to work for Shellie and in fact I get excited to work for her. When you have your staff excited to come to work for you and sustain it over an extended amount of time then you know you are doing the right actions as manager. Shellie is incredibly valuable to the Saratoga Springs store and to the company and has continued to be for a long time. What separates Shellie from other managers is that others may be content with a great year and then fall off, but Shellie is not like others and has proven time and time again that she is a major asset to this company.
Section 3:
On a more critical note, Shellie’s style and practice involves being firm yet caring as a manager. For example, she said “I don’t treat my staff with kid gloves, they’re adults, I’m not your mom.” At the same time, Shellie is very personable and genuinely cares not just about you as an employee but as a person and friend. She mixes professionalism with friendly conversation very well and this keeps the staff focused on task while having meaningful communication about life outside work. Another significant characteristic of Shellie is that in any situation she remains level-headed and calm. Like when a customer became angry and frustrated about the details of a promotion and demanded that she receive a refund. Shellie worked with this customer in a polite and composed manner and through the whole process she never showed any signs of frustration or negativity. Shellie served as an example in how to deal with an angry client in the correct way. As a manger, dealing with any situation with a level head sets the tone for the rest of the organization to act in a professional way.
One aspect of Shellie’s management and really the structure of the company as a whole is to incorporate more creativity and begin to promote or market more towards a younger customer base. Currently, the majority of Yankee Candle’s customer base is above thirty and only getting older because the company is struggling to acquire younger customers. A great way for the company to generate ideas is to survey the younger employees in the company and listen to what they have to say. Personally, I feel like I have multiple great ideas for the company, but I have no way of sharing them with the company. For example, I would market our “Scenterpiece” wax warmer more towards teenagers and young adults as I think that age group would latch on to this product and help get a larger number of younger people excited about Yankee Candle. Some things Shellie could do is to simply give our staff more of an opinion about products or to offer ideas for promotions or sales. Making your staff feel like their opinion matters and supplying opportunities for people to voice that opinion can go a long way in how an employee feels towards a company. Overall, Shellie McWhorter is an individual I look up to as a role model in terms of her leadership and management qualities and I believe those are the qualities that make her a great manager.