Many business owners and managers love seeing their employees show initiative.
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At North Wollongong Dan Murphy's two staff members took that to the next level when they used their own initiative to help customers.
The national drinks retailer was so impressed with their idea it is now being deployed across Australia for a new service that has already been used by 100,000 customers.
When Hamish MacDonald and Indiana Gosson saw the new direct-to-boot service to help customers during COVID-19 they saw an opportunity to make it easier for people to find the right parking bays.
Dan Murphy's had introduced small signs and cones to help establish spaces for customers to park close to the entrance so staff could carry out their purchases.
When they saw the spaces Mr McDonald and Ms Gosson talked about how they could make the spaces even easier to see and identify.
So they grabbed some chalk and added a big drawing inside the parking bay on the bitumen.
Mr McDonald said it wasn't an original drawing they just made the image on the small sign bigger.
"We just wanted to help out customers," he said
"It was forecast to rain and we thought it might wash away overnight. But it lasted a week before we needed to draw it again".
National renewals operations manager Tyson Holbery said when the team at Dan Murphy's HQ found out about the idea they loves it and decided to recreate the chalk drawing with paint in direct-to-boot parking bays across Australia.
"We saw Indiana's photo on our internal Google Current stream, and just loved the execution and simplicity of it," Mr Holbery said.
"The design makes the service really stand out, and helps guide customers through this new service. We are now making our direct-to-boots permanent across stores, which means we are using Indiana and Hamish's chalk drawing, and making it permanent with paint."
Ms Gosson said it was great being recognised for their initiative.
"It is pretty crazy our idea has turned into what it has," she said.
Mr McDonald said "it is great to be recognised like this".
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Greg Ellis
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
