Publix's Community Service

With sales of over thirty billion back in 2014, Publix is an American supermarket that has been listed on the top ten American’s largest private companies by Forbes in 2010. It is also the fourteenth largest retailer in America. Publix is privately owned and operated by its 176,500 employees, with its main base in Florida. However, “Publix has 1,103 stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina” (Publix Funding) as well. Publix super markets are always trying to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. For example, they create recycling programs, make sustainable choices of where food is purchased, use reusable grocery bags instead of plastic bags, and so much more. In addition to being more sustainable, they partner with many charities, including: Feeding America Foundation, United Way, and Greenville Habitat. These are just a few of the forty affiliates that Publix has connected with.

Servant leadership in Whole Foods Market goes beyond serving the employees and the customers of the stores. Although, employee and customer based servant leadership does exist, Whole Foods Market believes it has a responsibility to apply servant leadership to their communities as well. Whole Foods Market teaches servant leadership through modeling from the top down. In 1985, Mackey devised Whole Foods Market “Declaration of Interdependence”. He wanted to develop a new stakeholder philosophy for the company by removing the mindset of simply working to increase profits. Makey stated, “They would at all times keep in mind the needs of employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and community as well” (Flock, 2010). This servant leadership conviction begins with John Makey. In 2006 he sent a letter to all the team members in the organization. In the letter he stated as of January 1, 2007, he would reduce

Whole Foods designs its teams to serve the goals of the organization. At Whole Foods, "the team, not the hierarchy, is the defining unit of activity. Each of the 43 stores is an autonomous profit center composed of an average of 10 self-managed teams produce, grocery, prepared foods, and so on with designated leaders and clear performance targets. The team leaders in each store are a team; store leaders in each region are a team; the company's six regional presidents are a team" (Fishman 1996). The emphasis on quality and specialty foods is reinforced by segmentation according to function, allowing different units to establish expertise and is designed to encourage specialization. Each team has a set of distinct performance goals which encourages specificity and focus. It also creates the ability for teams to fulfill short-term goals germane to their team efforts. This boosts morale, versus only focusing on the big picture

A vehicle cannot run without its engine. Likewise, in today’s advancing world, conscious capitalism is a necessary component in the effective operation of an organization. The values that fuel this engine include conscious leadership, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture, and a higher practice. Whole Foods is the greatest example of conscious capitalism. As part of their philosophy, there is a balance between what’s good for shareholders, employees, customers, vendors, the community, and the environment. Whole Foods ultimately believes that all stakeholders are important, which makes it necessary for everyone to cooperatively work

Whole Foods Market first opened on September 20, 1980 in Austin, Texas which is the company headquarters. The founders were John Mackey, Renee Lawson, Craig Weller, and Mark Skiles. These four business people decided that the natural food industry was ready for a supermarket format (Whole Foods Market History, 2015). The current CEO’s are John Mackey and Walter Robb IV. Whole Foods Market stock ticker symbol is WFM and their NACIS code is 445110 (Morningstar). The industry sector the company is listed under is grocery store and retail trade. Whole Foods Market is the eight largest company in the United States with 427 stores located in North America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The total number of employees is more than 90,000 people. Whole Foods Market has a business to business model where they merged with multiple companies such as Bread of Life, Fresh Fields, Food for Thought, Amrion, Allegro Coffee and other organizations with the concept of expanding their enterprise (Mackey, 2012). Whole Foods Markets purchase inventory from suppliers where consumer can buy fresh organic food online or in stores. Some of the products Whole Foods Market specializes in are seafood, meats, cooked goods, and bakery goods (Whole Foods Market History, 2015).

I would say that Whole Foods would be located at the Philanthropic Responsibility level which is the high level because of Mackey's zero sum game or at the top of the pyramid following every criterion. Mackey stated that what’s needed for a company is to adopted social justice in which everyone gets an equal slice of the pie. This avoids the idea that one individual getting the larger piece and everyone else getting the smaller which cause lower morale in employees. Cooperate social responsibility is very essential in every enterprise.

