First Issue of "The Bullet"
- Apr 9, 2021
- 9 min read
Updated: Apr 11, 2021
Welcome to the very first issue of "The Bullet", the store's new Staff Newsletter.
It will be a monthly update (or thereabouts) on what's happening in the store and within our industry in general. We'll try not to bore you to death, but there are items included that you will need to know, such as procedures & policy updates, etc.
Btw, the newsletter is for employees only, so it is not published and therefore not meant for public consumpion. We ask that you not share it.
In This Issue
Covid-19 Update 3.0
Ontario Implements Declaration of Emergency and Provincewide Stay-At-Home Order
What this means:
In response to rapid increase in COVID-19covid 19 transmission, the threat on the province's hospital system capacity and the increasing risks posed to the public by COVID-19covid 19 variants, a declaration of emergency and provincewide stay-at-home order are in effect as of Thursday, April 8, at 12:01 a.m.
This puts in place shutdown measures that:
are the most stringent, to address rapidly escalating conditions, including the spread of variants of concern
include business closures in higher risk sectors (for example, fitness activities, personal care service establishments, indoor and outdoor dining)
For more information, read the full list of restrictions here.
Note: The store will remain open for CURBSIDE PICKUP ONLY.
Ontario amended its workplace screening questionnaire on March 9, 2021. The COVID-19 screening protocol must occur upon arriving at the workplace. Employees can’t enter the workplace until the screening has been completed. The questionnaire and signature sheets are located at the Rentals entrance, where all staff are required to enter. Please ensure that you have read the questionnaire and initialled beside the current date, prior to beginning your shift each day. No exceptions.
Updated Store Hours:
Beginning Monday, April 12th, our hours will be Mon-Sat 8am-5pm, Sunday 9am-5pm.
Staff Parking
Now that Spring is here & Summer's on the way, space for customer parking becomes an issue. So we ask that you park along the east side of the lot, in the spaces backing onto Goderich Street.
Tip:
If all of those spaces are taken, then please use the north end of the centre 2 rows. Staff should not use prime parking spaces at the front or to the sides of the main entrance, which are meant for customers.
Shared Folder
The Shared Folder is there for when you want to check the Schedule, book Time Off, or review New Items for the store.
Note: before requesting time off, you must check the Vacation Booked folder to see whether any other staff have booked off the time you are interested in. If you see that someone else in your department has already booked that time off, you will need to look at alternative dates.
Did You Know?
People searched Google 94,109 times for our store in the first quarter of this year!
57.5% were people who found the store searching for a category, product, or service.
22.1% were people searching specifically for the store name or address, and 20.4% were customers who find our listing searching for a brand related to our business.
Just in the month of February, 38,387 people found us on Google. Of those, 1,851 clicked through to our website and 1,543 called us. Apparently, a lot of people were just looking for our hours or location, and no further action was taken.
The photos on our Google listing were viewed a whopping 270,000 times during the first quarter of this year! They don't indicate whether those views took place locally, or in Zimbabwe, but you've gotta figure they're mostly local. Either way, that's a lot of views!
Interesting to see the breakdown on how people discovered us using Google. 55% found us using Google Search on mobile, 40% on desktop. Also kinda fun to see that 2,132 people searched "home depot", but ended up finding us! That's a result of having an active presence on Google, with a high number of photos, posts, and review replies.
Btw, we currently have a 4.3 Rating on Google, which is pretty good. Amazing how a few bad reviews can really bring a rating down, though. With the 153 reviews we've received, we were bound to get a few poor ones. But we've notched our rating upward in the past several years, and we'll keep working to get it higher.
Social Media
Most retail businesses are on social media, and we're no exception. If you don't already, click on the images below to go to our Facebook and Instagram accounts and consider liking/following us.
We have 1,331 people who follow us on Facebook, and 784 followers on Instagram. By far, the most popular posts are the ones with photos of customers with their dogs, or photos of staff. Makes sense, since most of us are on the platforms to be "social", not view sales pitches or promotions. It doesn't mean people aren't seeing those kinds of posts, just that they don't like or comment on them as much as the more personal (or social) ones.
Of course, corporate Home Hardware has it's own social profiles, with close to 475,000 people liking them on FB and over 24,000 followers on Instagram. They also supply the stores with content to post, which mostly consists of the flyers as well as home improvement or DIY projects.
Our Own Website
You may not be aware that we have our own website for the store. We wanted to have our own online presence, separate from the corporate Home Hardware site. Staff member Peter created the site and maintains it.
The Bullet newsletter is hosted on the site, as you can see by the url address for it, which is www.portelginhomehardware.ca/bullet. When future issues are published, they'll also be hosted on the site and an archive will then be created that can be viewed at any time.
Also on the website, you'll find a link to a story you might enjoy reading. It's titled, "Full Circle", about how we came to own the yellow 1951 Chevy pickup truck with the vintage Home Hardware logo on it (usually parked in front of the store, except during winter). Home Installs Manager, Joe Nymeyer, told us the story and gave us the framed photos of the truck in it's various states (of disrepair) to use with it.
Speaking of Home Installs, it's button on the homepage currently links to the main site where the corporate Home Installs section resides. But eventually, we will have our own Home Installs page, which will showcase our renos using "before & after" photos & stories. The first will be a full kitchen reno designed by Lorie Snow, which is currently under way. Once it's completed, we'll take the "after" photos for the story. This will be an ongoing effort, and projects will be added as they are completed.
