Small Business: The silly season - Lesley Carroll and Samantha Kooiman, My Goodness Gift Baskets

My Goodness Gift Baskets team members (from left to right back row) Samantha Kooiman, Enelata Lui (and from left to right front row) Susana Hayes, Jo Sutton and Lesley Carroll.

This week, Small Business editor Caitlin Sykes talks to business owners about dealing with the lead up to Christmas.

Lesley Carroll is design manager and Samantha Kooiman is customer service and logistics manager at My Goodness Gift Baskets. The business has a full time team of six, which grows up to 18 in the lead up to Christmas.

What are the particular pressures you face in the business at this time of year?

Sam: The Christmas period is our busiest time of year. Our volume of stock increases massively, which means we have more space taken up with stock in our warehouse. Space is a big issue, because along with our food stock we have to store our pre-made baskets and our orders that we've already packed ready for dispatch.

Lesley: The busier we get the more staff we need to take on, but it can be hard finding people who can do what we do and keep up with the speed we need to be going at. The work is really demanding on your body. Everything we do is to a set time frame because we work with dates that are set by our customers. But at this time of year some people are wanting an extra-fast turnaround, which can add a lot more pressure.

Given the extra pressures at this time of year, when do you start planning for the Christmas season?

Lesley: We start working on Christmas in February, when our buyers go out looking for products and then start designing the baskets. We have a year planner for Christmas, where everything that needs to be done is mapped out and for what time.

Sam: We like to promote our new Christmas range in September and encourage our corporate buyers to get in early by offering free delivery if they place their order by a certain date, because this helps us plan.

How about the staffing and space pressures - how do you deal with those?

Lesley: It's really important for us to work hard to make sure we have the right Christmas staff and that they get a good amount of training. At this time of year the managers of each department also have a 15 minute morning meeting with their teams to catch up on everything that's happening. Good communication at this time of the year is really important.

In terms of the space issue, we have good relationships with our suppliers who we'll work with to split our delivery times so we're not storing too much in our warehouse at one time.

Sam: We have one supplier who lets us store some of our awaiting dispatch orders - stored up on a pallet and labelled by date - at their warehouse, which we're really grateful for.

Given it's your busiest time of year, what do you do to keep spirits up?

Sam: We make a point of regularly telling staff they're doing a great job and asking them to keep it up. Every day we'll have a quick 10 minute break together at about 3pm and go outside, have a stretch of the legs, and get some sun and fresh air. We also give staff chocolate or lollies, or we pop next door and get everyone a frozen Coke to help cool down as it can get really hot where we are.

Lesley: But I think the most important thing we do is make sure no one beats themselves up if they make a mistake. We remind them they're only human and no one is perfect.

Coming up in Small Business: Employees are increasingly looking for opportunities to work more flexibly, and doing so can help businesses attract good talent. But how does flexible working work on a practical level in a small firm? If you’ve got an experience to share, drop me a note: nzhsmallbusiness@gmail.com.