Wegmans: HR Practices and Culture |
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| Wegmans stores carried a wide range of products, with 50,000 to 70,000 products being stocked as against the 40,000 that average grocery stores had. The average Wegmans stores offered a café, a restaurant, sushi bar, a café, a bakery, a pharmacy, and a floral shop. The different product offerings attracted customers, who could enjoy a leisurely shopping experience while being treated like royalty. The customers were encouraged to smell food and see food being cooked or baked. Wegmans emphasized the importance of serving fresh food to its customers. Inventory turnover at the company was as often as 100 times in a year, while for an average US store, it was between 18 and 20 times a year...
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| The company cared about its people and this was evident from the fact that 80% of their existing and previous employees mentioned in a survey they would recommend the company to their friends and 95% mentioned that they approved of their CEO... |
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| The company had long understood that an engaged customer in its stores spent nearly 46 percent more at the checkout area than a non-engaged customer. It was each employee’s role to create the emotional bond between the customer and Wegmans. And for this reason Wegmans looked for people who had a genuine interest and passion for food along with customer service... |
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| Wegmans aimed to treat its employees the way it expected them to treat customers. The company made employees feel welcome through its orientation program called ‘Living Who We Are’. In this program, the company aimed to instill a sense of Wegmans’ values and to explain the importance of these values in their work lives every day. .. |
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| At Wegmans, employee empowerment was fundamental and it evolved into a core value. The management team trusted employees to make the right decisions that were critical to the company’s success. John Kotter narrated a story of a front-end service employee at the Elmira, New York store who recognized that the store was not serving the Jewish community. .. |
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| In keeping with its culture, Wegmans encouraged employees to share their experiences as well as those of their team with other employees in the organization and also with family members and friends. Wegmans used the ‘Meeting in a Box’ mechanism to prepare store managers to communicate important information about the core issues that affected the company, employee benefits, and important messages from the Wegmans family ... |
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| The company perceived that people came to the stores not only to buy products but for the whole shopping experience. This was evident in what one consumer said, “There’s a joke up in Buffalo that with all the bad weather this past winter, people would go shop at Wegmans just to cheer up.” .. |
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| Each store at Wegmans had its own store manager and HR manager. The role of the HR managers in the store was to showcase the Wegmans values, and act as an advocate for the employees. They worked closely with the managers and employees to resolve human resource processes and issues. .. |
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| New opportunities were posted twice a week across the organization through the Internal Job Posting Program and employees expressed their interest in new roles. It was estimated that nearly 50 percent of all positions were filled by internal team members. The company encouraged its employees to move up the ladder or laterally shift jobs... |
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| In 2011, Wegmans conducted an employee survey to ascertain the things employees valued the most and what influenced them to join the company and continue to work there. One thousand of their employees across seventeen locations participated in the study. The survey concluded the top three factors that influenced employees were: .. |
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| Each store at Wegmans had its own store manager and HR manager. The role of the HR managers in the store was to showcase the Wegmans values, and act as an advocate for the employees. They worked closely with the managers and employees to resolve human resource processes and issues. .. |
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| Wegmans had one of the best employee retention rates in the supermarket industry in US. The company’s attrition rate was 17 percent for all employees (part time and hourly employees), while the industry average hovered at about 66 percent. A low turnover helped the company in managing the labor costs and supplemented its excellent customer service... |
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Exhibit I: Wegmans’ Rank in the Fortune List over the Years
Exhibit II: Who We Are
Exhibit III: Health Benefits
Exhibit IV: What Contributing $1.00 Actually Feels Like to
Wegmans Employees When there is…
Exhibit V: Race/Ethnicity
Exhibit VI: Online Sales Contribute to the Importance of Digital |
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