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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
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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
Second, greater expansion could lead to increased standardization and bureaucracy across the company. Trader Joe’s thrives off the creativity of their employees, even to the extent that each store is free to organize products however they see fit and each store has unique signs created by employees. Trader Joe’s trusts their employees and gives them much freedom in how they interact with customers and conduct themselves during work, but this creativity and freedom could be crippled because of expansion. Also, bureaucracy could increase as the company increases because it becomes harder from the executives to control the direction of the business with such a loose grip on each store.
How does a store like Trader Joe’s grow into a billion-dollar company with great ratings and demonstrate outstanding management skills? This company used the approach to stand out by being different as an effective measure to compete with the bigger grocery stores. Trader Joe’s business model intentionally kept the size of its stores small and holds fewer products than the larger grocers. They chose to frequently place new products on its shelves and revise ingredients to meet the customer’s needs. They also sell kitchen-tested products to entice new customers. They have also employed a creative marketing team to announce new private-label products to provide outstanding value. In addition to their unique way of doing business,
Employees are Publix’s major collaborator. Publix is widely known as having employees for over ten years at a time, with people graduating from college and coming back for jobs. Publix has invested highly in world-class training programs, and as a result, associates understand that they are not
This is due to the fact that customers are forced to buy in bulk. A strategy taken by Costco wholesales to increase store turnover and profitability. Additionally, to increase its market influence, Costco has added services such as automobile, gas, optometry, pharmacy, and printing at very low prices in the past decade. “What’s better than to rotate my car’s tires, fill my prescription, gas my car, all the while I am finishing my shopping”, a dad might say while shopping at Costco. Finally, unlike any other mega-retailer, Costco has included its own employees as primary target market. By respecting the employees and paying them high wages, Costco has created a positive feedback loop for itself. Highly paid employees will have high loyalty toward the company, and they will shop at Costco for their needs. At the same time, due to their high loyalty, staff will provide high quality customer service for common customers. This generates positive word-of-mouth advertisement leading to an increase in membership sig-ups translating into higher profits for the company (Ingram, 2013).
This paper is intended to explore the work ethic and value of Trader Joe’s as a company and their employees. Hands-on top managers have always been insistent in the company. Now, CEO Dan Bane created the values to reflect on the original traditions of its founder. When reading through the accomplishments of this grocery store, I was pleasantly surprised that they have managed to keep their integrity during their growth. Being a customer at Trader Joe’s myself, I find myself thinking about all the good experiences I have had every time I visited the store. Trader Joe’s has grown from a “mom and pop” grocery to a worldwide chain. Their integrity for selling a good product at a good price with great customer has proven them to be one of the grocery stores to be in high completion with other retailers in their genre. Their focus on giving their customers the options of different goods and the smiling faces of their friendly employees has risen them to a higher level of grocery shopping.
e) You would like to compare Whole Foods Market 's operations to those of one of its competitors. The competitor uses the FIFO method of inventory costing. Use the information from the notes to the financial statements to restate Whole Foods Market 's fiscal 2001 net income assuming that Whole Foods Market had always used the FIFO method of inventory costing.
Trader Joe’s is a chain of grocery stores first opened in 1967 in California, United States. Trader Joe's was founded by a man named Joe Coulombe and has been owned since 1979 by the Albrecht family, a German family who also owns the ALDI discounts food stores. Trader Joe’s has currently 367 stores within the United States with locations in over 20 states. Trader Joe's stores offer a wide, diverse and ever-changing range of organic products, 98% of them being food but also wine and exotic products. Some of their range of products includes essential groceries (bread, dairy and cereal), pastas, seafood and meatless foods,
It is important for Tesco to have motivated employees which can help them succeed and gain awards for the best customer services. Tesco’s employees also need to help the customers and other stakeholders in order for them to return. This could also lead to people buying more shares in the business. The influence is customer satisfaction, stock, whether the customer returns because of Tesco’s quality products and prices or whether their service is good, if they don’t then Tesco’s customer service is not good enough.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR OF FOOD RETAILER TRADER JOE’S IS UNIQUE IN MANY WAYS. FROM OWNER, JOE COULOMBE, TO A STORE CLERK, THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME VISION IN MIND- TO SET THEMSELVES APART FROM THE REST. NOT FALLING INTO STEREOTYPICAL FOOD CHAINS, TRADER JOE’S DOES BUSINESS THEIR WAY. THIS MAKES THEM PERFECT AT BEING THEM. FROM INTERVIEW QUESTIONS TO JOB DESIGN, THEY ARE NOT YOUR STANDARD FOOD MARKET. THE SOCIAL CAPITAL IN WHICH MANAGEMENT IS CHOSEN, TO THE STORE’S ATMOSPHERE AND POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT FOR ALL EMPLOYEES ARE HAVE A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS. ADDED WITH IMPECCABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE, THE ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR OF
The most common retention rate is 150-200 percent annually, but in 2004 Target’s turnover was less than half of the industry average. The main reason employees cite for continuing to work with Target is their feeling of being valued by the company, and their satisfaction with Target as a workplace. The store “pays for performance” which means just as it sounds. Target strongly rewards outstanding performance which contributes to the high retention rate. Another is their “Employee input and participation” gives their employees a voice in the company.
"As a result, people stay around longer because they feel supported and understood. The company offers every individual employee a lot of empowerment, and that's very unusual in retail."
Trader Joe’s has great workforce management practices and its employees enjoy what they do. They have cheerful attitudes and are more than willing to assist customers with anything in the store. Trader Joe’s employees are engaged in conversation with the customers that shop in the store and make the customers aware of any new or exciting products from them to try. The positive behavior of these employees is due to the compensation and benefits each employee receives, which is far more competitive than other grocery food stores. Trader Joe’s has also created an environment where employees feel valued and know their opinions matter to the growth of the
As an owner Chouinard knows that high morale contributes to elevated levels of productivity, increased returns, and employee loyalty (Rajput, Bali, & Kesharwani, 2013). The Patagonia business is successful because employees that are
This research paper exhibits Trader Joe’s unique business strategy in the management skills that has built a chain of grocery markets, and the understanding of Trader Joe’s business model in planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. According to the MGMT8 textbook “planning is determining organizational goals and means for achieving them, organizing is creating structures and work systems, leading is inspiring and motivating people to work hard to achieve goals, and controlling is monitoring progress toward goal achievement and take corrective action when needed” (Williams, 2016, pp. 4-6). Trader Joe’s demonstrate the importance of the management process in planning, organizing, leading, and controlling in many different ways. According to Forbes article “Trader Joe’s stands out from all the rest of the grocery business because they have proven how cultural awareness can cultivate business growth, and a grass-roots marketing niche that draws viral consumer activity” (Llopis, 2011). Trader Joe’s is a private and a diverse company, and their approach and attitude are deeply embedded in the roots of the business model such as, product packaging, product selection, vendors, business layout, employees, and management. In addition, Trader Joe’s business model is to listen and to carefully respond to the needs of those they serve, and they encourage feedback from consumers such as, completing a simple response card that is available in every store. Trader
In what ways does Trader Joe's demonstrate the importance of each responsibility in the management process—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling?