Haydel's Bakery manages through empowerment

David Haydel Sr. (right) sent his two sons, Ryan (left) and David Jr. (center), to the Disney Institute for a week of management training.

What do Mickey Mouse ears and king cakes have in common? Haydel's Bakery in New Orleans. In 2008, owner David Haydel Sr. sent his sons, David Jr. and Ryan, to the Disney Institute for a week-long conference on successful business management practices called Disney's Value Chain: Unlocking the Magic in Your Business.

“I went to an RBA (Retail Bakers of America) convention where Disney had six hours, two hours each day, on management, service and employee benefits. I saw what it was all about, and when I came back to the bakery, I enrolled the two boys in the Disney training,” says David Haydel Sr. “Even before they went down there, they were really up on management techniques, but it made them even better. You get inspired when you go to things like that.”

Haydel's sons brought back several ideas that have since been incorporated into the bakery, such as regular meetings between management and employees, incentives for good ideas, training manuals and even product merchandising, consisting of four TVs in the front of the shop playing a video of all of Haydel Bakery's products.

David Jr. and Ryan also came back with the idea to give all employees job titles and business cards. At Disney, all employees are called cast members, so Haydel's gave inspiring titles to their employees as well. For example, sales associates are called sales design specialists. They all are trained to take cake orders, and the new title gives the customers the impression that they are dealing with someone who knows what they are talking about. The title fits, Haydel says, because the employees are in sales and they do help design wedding cakes as they take the order. Even the production staff, who don't deal directly with customers, are given business cards to hand to people when they aren't in the bakery.

Due to its location in New Orleans, Haydel's Bakery does a booming business in king cakes from Christmas to Mardi Gras. It makes 60,000 king cakes a season, which requires the bakery to hire 25 temporary employees, or double its regular staff. Haydel's has several systems in place to manage this influx of both production and staff.

The bakery has an on-staff manager that runs the order entry department with 10 operators who are trained, even if they are temporary, on how to specifically handle bakery orders. They all know the products, how they are shipped and what the packaging looks like. “They walk through the plant as they walk to the operator room every day, so they get to see us icing the king cakes,” Haydel says. “It's a good tool to let them see what's actually going on with the product they are selling.”

In production, all regular employees are cross-trained and almost every employee can perform any production task. During the busy season, Haydel's regular employees are spread out among the temporary workers to help keep production running smoothly. One of Haydel's sons runs the packaging room to ensure the cakes are iced, bagged and packaged properly while Haydel and his other son work in production, making sure the doughs are correctly mixed.

Haydel's tips for managing a successful bakery: keep an open mind and listen to what is going on around you. “It's the people out front who are talking to your customers. They are the ones who can give you the feedback on what the customers are looking for, what the customers aren't really happy about and what you can do to make things better,” he says.

Brookshire's in-stores make data functional

About three years ago, Brookshire Grocery's management team decided to change the company's business model in order to move into the next generation. They opted to convert the chain's 150 stores located in four states to the category management model and implement a new company-wide software system.

“The large part of the software move was to really support the category management process, which with respect to bakery, meant that the category manager drives the program based on data to support decisions,” says John Rose, category manager-bakery for the Tyler, Texas-based chain. The new business model is more customer-centric and provides Rose the necessary information to align the appropriate bakery products with their respective store banners, which include Brookshire Food Stores, Super 1 Foods and Olé Foods.