Dwain McDonald

Category: Leadership

  • Working from home – way more popular than expected

    Working from home – way more popular than expected

    While I was CEO of DPD UK, one of my biggest concerns when lockdown started was whether back-office employees would adapt successfully to working from home. At DPD there were 1,700 people in a wide range of functions such as Finance, Admin, Operations, Sales, Customer Care and IT. Would their performance or productivity drop? How could managers lead and inspire their people from a distance? Would communication and teamwork suffer? How would people handle domestic distractions?

    As I write this post nearly four months down the line, 1,450 managers and employees have given us their answers to these questions, in one of the most important people surveys we had ever conducted. And I must admit I was surprised by the results. Not only by the fact that over 90% completed the survey (our highest ever response rate), but also because a massive 80% said that they’d be more than happy to continue working from home in the future.

    We carried out the survey so that the team could help us shape office life in ‘the new normal’ and it looks like half of our office-based staff would, given the option, have chosen to continue working two to three days a week from home once lockdown restrictions had been lifted.

     

    The business benefits of working from home

    The survey responses did of course mention some downsides, including ‘lack of interaction’, ‘finding it difficult to switch off’, and mental wellbeing. These responses were factored into our thinking and in early July the leadership team learned far more about mental wellbeing from a leading expert before cascading a programme to more than 200 frontline operational managers.

    Back to the survey: a quarter of managers said there were no negatives at all about working from home, with a huge proportion citing benefits such as:

    • No commute
    • Flexibility
    • Reduced costs (fuel and food)
    • Better for the environment
    • Spending more time with family.

    Meanwhile, the service provided to customers by a dedicated DPD team on the front line was better than it’s ever been, despite the record-breaking volumes we were carrying, so concerns about a dip in performance were unfounded. We also saved nearly £60,000 per week on business travel and meetings and I definitely didn’t want to go back to spending that much every week!

     

    Investing for the future

    So, although day to day operational issues were a big challenge three months ago, we realised that we didn’t all need to be in the same office to tackle and overcome them. Likewise, despite having to run board meetings via conference call, our strategic discussions were probably more focused than they had been before.

    In fact, we have still been making very big decisions from our home offices, such as deciding to spend £100m on extra vehicles, £60m on new premises and £40m on new equipment and technology. This £200m investment from now until November 2020 should ensure the handling of our biggest ever pre-Christmas peak. DPD was expecting to carry 1.9m parcels on Cyber Tuesday, that’s a massive 300,000 more than on the same night last year, so as well as more vans and depots, we needed an extra 4,000 drivers and 500 shift managers by December!

    And looking further ahead, I was also keen to increase our graduate intake, so in 2020 I hoped to recruit 70 of the brightest minds from university – twice as many as in 2019.

     

    No more ‘copy, paste, repeat’

    So, what’s the moral of the tale? Despite DPD’s reputation for disruptive technology and innovation, the culture of the parcels sector was, in many ways, quite traditional. And the whole working from home experiment made me realise that it’s all too easy to fall into a ‘copy-paste-repeat’ style of management. And that means we haven’t always seen a better way of doing things – until we had to.

    By thinking we have to go to the office every day, we’ve carried on doing what we’ve always done since leaving school and what many of our parents did before us – go to work 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday. That was the DPD way for as long as I can remember. This corporate ‘sausage machine’ is what we were used to and of course changing the habits of a lifetime could feel uncomfortable at first. But I think we are coming to the conclusion: ‘If we have found a better, smarter and cheaper way of doing things, why go back to the old way?’

     

    Rewriting the rules of work

    The current pandemic gave us a huge opportunity to challenge old assumptions, to rip up the traditional landscape and to ‘rewrite the rules’ of work. So, I asked my people and talent team to take a fresh look at our terms and conditions and to think much more holistically about the package we have previously offered. To look beyond the traditional benefits – salary, car, pension, etc., and to reflect on what benefits are most important to people in the post-COVID-19 world.

