The Whole Foods Case Study : Whole Foods

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

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.

Whole Foods Market started off as being Safer Way natural grocery store in 1978. However they were not

In his book, The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference (2000), Malcolm Gladwell highlights the power of intelligent action and the potential of little changes for starting epidemics. Concepts such as the law of few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context arouse epidemics both in macro-level and in micro-level. In detail, the law of few affirms the influence on communication. Connectors, mavens, and salesmen each has abilities to conjoin, collect, and cajole; they distribute information globally. The stickiness factor refers to a technique, which emphasize and allow information to stick in the minds of consumers. Last, the power of context stresses that both individual’s reaction and community’s cohesion can

Which of the 4 perspectives of organizational effectiveness do you think that Whole Foods reflects in how it operates?

[6] See Appendix B for more about the Whole Foods Foundation. As a result of the green movement, Whole Foods has added the 3R’s to their green mission: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.[7] See Appendix C for more about the Whole Foods green movement.

Whole Foods is a great example of democratic approach to store operation. In this organizational environment all team members have the ability to insert their input in decision making that affects their product/service area in addition to having input in store matters as well. Whole Foods has a stringent screening process potential employees are put through to ensure that the applicant is a good fit for the organization. Once an applicant is hired, they are assigned to a team and team leader, who then train the new team member to be knowledgeable on the product/service they are assigned to. Additionally, they are also trained on providing friendly customer service. Due to Whole Foods approach to using workplace democracy, it has created a positive

As our short-term objectives evolve with Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s, it is important to identify and clearly state our objectives the long run.

Dell's supervisors needed to complete a varied program, including role-playing exercises, lectures, question-and-answer sessions, and hearing workers talk about experiences with supervisors. Unlike Home Depot's training, Dell's supervisors could get feedback from not only their peers but also professional coaches. This strong feedback system may help to find supervisors' mistakes and correct them. Moreover, their case study was directly focusing on relationship with employees. I think that Dell's traning system promotes action learning, which is practical and effective to train "the leaders" by developing supervisors' people

There are several factors that appeal to me for working at Whole Foods. In doing my research about the Whole Foods Market and John Mackey I learned a lot such as how it was established, and the history of John Mackey as well. In today's era it is very rare to find an employer who has a genuine concern with his employees, giving back to charities, and the community. I feel it is heartwarming to know that Mackey set-up a fund for his employees if they were going through personal issues and needed monies. He gave money to charities, and got to a point in his career that he no longer saw it as a profit to himself. He also promotes growth and encourages his employees to push for higher expectations. I would most definitely work for this company

Whole Foods' utilizes a differentiated strategy, focused on organic and natural foods. This distinguishes them from mainstream grocery competitors, and puts them into competition with other specialized grocery outlets (Urani, 2008). This differentiation, combined with more traditional grocery industry size and operations, gives the company an advantage over most of its competitors.

After reading the case study and researching Whole Foods on their website, I would most definitely enjoy working for Whole Foods. The working environment that is available to employees is quite close to the one where I presently work. What most appeals to me as an employee is the ability to voice my opinions on how we could do things better or ways to save money without taking away from the customer service we provide our customers. Additionally, the company seems to care about the customer’s as well. Excellent customer service shown to the customers that come through the doors, as well as their suppliers and vendors, shows that they truly care about the product that they are providing for the consumer. Their customer service values will

Whole Foods Market (WFM) was founded in 1980 as a single local grocery store by John Mackey for natural and health foods. By 1991, WFM had 10 up-and-running stores with revenues of about $92.5 million in United States Dollars (USD), and a net income of about $1.6 million in USD. In 1992 WFM became a publicly traded company with its stock trading on the NASDAQ. By 2006 Whole Foods Market had progressed into the world’s largest retail chain of natural and organic foods supermarket. As of September 2007 WFM has 276 stores up-and-running. 263 of the stores are located throughout 37 of the U.S. and the District of Columbia. 7 of the stores are in Canada and 6 in the U.K.

Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.

Golden Valley Foods, Inc. is a 127-year-old company that prepares packages and sells canned and frozen foods which include fruits, vegetables, pickles and condiments. Golden Valley has more than 30 processing plants in operations and annual sales of approximately $650 million. Much of Golden Valley’s management staff comes from their parent company with the previous president saying “The influence of our old parent company is still with us. As long as new products look like they will increase the company’s sales volume, they are introduced. Traditionally, there has been little, if any attention paid to