Cornwall Farmers

The entire Retail Division of Cornwall Farmers including 170 staff embarked on the Acorn Professional Development Programme in February 2009. Cornwall College Business designed this bespoke programme to meet their needs.

The programme is aiming to improve the business’ customer service, customer satisfaction, staff turnover and customer loyalty. Amongst the skills that the programme participants learn are providing excellent customer service, visual merchandising, and numeracy.

David Harding, Development and Training Manager for Cornwall Farmers, said: “The aim of the programme was to continue our company’s outstanding success by developing the capability and confidence of our retail teams, and make them better equipped to come out of the economic downturn in an even stronger position.

“The impact on communications and sharing ‘best practice’, particularly amongst branch managers, has been extraordinary.  Acorn is changing the learning culture of the whole of Cornwall Farmers.”

The training programme has impacted greatly on the business, with Cornwall Farmers seeing a 25 per cent decrease in staff turnover, a 24 per cent reduction in staff absence days, and an 8 per cent increase in sales (year on year).

Cornwall Farmers has deservedly been named as the 2010 Winner of Winners at the Cornwall College Business Excellence in Business Training Awards having come top of the ‘Outstanding Commitment to Training’ and ‘Commitment to Staff Development’ categories.

Back