Introduction
Wegmans is a large family-owned company that sells groceries in 6 states (Ebert and Griffin 305). The total number of stores run under the supermarket chain accounts for 80 (Ebert and Griffin 305). The company has a long history; it was founded in 1915 and since that, has been owned by the representatives of the same family (Ebert and Griffin 306). Besides, the organization is famous for its almost family-like attitude towards its employees, both full- and part-timers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the company’s approach has helped to develop a positive working environment, reach business productivity, and win customers’ devotion.
Analyses of the Company’s Approach
The company has become prosperous because its CEOs have always realized how important it is to provide employees with good working conditions and competitive salaries. There is a direct connection between these factors and the high quality of the products and services which ensures the business’s being successful and having standing customers. According to a spokesperson of the Wegmans, “there’s no better way to take care of our customers than to be a great place for our employees to work” (Ebert and Griffin 306). Therefore, Wegmans takes care of its workers by supporting and encouraging people working for the organization. It seems to be a wise decision because it makes a good advertisement for the supermarket chain and raises trust for the company.
Speaking about the company’s approach in detail, employees of Wegmans are entitled to a range of perks and advantages. Wegmans’ policies include, for example, offering free medical insurances to full- and part-timers. In fact, part-time workers make about two-thirds of the workforce of Wegmans (Ebert and Griffin 306). Other benefits for Wegmans’s workers are discounts for fitness clubs, compressed workweeks, telecommuting, Employee Scholarship Program, and benefits for domestic partners (without a limitation to heterosexual couples) (Ebert and Griffin 306). All these perks make employees trust the leadership and create a friendly atmosphere so that people want to work for Wegmans and become a part of its team. Besides, having such benefits and advantages encourages employees to stay in the company for a long time. It means that during the years of work, they get sufficient knowledge and experience in the sphere; therefore, Wegmans turns out to have high-class specialists devoted to the business.
Of course, being so generous costs the business a large sum of money. The company’s HR-executive claims that they do not have the goal of justifying the costs, otherwise they would have limited the number of bonuses long ago (Ebert and Griffin 306). However, speaking about the long-term effect of the employee-friendly policies, it might be concluded that they justify all the expenses for several reasons. Firstly, the company’s generousness and family-like attitude towards its workers has become a sort of brand and made it famous. Since 1998, Wegmans has been yearly included in the list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” composed by Fortune magazine (Ebert and Griffin 306). Secondly, the policies serve as an advertisement for the company, and many people want to join it so that Wegmans can choose from the best specialists while hiring new employees. Finally, through using the practices, the leadership shows the workers that they are valuable which makes employees work harder and get devoted to the business. Hence, it might be stated that Wegmans’s implementing the approach aimed at supporting the workers is profitable for the company despite all the expenses.
Conclusion and Personal Opinion
To sum up, Wegmans, a company that sells groceries has been following employee-friendly principles since its foundation. In my opinion, in spite of the fact that sharing the resources with workers costs the business a large sum, they should continue using the practices described above. The reason is that the approach has been used for many years and it has proved its efficiency: Wegmans remains a successful and prosperous company. Moreover, the policies affect the quality of the work done by the employees which get higher, and more customers choose Wegmans as a store for doing shopping regularly.
Work Cited
Ebert, Ronald, and Ricky Griffin. Business essentials (11th ed.). Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2015.