Yankee Candle Case Study

Undercover Boss: Yankee Candle

My study is based on the communication techniques used by Yankee Candle CEO Harlan Kent and his employees as he goes undercover at four different locations to gain a better understanding of his company and how operations take place when he is not around.

Company Overview

Harlan Kent

Harlan Kent has nearly 30 years of experience working in consumer-focused public and private businesses (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). He has a proven track record of helping to build brands by driving profitable growth across multiple channels of distribution (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). Harlan Kent served as CEO of Yankee Candles. He spent 13 years with Yankee Candle and under his leadership the company has seen tremendous growth, growing 2.5 times more while he was CEO (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). Mr. Kent has helped to create a team that is focused on growth and innovations across all 565 company stores and 30,000 wholesale locations (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015).

Before working at Yankee Candle, Mr. Kent held a leadership role in the marketing and sales department for Olin Corporation and the Campbell Soup Company (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). He

first entered the corporate industry as a consultant with Bain & Company in Boston and along the way he has served in numerous boards (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015).

Yankee Candle History

The Yankee Candle Company is a private-held specialty branded scented candle company that was founded in 1969 in South Headley, Massachusetts by a 16-year old high school student (The Yankee Candle Company, Inc., 2015, p.1).

It was Christmas time and the young man wanted to make a gift for his mother, but did not have any money to buy one so he decided to make a candle from household wax, a red crayon, string for a wick, and a milk carton for the mold (The Yankee Candle Story, n.d.). With the help of his father he opened a small store near the Mount Holyoke College campus and by 1973 he had 12 employees and the first factory store outlet store (The Yankee Candle Story,

n.d.).

Method

Communication through Harlan Kent

Per the episode of Undercover Boss, Harlan Kent gave the impression have having a good open and honest relationship with his employees. He did not like lying to his employees and there was an instance when one employee was suspicious of him and instead of continuing to lie to the employee he felt it was right to tell him the truth about whom he really was. He cared about his employees and wanted to hear the opinions they had about their stores and management. He was very concerned about their wants and needs and he thoroughly listened as each one of his employees talked

Communication through his employees

Some of the employees need to work on their communication techniques. In the first store, the employee was very discouraging about the store and the customers. If Mr. Kent were a real new hire, he would have left him second guessing working for the company and would have also given him a negative view of the customers. He also did a lot of cursing and talked about having anger issues and wanting to hit children, which is very unprofessional and dangerous.

Results

Strengths

Kent has good listening skills; he seemed very understanding and reasonable. He took the opinions of his employees very serious and he wanted to use the information he learned from them to not only better the business but also better their lives.

Weaknesses

Some of the employees he worked with did not have the same work ethics shown by Kent. One employee was very judgmental of the company and customers and did not seem like he enjoyed his job. He used profane language and spoke about how he had a bad temper.

Discussion

Textbook Concepts

Kent is a great example of what we have been reading about this semester. He showed his employees that he is concerned about their opinion and well-being and he also tried to keep an open and honest relationship. He did not like lying to his employees about his identity and that quality helped to show how good of a leader he is. Although Kent showed a great example of how a manager should be, his employees need training on customer and employee interaction. There needs to a class that teaches employees customer service techniques that they will be able to use with customers and with each other.