New For Home Expressions
We have a new line of organic candles in the Home Expressions section, from a company in Brooklin, Ontario, called Driftwood Decor. These hand crafted & hand poured GMO-free candles are created with the highest quality soy wax and essential oils - no synthetic fragrances or perfumes. We're selling them at $24.99 each.
A Few Friendly Reminders From The Warehouse:
Please return bullet carts to the Warehouse after using them. They are for moving items from one place to another, not storing them.
Please remember to break down all cardboard boxes and place them in the large cardboard bins for recycling.
Store shelves are being left in the Warehouse lately, and that is not where they go. They're to go upstairs in the storage room in specific sections, so if you're removing shelves from the store, please take them upstairs to the storage room and put them in the section where they belong.
When placing an order for a customer, please write their last name (using a black Sharpie) above the fold so it can be easily seen when retrieving the order from the warehouse shelves (see the example below).
Stat Holiday Deliveries
Please note that for all weeks where Stat Holidays occur, it is always the Tuesday truck that is cancelled in the week that the holiday falls within. For Easter, for exaample, the Stat Holiday was actually Good Friday, April 2nd. So our usual truck for Tuesday March 30th was cancelled, even though the Thursday truck was closer to the Stat.
The fact that we closed on Sunday, instead of Good Friday, had no bearing on the delivery schedule. In the event the Stat falls on a Thursday, the truck is delayed to Friday.
Mike's Inventory Review
As most of you are aware, we have completed our 2020 inventory. Mike would like to reach out and thank everyone involved for their combined efforts to achieve this.
2021 is going to be a very challenging year due to varying supply issues and heavy customer demand. Therefore, please make sure to check stock with direct vendors or St. Jacobs (depending on the type of order) before making any delivery promises to customers.
Department Heads
If you are not already doing so, please regularly review the "New Item Listing - Review" in the Shared Folder for new items available to your departments. David Yule adds each new item update to this folder on a weekly basis, so you can review them each week. Remember, the most important part of introducing new items is to plan ahead and make sure you have a home available when ordering them for your department. PLEASE take the time to set up the SKU (Min-Max & retail location ).
Our Goal
Our goal for 2021 is to join Live Inventory on the corporate Home Hardware website. As Mike has discussed with many of you, the only way to achieve this is with SKU maintenance, aka: Cycle Counts and Spot Checks.
Cycle Counts
Cycle Counting is the most important task for maintaining a constant and secure inventory. As such, we will soon be requiring one person a day from each department to count one section (4 ft) every day. A good practice would be to plan a time each day for this to be done. With these regular and constistent cycle counts, we can confidently place our inventory online.
Mike will continue to monitor the negative on-hands. Please reach out to him if you have any further questions.
Garden Centre
We are expecting some arrivals at the beginning of May for the Garden Centre, from Sheridan and Fernlea Nurseries.
The majority will arrive prior to the May Long Weekend. The goal is to have the Garden Centre as set up and well-stocked as possible by the Long Weekend.
Radio Central
A reminder from David Yule that all floor staff are required to wear radios during their shifts. The store will be getting very busy now and pages become more frequent.
To aleviate the number of pages, please communicate via radio as a default, rather than using the paging system.
Customer Service
Friendly Customer Service is the hallmark of Home Hardware stores. The customer experience is the most important aspect of our interactions with them.
With this in mind, we ask that whenever possible, staff take customers to the aisle where the product(s) they're asking about are located (provided we stock them). This extra effort goes a long way towards enhancing the customer experience and they very much appreciate it.
Staff Schedule
Hats off to staff member, Susan, for the idea of having the schedule on our website for staff to access. We'll update it with each new schedule and leave the prior week's schedule there for your reference.
The schedule is there for staff only. Please respect the privacy of your co-workers and do not share it with anyone else.
Here's the link (you may want to bookmark it): www.portelginhomehardware.ca/schedule
Gettin' To Know You
We wanted to profile a staff member once in a while so we can get to know a little more about the people we work with. We all come from different backgrounds, and many have come from other parts to end up calling this area their home. It's a fun feature that we hope you enjoy. The first up is our resident handyman, Brian Walters.
After high school in Stratford, Brian worked in the masonry and concrete construction trades for 8 years.
He then took a job at the Stratford and Kitchener campuses of Conestoga College, where he maintained two low pressure steam boilers, repaired locks, door hardware, office furniture, etc. He was there for 15 years and says he enjoyed every minute there.
Brian always wanted his own business, and researched lots of different opportunities. In 1998 he learned how to bake bread, which he & his wife, Bonnie, did as a business for 7 years in Goderich.
In 2005 they moved to Port Elgin to help build 18 condominiums in Southampton. They purchased Maurer's Collison in 2013. They closed the business and sold the building to Peter & Jill Gauthier in 2019. Brian accepted the position of Building Maintenance Tech for the store, which he does to this day. He has enjoyed the job, as well as the people he works with and has gotten to know.
Brian has been married to his wife, Bonnie, for nearly 25 years and has been a musician all his life. He was in a couple of different groups in the 90's that played often at a variety of venues in and around Stratford. He continues to play, getting together with friends to jam in his studio on a regular basis.
New Staff
Please welcome Tina, who joins the Paint Department, and Lorraine, our newest Super-Cashier!
Hello Spring!
Spring has finally arrived, and with it comes renewal and rejuvenation. We hope you are able to get outside to enjoy the warmer weather and shake off the Winter cobwebs.
Spring also brought us the first issue of The Bullet! We hope you found it informative and a not-too-painful read. Before you know it, May will be here, bringing the next issue of The Bullet.
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