    One of the directors said to me the other day: “I’m performing better now because I’m having a lie-in till 06.45 and am at my desk by 7:30am instead of being stuck in the morning commute. And I’m healthier too because I’m out cycling at 6pm instead of fighting my way home through the evening traffic. What’s not to love about that?”

    But again, not everyone will agree. Because around ten percent of DPD employees, for all sorts of personal and professional reasons, were chomping at the bit to get back to office life. For some, it’s a case of valuing the camaraderie of colleagues even more than they’d realised. So where possible, once we begin a phased return to DPD premises, we will do what we can to prioritise their return to familiar surroundings.

    And perhaps that’s the real moral of the tale. Just as different customers have valued different elements of DPD’s service proposition, different employees will value different aspects of their working lives. For some, the office banter will be well worth the daily commute, while for others the flexibility of working from home will trump even the best office routine.

    Thanks to an award-winning app, DPD offers home shoppers more choice than any other carrier about where and when they receive their parcel. Perhaps it’s time to give our employees as much choice about where and when they do the jobs that we pay them to perform.

     

  • Towards a new normal – how COVID-19 made us think differently

    Towards a new normal – how COVID-19 made us think differently

    I spoke to several CEOs during May 2020 and it’s safe to say that none were prepared for the challenges of grappling with a global pandemic. Sure, there were business continuity plans and experts who carried out regular risk assessments but dealing with an overnight economic lockdown is not something they teach you at business school. So by the end of this crisis, the new normal will probably look very different to what went before.

    How the Coronavirus pandemic impacted different industries

    The impact in different sectors was stark, with clear winners and losers. Divorce lawyers were apparently inundated with new enquiries, whereas the long-term prospects for karaoke bars looked somewhat less promising. At DPD B2B volumes halved – virtually from one week to the next. Simultaneously B2C doubled overnight – and because we led the UK market in home deliveries, this produced the kind of volumes that are normally only seen in the six-week pre-Christmas peak.

    Customers shopping online rather than on the high street meant we delivered more food, flowers, nail varnish, eyelashes and loungewear than ever before! In fact, Easter volumes were double those of last year. And incidentally, Coronavirus did nothing to put the brakes on the company’s mission to become the UK’s most sustainable carrier. This year we’ve already delivered 2.2 million parcels on all-electric vehicles and the target for Cyber Tuesday (1 December) is to deliver an incredible 70,000 parcels on EVs.

    The new normal and attracting the best talent

    The parcels sector is known for attracting resourceful people who can think on their feet, but in the last two months the business had to become more agile, flexible and innovative than ever before.

    For example, it took some pretty nimble footwork to recruit 500 new drivers in the last month, with another 500 in the pipeline by the end of June, ensuring that they’re trained to deliver the top-quality doorstep experience that DPD customers pay for. And given that we now expect the 2020 peak to be 40% bigger than last year, I found myself asking my Property team to find ten additional sites by the start of November, making a total of 15 new depots by the end of 2020. Oh, and a further 3,000 new drivers by then as well.

    It’s in this kind of crisis that you find out what your people are really made of. Resilience – how well you adapt in the face of adversity – is what will separate the winners from the losers as we navigate these uncharted waters and adapt to the new normal. So, the approach at DPD was to focus on what’s most important and on what we can change, while accepting what’s outside our control.

    The upside of government restrictions is, that while remaining physically remote from each other we had to find new ways of working together. And guess what, some of them are probably here to stay.

    Necessity is the mother of invention

    This old saying has never felt more true than it does today. And there’s something really exciting about questioning the status quo and finding new ways of doing things. For example, I held daily one to two-hour conference calls with the whole Senior Management Team, so that we could discuss the nitty-gritty of running the business. This extra communication brought us closer together and we became more productive and focused than ever.

    But the biggest benefit is that each director invited some of their people to these virtual meetings. That meant much faster cascading of decisions to the rest of the team at the coalface and much quicker execution of the operational changes we needed to make. And of course it also gave some up and coming senior managers direct exposure to the C-suite.

