CIO Bulletin

Pioneer Landscape Centers: Elevating service with technology and culture change

Pioneer Landscape Centers mostly sell rock, much of it extracted from the company’s own quarries across Arizona and Colorado, so most people wouldn’t look at this retailer and think, “Wow. These folks really invest in IT and customer service.” But they do because of company president Paul Tudor, who took the helm in mid-2019.

At that time, the company was transitioning from being a family-owned business with mostly manual processes that hadn’t changed much over the years. The IT systems that did exist were not integrated, leaving employees in stores unable to see nearby inventory or fleet availability for deliveries. And the word customer was rarely part of the leadership’s conversations.

Tudor targeted IT investments to achieve one primary goal: Make it easier for employees to deliver an exceptional customer experience. What’s more, he refocused the company on its core customer: the small-to-medium landscaping professional who visits a Pioneer store several times a week.

The transformation that Tudor initiated at Pioneer required significant shifts in employee attitudes and actions. It was also something Tudor knew he couldn’t achieve through company directives and rewards alone. It had to be done through inspiration that fosters engagement, enthusiasm, and empowerment. We asked Tudor how he brought those qualities out among his team. Here is what he said:

Q. CIO Bulletin: You’ve rolled out a lot of technology that changed people’s jobs. How did you get employees to embrace it?

Paul Tudor: I believe that context at all levels provides clarity, focus, and commitment. That’s why my team and I worked hard to explain the “why” behind our decisions. We also began changing Pioneer’s culture to one where people were invited to continuously question the status quo before asking employees to embrace new systems or implement processes they’d never done before.

The first change we had to implement was the understanding that Pioneer is no longer a top-down organization. It’s bottom-up. My role is to support my direct reports. Their role is to support their employees, and so on. And we listen to our people in the field. They’re the ones face-to-face with our customers, so what they say and do matters most. We want them to tell us what’s working and what needs to change. We’ve also socialized the idea of an ACE culture, where ACE stands for “accountability, capability, and engagement.”

On the accountability front, we ask each person in the company to own their 50%. It’s not enough to point and say, “That is an issue.” At Pioneer, we expect people to point out issues and to do their part to fix them. Own your 50% and tell us what else, or who else, is needed. When it comes to capability, we’re now more diligent in creating detailed job descriptions, and we are far more discerning in our recruitment efforts. Pioneer is an exclusive club, and that is how we behave. We also give our employees ample training. Our company averages six to 10 days of training per employee per year, so our people know how to succeed in their jobs.

Finally, we model behavior that lets employees know it’s OK to challenge the way things are done, recommend new ideas, and even make mistakes. We tell people it’s OK to be wrong from time to time as long as we are still headed in the right direction. This helps to create a culture of change across all parts of the business. Then, when we listen to their suggestions or implement employees’ ideas, everyone knows the Senior Leadership Team is committed to making Pioneer better for our people and our customers.

Q. CB: How did you encourage employee engagement?

Paul: To get people to care about your company, you need to demonstrate that you care about them. That’s why we’ve made employee communication and rewards a priority. On the communications front, when I came on board, we started bi-weekly emails from the president and more formal meetings. We strive to provide context and to make sure our employees understand our company and our strategy. If they understand the “why” – the reasons behind a decision – they’re more likely to engage in the “what” – the change at hand.

For example, we don’t see ourselves as a landscape materials retailer. Instead, we see ourselves as a distribution company that just happens to sell landscaping materials. That perspective helps to foster a service-centric culture, with high availability of quality products, rapid in-store order fulfillment, and on-time delivery at the core. Our customers are busy, and they need to rely on us to help get the job done.

We also make sure our employees understand that when a customer comes to Pioneer, he or she isn’t just comparing us to another landscape materials supplier. That customer is comparing us to the ease of doing business with Amazon or the responsiveness and efficiency of an Apple store. We want to be famous for exceptional service, so employees need to understand that our customers develop their opinions of great service from all the companies they interact with, not just companies like ours.

Listening is important for engagement, too. Employees who offer ideas and never see them implemented can get discouraged and stop supporting the company’s continuous improvement efforts. We always circle back to employees with feedback and updates on any suggestion.

Q. CB: What changes did you implement that made employees believe you were working to improve the company for them and customers?

Paul: As I said before, Pioneer doesn’t just sell rock. We sell service. So one of the changes we implemented was automating processes and integrating systems related to sales and product delivery. When I first came to Pioneer, we sold products based on what we could see at the store, as our inventory system was unreliable. We also used spreadsheets to manage our deliveries, and store employees had to use two different systems to complete a sale – one for pickups and the other for deliveries. As a result, our people were unable to easily answer the simple “how much do you have in stock” question. They were forced to navigate a sea of upset customers whose deliveries were late (or lost) and had to operate two very unfriendly systems while adhering to a plethora of manual processes and workarounds.

We knew this had to change, so we developed Pioneer OS, an integrated system that combines inventory, dispatch, and point-of-sale. The new system makes it easier for our employees to get the job done, while also giving them back more time to do what they love: Provide an exceptional customer experience.

Along with improving the Pioneer experience for our customers, we’ve tried to improve it for employees, too. We rolled out a new bonus program that allows everyone to share in our company’s success. In addition, we gave all our employees a one-time bonus last summer as a way of saying thank you for their dedication and commitment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lastly, we rolled out an industry-leading Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) program and hired dedicated staff to manage employee training and keep this program vibrant. And, a year into our EHS journey, we’ve not only delivered a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) that is 36% below the industry average, we’ve also created safety councils with people from several locations and roles within the company so employees can shape the direction and focus of this vital program.

Q. CB: How do you know you’ve achieved a shift in company culture?

Paul: I can feel the shift when I walk into one of our retail stores. People used to shy away from leadership. Now, they’re comfortable offering ideas to management at any level because suggestions no longer fall on deaf ears. They know we’re listening because they’ve seen their ideas implemented. They also know we’ve now got a no-blame workplace, so it’s OK to point out problems, and people do.

We need them to feel that comfort level because our front-of-house staff are the ones who know our customers best. We’re relying on them to help us continually improve the customer experience.

And our people want to help Pioneer improve. We can see it in how many raise their hands to support our EHS program, or from those who volunteer to work extra hours to get a project done in record time. We can also see it in how employees rate Pioneer. Our Glassdoor ratings went from a 2.0 to a 4.2 rating. Finally, it’s getting easier to drive change across the company. Now that people know management is listening and have seen us deliver things they never thought possible, they realize we value their opinion and that they play a vital role in making Pioneer better for everyone.

About Pioneer

Established in 1968, Pioneer Landscape Centers is a leading distributor of landscaping and hardscaping materials in the western United States. With 34 retail distribution centers and 20 company-owned and operated quarries and production facilities in Colorado and Arizona, Pioneer is uniquely positioned to serve industrial, commercial, wholesale and residential customers.

About the President

Paul joined Pioneer in July 2019 and built a strategy that has returned the company to profitability. Prior to joining Pioneer, he was the CEO of Stramit, Australia’s 2nd largest manufacturer and distributor of roll-formed steel building products. Paul holds over 15 years’ experience leading transformations for private-equity, listed and government-owned companies across retail, distribution, manufacturing, mining, and utilities. He has a track record of creating significant shareholder value by executing complex turnarounds at pace, effecting sustainable change and building strong platforms for growth.