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Trader Joes

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TRADER JOE’S
Description:
Trader Joe’s has become a multi-billion dollar national chain partly through its ability to find cheap real estate, skip name brands and smartly manage its supply chain. It’s also due to its workforce management practices. Below, excerpts from a book Trader Joe’s Adventure, review the company’s management compensation, encouragement of multitasking, screening and wages, careful use of money, fun culture, sense that its people are its brand, and communication style.
Learning Objective:
Our focus with this case is on immersing students in the fundamentals of organizational culture. Organizational culture is defined as a complex set of shared beliefs, guiding values, behavioral norms, and basic …show more content…

Without question, all of these things are an essential part of what makes Trader Joe’s such a thriving retailer when much larger chains are struggling to survive. But there’s a saying in retail circles that the last 100 feet are the hardest. Every effort can be made to heighten the efficiency of the supply chain and get products from the manufacturer to the retailer’s back door in the most cost-effective way possible. Yet, if in-store execution is shoddy, retailers simply end up shooting themselves in the foot. A big part of this execution--or the last 100 feet--at Trader Joe’s is its employees, people who like what they do, go out of their way to help customers, and even engage in some suggestive selling. They are a major reason for the company’s success. After all, few employers--particularly in retailing--can boast of having such high levels of employee loyalty, not to mention extremely low turnover.
Compensate workers well The core of this allegiance is a wage and benefits package that is typically far more competitive than that of most companies in the supermarket industry. Wages may attract high-quality employees, but wages are not necessarily the reason they remain loyal, as any human resources expert can attest. Employees stay because Trader Joe’s has created a culture of success: an

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