Ahead of International Women’s Day 2022, Inside Franchise Business Executive is putting the spotlight on Couriers Please, a business where women account for 50 per cent of the leadership roles in a heavily male-dominated industry.
Queensland state manager Tracey Baldwin (pictured above) is the longest-serving and first female state manager at CouiriersPlease (CP). Today she directs a team of 10 operational managers and is ultimately responsible for more than 220 franchisees and 75 staff across five depots.
During Tracey’s tenure, Queensland has experienced a 35 per cent year-on-year growth in parcel volumes and achieved a consistent 96-97 per cent rate of on-time deliveries.
Baldwin says “Safety is an important priority for me in my role, and I regularly visit each depot across the state to ensure we’re addressing any potential safety risks. For instance, I’ve championed the introduction of exclusion zones in our five depots. These zones identify high risk areas, often where forklifts and other machinery are in use, to help reduce incidents.”
South Australia state manager Lisa Tedstone leads a team of 35 staff and 64 franchisees. One of CP’s longest-serving operational personnel, Lisa joined the company in 2009 as a customer service representative, working her way up into operational leadership roles.
Her leadership has ensured CP’s SA business consistently maintains a 96-97 per cent rate of on-time deliveries and delivers more items per courier than any other state. Since the start of the pandemic, CP’s SA business has seen close to a 40 per cent increase in parcel volumes and increased its franchisees by 36 per cent.
Tedstone also helped lead numerous national programs at CP, preparing the company to deliver for the Christmas peak period, and onboarded the company’s new scanner devices nationally to all drivers, enabling customer delivery notifications to be sent and includes route optimisation for faster parcel delivery.
West Australian state manager Kristy Wright leads a team of 20 staff and 60 drivers, 10 of which are small-business franchisees. Kristy started out as a courier drive and has been in the industry for 15 years.
She managed the state deliveries of unprecedented parcel volumes including a 30 per cent increase in the Christmas peak period.
Wright says “I’m very proud to be part of the team at CP. It’s the first time in my management career that female leaders outnumber male leaders. I’ve achieved enormous improvements in productivity and performance – including on-time deliveries – and we now have the highest staff engagement rates since I’ve started. I anticipate that we will continue experiencing exponential growth over the next two years.”