    The plan for the new normal is to extend this format to our annual Strategic Board meeting, which normally sees 17 of us gathering in a hotel to discuss crucial business decisions for three days. That’s the way our previous two CEOs did it and when I took over in 2008, I carried on doing it the same way, thinking ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’

    But the truth is that three such intense eight-hour days in a row became an endurance test and it’s fair to say that if you were the last presenter on Day three, you probably didn’t get everyone’s full and undivided attention!

    With the physical boardroom off-limits, the Coronavirus pandemic gave us the opportunity to look at this meeting with fresh eyes. This year we will still do three days in a row, but in highly focused and disciplined two-hour chunks, for a total of just four hours a day. Each director will have their say, but they’ll only present for 20 minutes at a time and we will draw names out of a hat to decide who goes next, keeping everyone on their toes and fully focused.

    Time to think

    In some ways the parcels sector can be quite traditional. But another myth proven to be untrue is the one that said people are less productive working from home. It’s simply not true, though I have to admit that I was one of the sceptics when the People and Talent Director said: “1,700 of our 13,000 people won’t be coming to the office tomorrow.”

    But what we discovered is that the quality and quantity of work is just as high and, in some cases, higher than before. It’s an outdated attitude to think that everyone must be at their desk all day every day – and be seen to be there.

    It has always been fully ingrained in DPD’s DNA to be a fast-paced culture, often moving at lightning speed to make things happen for our customers. But loads of people are enjoying the fact that they’re running around a bit less now. Less time stuck in rush hour traffic jams, less pollution, less time away from the family on business…, in short we’ve discovered that less is more and that some of our old habits are past their sell-by-date.

    For example, I suddenly had much more thinking time than before the pandemic – and I’ve realised that my diary doesn’t have to be crammed with appointments from 08:30 to 18:30 every day. That was just another outdated habit from old-world conditioning that tells you that this is the way to behave.

    In short, there’s been a lot of talk about ‘returning to normal’ and at the start of this crisis, I must admit that the question of how to do that at DPD was at the top of my mind. But what I have learned is that this pandemic has given business leaders the opportunity to take a step back, take a much-needed breath and then consciously decide which bits of the ‘old normal’ are, at the end of the day, really worth keeping.

  • Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis; Dwain McDonald

    Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis; Dwain McDonald

     COVID-19 crisis and response

    All around the world, countries and businesses are facing enormous challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis. At DPD we have risen to this daily challenge – to ensure services continue, the team is safe and essential deliveries reach residents across the UK.

    COVID-19 was by far the biggest challenge I’ve ever had to face as a business leader, and I know this is the same for many more CEOs. People expect us to make informed decisions, keep all our stakeholders safe and maintain the high standards that they pay for.

    Communication is the biggest tool during this crisis. I have had daily calls with all my teams; planning and evaluating following government guidance.

    We have also kept our customers and people fully up to date with changes with regular email bulletins.

     

    Keeping employees and communities we serve safe

    My job was to focus on what’s most important to our customers, and the wellbeing of my teams. Delivery drivers are now on the front line delivering an important service: keeping goods, essential supplies and medical equipment flowing. That’s their job – and it was my job during my time as CEO to keep them safe.

    We brought in social distancing for all staff including changes to our sortation, loading and unloading processes. We launched a ‘wave delivery programme’, spacing out drivers’ start times to ensure fewer people were on site at any one time. And, despite all the disruption, our services ran normally with a success rate of 99.9% for first time delivery.

    The team spirit was fantastic. Behind the scenes other changes have included moving all office-based teams to home working. IT teams built and supplied around 700 new laptops to support this.

    The entire delivery service became totally contact-free, meaning that people no longer need to sign for parcels on handheld devices or even open their door.

    By adapting current systems, the company was still able to offer customer choice and ensure we complied with social distancing guidelines. People could either use the app to record their preferences, select the Leave Safe option under their in-flight tracking or leave a note on their door with instructions where to leave their parcel.