John Mackey has done an excellent job leading the company and the growth over the last couple of decade’s show that with revenue growth year over year at 20 percent compounded. Whole Foods achieve this growth by aiming and capitalizing on the interest of consumers what a more nutritious diet when no one else competitor paying attention to this need. While you can criticize Whole Foods on price you never hear someone criticize Whole Foods on their quality of their products which are also the best on the market. We know everyone buys this message by the a team member at a Whole Foods store in Texas when he said “I feel like we’re a part of making the world a better place”(Thompson pg 294). Whole Foods is clearly walking the walk and the employee and bought into the company motto.

Founder John Mackey strongly believed in Whole Foods’ mission to be very selective about store inventory, sticking to the company’s core values and ensuring that customers had an enjoyable and interactive shopping experience, while keeping with planned strategies that have set them apart from their competitors.

Out of the seven moral principles dignity of human life, autonomy, honesty, loyalty, fairness, humaneness, and he common good. “…moral ideas are among the influences that affect the formulation and operation of objectives and obligations, including the demands of ethical behavior and social convention, they can be quite critical in terms of impact on the world of economics and business” (Sen, 1997). There is no doubt, that Whole Foods go all-out to accomplish all these principles. Whole Foods communication is forthright and truthful to all its stakeholders, internal and external. Honesty can only be received when it is given. Everyone is held responsible for the organization, all in all they hold their employees accountable for their performance.

Management of Whole Foods believe that individuals can take responsibility, make good decisions and be productive associates. Formal ongoing training and advancement opportunities are also available.

Thirty six years ago John Mackey started a grocery store based on his vision of a business that provides customers only natural foods. Based on a simple but effective business model, Whole Foods has grown to a position of market leadership that is now being challenged by low-cost organic sellers. According to Feldman (as cited in Giammona, 2015) “Whole Foods continues to face challenges from competitors going after organic and natural foods more aggressively”(para. 4). The company 's differentiation edge against lower-cost competitors is fading as competitors have been successfully emulating the Whole Foods experience (Sharma,2015).Furthermore, Wahba (2016) noted that the company 's "Whole Paycheck" reputation is hurting sales and driving customers away to other low-priced organic food competitors.

30). Mackey believes such practices create high quality employees. He believes that Whole Foods, as well as business in general has the unique opportunity to unleash creativity in its workforce. This attitude he believes build and promote the type of worker who will be enthusiastic and proficient in promoting concurrently their own aspirations and the goals of Whole Foods as a company (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p. 30). Mackey believes that if your employees are well trained that it promotes and creates the growth of a reliable workforce.

Being a structurally sound company with distinct mission, vision, and values, it’s difficult to argue that Whole Foods isn’t on the right track to success. In my opinion, I think that Whole Foods has a great mission to provide its customer with the highest quality of natural and organic foods, but I think that they should attempt to work closer with their regional and national suppliers to drive down prices. I could redefine their mission to, providing customers with the highest quality of natural and organic foods at the lowest price possible. Similarly the vision of Whole Foods is important with the emphasis on being the best in the grocery industry, but I feel that the need to incorporate the importance of

Whole foods is the U.S’s biggest organic food market which has seen unsurmountable success because of its unique organizational setup and its cutting edge business model. Whole foods unique leadership structure and management style of its CEO, John Mackey, are large contributors to its success; along with the business core values. One would wonder, if such a radical culture can me maintained throughout the long run and if it’s so successful, why it wouldn’t work in my organization. Has Whole foods found the game changing formula to management?

This vision has been implemented through component strategies such as store growth, product line and merchandising, pricing, store operations, cost containment, social responsibility, supplier integration and sustained financial. To be considered a winning strategy it must “fit” the organization. This means meeting performance targets both financially and from a market position while enabling a sustainable competitive advantage (Thompson et al., 2012).