Few would argue the last 12 months were the most difficult for our business sector. Yet an energetic CEO responsible for more than 1200 frontline workers not only met the challenges of infection controls and social restrictions, but found opportunities to upscale the business, fast-track its success and reduce its impact on the environment.
Mark McGinley is CEO of CouriersPlease (CP), a leading parcel delivery service that delivers tens of millions of parcels annually. His efforts and achievements last year have won him ‘Top Executive’ in this month’s Top 30 Franchise Executives award.
CP was fortunate to continue operating during the pandemic as an ‘essential service’. At the same time, the online shopping boom resulted in an 80 per cent increase in parcel volumes across the CP network. Mark recognised early that lockdowns would lead to an upscale in business. To manage the growth, and avoid fatigue and burnout across his network, Mark made the quick decision to open six new depots, grow the franchisee network by 50 per cent and staff by 55 per cent, hire hundreds of additional drivers, increase the warehouse footprint by 30 per cent, and invest millions into new technologies.
Mark was one of the first leaders in the logistics industry to introduce infection controls and work-from-home arrangements. In early March 2020, he made the swift decision to relocate head office teams to home-based work to remove COVID-19 transmission risks. He also implemented stringent safety measures across depots, including staggering shifts and parcel collections for franchisees and delivery drivers, providing protective gear, and implementing high-grade sanitisation and hygiene practices. Mark also went beyond mandate social restrictions by introducing contactless parcel collections and deliveries. For his franchisee delivery drivers, Mark introduced the Franchisee COVID Support Measures Policy, a support package to ensure franchisees were financially looked after if they were required to self-isolate.
Mark conceptualised senior leadership teams last year to increase safety measures for the entire network. In early March, he established and headed a Business Continuity team to design site-specific risk mitigation strategies and safe working practices for a pandemic environment. He also headed the HomeSafe Leadership team, which reallocated the responsibility of driver safety to these leaders and line managers. Initially scheduled to launch in April 2020, Mark brought the initiative forward to February, to prioritise driver health and safety education during a period of record deliveries at CP.
At a time when business was booming, Mark also began driving a sustainability strategy for CP. This is an ambitious initiative for a transport-based business. He had CP’s carbon emissions audited by Australia’s most reliable carbon consulting company, Carbon Reduction Institute, to determine its baseline footprint and set reduction targets. CP received its LowCO2 Certification and now offsets all operational emissions.
In another sustainability initiative, Mark facilitated a partnership with Upparel, a sustainable sock company with a textile recycling program, through which he launched an at-home textile collection service via the CP self-service returns portal Boomerang. Since last June, through Boomerang, CP has booked 6227 textile collections and kept 63,724 kilograms of textiles out of landfill.