     

    Staying true to our Values

    Strong leadership means staying steadfast in the face of adversity and that means staying true to what you believe in, rather than panicking and falling into short-term thinking and decision-making. That’s why, despite all the operational changes the company stayed true to its distinctive DNA. The DPD culture is built on six core Values: Respect, Passion, Hard Work, Accountability, Flexibility and Honesty. The company rewards and recognises employees who demonstrate these Values and believe me, in the midst of this unprecedented crisis, the team’s behaviour was truly inspirational, in fact my biggest challenge post-Corona could well be finding a way to truly celebrate what they’ve achieved in these unprecedented times.

     

    Supporting the nation

    As CEO during this difficult time, the buck stopped with me. With my leadership team, I prioritised our people, our customers and the wider community, and implemented swift changes. People expect fast but considered decisions from leaders, and it is by taking these steps that we can reassure staff, customers and members of the public who come into contact with delivery drivers.

    In addition to making sure the core business was running smoothly with minimal disruption, we also thought about other ways we can support the nation during this disruptive time. It’s about innovation and using our resources in a different way.

    The company worked with the NHS and the Government to deliver medical supplies to adult care homes, pharmacies, hospitals, GP surgeries and hospices. So far, this has included 6.7 million protective gloves, 10.3 million safety masks and 5.2 million aprons. We also promised to support free collection and delivery of 3D printed additional PPE equipment around the country.

    Every year, DPD delivers millions of parcels for food retail outlets, and we have extended this to directly partner with Morrisons and support them in “feeding the nation” by getting essential supplies to the public. The retailer produced two different offerings, one box for meat eaters and one for vegetarians. DPD was proud to be the official delivery partner as part of this scheme.

    Moving forward I’ll continue to listen to the team every day and ensure they are as safe as possible. They will remain my number one priority and their efforts will allow us to support customers’ changing needs and the country as best we can.

    Keep safe and look after yourselves.

  • The 5 principles of leadership

    The 5 principles of leadership

    [vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text]There are 5 principles of leadership that I live by, and while I was CEO, these principles helped DPD UK and the team to stay ahead of the pack, by being hungry, dynamic, disruptive and agile.

    DPD led the parcel delivery market by always putting customers at the forefront of everything it did. We had a full-on culture, a dynamic leadership team and an engaging vision. Underpinning every step of our success, are 5 principles of leadership:[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1627631162509{padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

    1. Leading through purpose
    2. Leading by example
    3. Getting it right for the customer
    4. Leading by innovation and simplification
    5. Leading with passion and belief

    [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

    DNA

    DPD managers had a simple mission: leading and inspiring their teams to deliver amazing service every day. But, you can only create and nurture effective leaders if there is a clear definition of what this looks like for your organisation.

    That’s why core values – known at DPD as our DNA – have been the inspiration for how we led our people. Our six DNA values defined who we are, what we care about and what’s most important to us. These values are: passion, respect, honesty, flexibility, hard work and accountability. The company lived by these six small words every day. We wanted our friends and colleagues to use these words to describe us.

    They’re also the principles of teamwork, customer service and success.

     

    The principles of leadership

    Leadership is all about creating an environment where people can reach their full potential in order to deliver amazing service every day. Leadership is about inspiring people to make life easier for customers, because everything we do starts and ends with a customer.

    Great leaders are not born, but neither can they be developed from nothing. Leadership is an art and a science, but most of all it is an attitude, a way of being. The first is the ability to put others before yourself.

    Leadership is also a craft that can be learned through doing. Attitude matters far more than letters after your name. I left school at 16 and most of DPD UK’s Board of Directors started on the shop floor with no formal qualifications. Together we created a culture where success was celebrated as well as calling out failure. The leadership style was direct: we told it like it was, so people always knew where they stood with us. In this honest and accountable climate, people could grow their careers with the company.

