Self-storage began in America Essay

The Shurgard concept of self-storage began in America in 1970 when cofounder of the guild Chuck Barbo identified a flutter in the grocery store for both homeowners and businesses with a requirement for extra space.He came up with the picture of mini-w behouses for people with excess belongings and businesses with long forgotten records or documents.Twenty years later Shurgard began to magnify into atomic number 63 and in 1995 the first European store opened in Brussels. Four years later the first UK store opened in South London and earlier this year the company was bought for $5bn by Public Storage, the worlds largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities. The challengeThe growth and success of Shurgard in Europe meant that increasing demands and expectations were existence placed on the companys operations middle get alongrs who were wrestling with a ontogeny number of stores, an ever-larger geographic area of responsibility, increased numbers of employees, decentra lisation of country and panEuropean support centres, great autonomy and reorganisation of roles.Terry Whitney, European Learning and Development Manager of Shurgard SelfStorage Centers, said The business of self-storage was in truth different in Europe than it was in the US and there were different points of maturity in the market so there were many challenges to face. Most of our attention was focussed on buying property and edifice new facilities. Suddenly we realised we had a management team that was bright and hard working barely had suffered from a lack of growth focus.The best result of our partnership with SHL is that the district managers are now incite because they get laid what is expected of them, how they will be held accountable and have focused training and information in place. Importantly, they in like manner know what success looks like. Terry Whitney, Shurgard shl.comCase Study ShurgardTypical of many fast growing companies, Shurgard realised that it had n o consistency of mull over titles, roles or responsibilities and no standardised job descriptions or job competencies for its staff. In addition there was no formal evaluation, training or development and no chronological succession planning.What Shurgard wanted to create was a consistent layer of district managers crossways Europe. Some people already had this title but their job seemed little different to a market manager, operations manager or area manager.We were promoting great operations people from store managers to more senior job titles with responsibility for arrive at and loss accounts for specific districts. We also wanted them to lead, inspire and motivate and the more senior roles had a tout ensemble different set of skills requirements which we had not measured or trained for, said Whitney.District managers were identified as the operations critical layer with which to start work. Shurgard felt that if these people could not determine and accurately musical the me on key occupancy and rates figures for stores, then shareholders would not have the confidence to invest funds for expansion and more storage sites. The solutionThis client places people development high on its inclination of an orbit of organizational priorities. With an agreed name for the role, the company needed to align the title with expectations and competencies that could be used across Europe and which would accommodate prox growth of new stores. The people had to more effectively lead and manage an ever larger number of store personnel at a time of reduced centralized support. They were also required to operate at a higher managerial level than had previously been demanded. go about with this challenge, Shurgard partnered with SHL global experts in workplace assessment to conduct a performance assessment of the mid-management team in Europe.The programme was designed to Establish a benchmark of authorized managerial talents Undertake a gap analysis to determine t he strengths and limitation of the management team against the new job competencies Recommend how the current managerial team could get to the new expectations for the district manager role Assess the leadership potential of the current team Identify the ideal profile of a district manager for use in future recruitment.Supporting more than 10,000 customers every yearOrganisations that understand and maximize their peoples potential achieve outstanding results. SHL gives you the insights to make better decisions about your people. We telephone this People Intelligence, Business Results.With SHLs Universal readiness Framework cards, we were able to define the critical behaviours required for the district managers role, comments Whitney This competency model was the hub about which SHL was able to design an appropriate development centre programme.Individuals were invited to a one-day assessment at an SHL diagnostic development centre in order to see how they fitted the need and be havioural competencies of the district manager role. The assessment include exercises aligned to specific competencies, psychometric tests in local languages, management scenario role-play and numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning tests. to each one attendee received feed foul from a senior SHL assessor who took them through their results and talked about their development needs.The ResultsAs a result of the assessment, Shurgard found that its mid-management team had a wide spectrum of skills and abilities but also specific patterns of managerial strengths and weaknesses. Recognising these areas enabled the company to target the appropriate training and development to address specific competencies and behaviours.Shurgard really learned the critical splendour of aligning the district manager job description, job competencies, hiring profile, training activities and performance management processes to create ameliorate motivation and performance, said Whitney.He added that using the competencies created by SHL also changed the recruitment and promotion process. New recruits are now given competency-based interviews focused on certain experiences whilst promotions are no longer based on length of service and performance alone but on potential against the required competencies. For me its the competencies everything ties back to them, said Whitney.And he adds The best result of our partnership with SHL is that the district managers are now motivated because they know what is expected of them, how they will be held accountable and have focused training and development in place. Importantly, they also know what success looks like.Case Study ShurgardShurgards need to focus on developing its managers was being hampered by a lack of consistency in job titles, roles, responsibilities and competencies for its staff. SHL worked with the firm to assess its midmanagement team in Europe and identify the ideal profile for district managers. Shurgard is now able to tar get management development and recruit more effectively for improved motivation and performance 25 million assessments every year.Organisations that understand and maximize their peoples potential achieve outstanding results. SHL gives you the insights to make better decisions about your people. We call this People Intelligence, Business Results.