Undercover Boss has been on the air since 2010. The show has had many highs, but perhaps one of the most memorable moments was the way that Angel, a young mother of three, who works at Modell’s Sporting Goods was shown on the show.
When the boss, Mitchel Modell met her, Angel worked on the shop floor as a sales associate. She had been responsible for training Mitchell on how to work the shop floor, introducing him to the company values etc. Later, in the stock room she confided in him.
Angel explained her circumstances, “myself, I love this job. This is very good, but it hasn’t always been this way. When I was twenty-five, I ended up being pregnant, and I was a manager at a restaurant, then I got too far along I couldn’t work there anymore, and ever since then it’s just like times have been really, really rough. We’ve been homeless for a long time; we live in a shelter now.”
She was homeless, and working, an absolute merit to her organisation, preaching humbleness and gratitude for what she had at the time. She was grateful for having a roof over her head even if she was in a shelter because they used to sleep at bus stops. “as long as you push and push, things are going to get better.”
In response to what Angel had told him, CEO of Modell’s Sporting Goods, Mitchell Modell, informed the audience that “the fact that one of our associates is homeless, makes me sick, people like Angel deserve better and I know this company, and myself can do better.”
This idea of striving to attain continuous improvement, and betterment was imperative. He realised that the money she was making wasn’t enough, he understood that she already went above and beyond at her job, and that she had no intention of leaving this role, since she had told his new hire her story.
The fact that Angel’s story had stuck with him so strongly meant that Modell was able to grow from that point. After the shift he worked with her, he promoted her to assistant manager, giving her a 14,000-dollar raise, and gave her a cheque for 250,000 dollars to get her out of the homeless shelter, immediately.
When Undercover Boss Epic Employees featured her, Angel stressed how grateful she was to Mitchel and Modell’s. She had moved into a home with her kids, and she had great ambitions to improve her career at Modell’s, with her goals to become a district manager. She “wants to learn everything that there is to learn.”
She truly, never ceased to look ahead, “I feel really good about my future, endless possibilities ahead for me.”
Based in London, U.K., and founded in 2016 by Arvind Mishra The Agile Works (www.TheAgileWorks.com), is an up-and-coming recruitment and Agile consulting company. Arvind is a Certified SAFe SPC and regularly delivers both private and public SAFe certification workshops.
He is a design thinking expert, Sr. enterprise, portfolio Agile Coach with over a decade of experience working as an Agile coach in diverse industries such as banking, pharma, retail, auto, oil, gas, consulting and government.
The Agile Works; a small team of three strive to help shape the leadership's mind-set and values in readiness for their business transformation journey challenges. With Arvind at the helm, we strive to provide you with the agility tools to make your company that can thrive, and not just survive.
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