    Now, here’s more about those 5 principles of leadership that I live by. They’re not a one-size-fits-all definition. But defining what good leadership means to your organisation is the initial step. Once this is in place, you can then use these principles of leadership to develop and shape your leaders.

     

    Principle 1 – leading through purpose

    What is the primary motivator for your people? Getting paid, yes. But people want to do more than ‘just get by’. They want a sense of  meaning and purpose and they perform best when they have exciting goals. In particular, when times get tough, a clearly defined shared purpose can make all the difference.

    The drive and sense of purpose at DPD UK was exactly what pushed us to ever greater heights. And we constantly pushed ourselves to innovate for our customers. Take the DPD ground-breaking app, for example, the first of its kind. In 2018, 3.6 million people downloaded it, now we have over 6 million downloads and thousands of truly engaged customers. But when we started developing it in 2015, we were told it couldn’t be done. Honestly, there were times we wanted to jack it in. It was just too difficult. But we didn’t. Why? Because our defined purpose is to keep improving what we offer customers. So we kept going and we came up with an industry-leading app that we’re all proud of and our customers love.

    Having a purpose is vital. This applies to every level, every stage of business, and every position within an organisation. Strong leaders make sure their people know why they are doing what they are doing and are on board with it.

    Sometimes I compared DPD to the Red Arrows, because when we set our sights on something for our customers, we moved at lightning speed and we were a synchronised team, flying in a perfect and precise formation.

     

    Principle 2 – leading by example

    It’s not just what you say, it’s what you do, and that’s why leaders affect their organisations through the examples they set.  So the next of my 5 principles of leadership is simply to think about how you want to lead by example. Then do it.

     

    Principle 3 – getting it right for the customer

    At DPD UK, everything was geared towards getting it right for the customer. While I was CEO, I knew that it was important to understand where our competitors were (behind us these days!), but we really obsessed over our customers. This is what was behind our internal structure, our company culture and our drive to continuously improve.

    We never stopped innovating, and we didn’t rest on our laurels. This is why we have been consistently voted the nation’s favourite UK courier company. Truly effective, successful leaders don’t stop planning and they’re constantly working towards a better future for their teams and customers. We want customers to feel delighted with the best service money can buy, impressed by the best technology available, and amazed by the most customer-centric people in the industry.

     

    Principle 4 – leading by innovation and simplification

    Each step you take as a leader should be about cutting complexity, simplifying the offering and making it better for the customer.

    When I became CEO, I switched the strategy, focus and ambitions of the company. From a complicated values, vision and philosophy statement that didn’t translate across the board, I simplified what DPD stood for. In came a simple, effective 1-2-3 strategy:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1627631843533{padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

    1. Deliver the best service that money can buy
    2. Use the best technology available
    3. Recruit, retain and develop the most customer-centric people in the industry.

    [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Our 1-2-3 strategy served us well during the last 10 years. As an example of our continual innovation, the 1-2-3 strategy was extended to incorporate a 4th key element:[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1584637907441{padding-left: 20px !important;}”]4. Be the UK’s leader in sustainable delivery.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]DPD was not the cheapest, but the best. And we never compromised the quality of the DPD brand, no matter what.

     

    Principle 5 – leading with passion and belief

    And finally, when it comes to the principles of leadership, it’s vital to lead with passion and belief. Always thinking big, innovating, raising your game and asking yourself how to really wow your customers.

    Leading with passion and belief is about calculated strategic risk-taking. If your entire industry says something isn’t possible, find a way to make it possible. That’s how you stand out from the crowd and push your organisation to the front of the pack.

    Ten years ago, DPD UK started reinventing itself as the leader for the home delivery market. It was a strategy of calculated risk and it has totally paid off. It transformed the company, with revenues of £1.4 billion. By 2025 DPD hopes to smash £2 billion turnover. And it will never stop innovating, leading by example and transforming itself. That’s how successful leadership works.

    And these are the principles of leadership.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]