Whole Foods Social Capital Case Study

Whole Food’s belief is treat an employee well and watch your profits soar. Whole Food’s belief

He believes that in a conscious business, you can have an expanding pie and potentially everyone can get larger pieces. Basically, the idea is to create value for everyone. This concept seems to be the comprehensive culture of the organization and is infused within everything they do. The employees are referred to as team members to incorporate their inclusion in this philosophy. On a daily basis, they are empowered and encouraged to take opportunities to practice servant leadership towards satisfying their customers. For long term benefits, the also are offered opportunities to develop job specific skills to grow within the organization. Furthermore, team members are encouraged to participate in community outreach efforts as well. The culture of Whole Foods Market is positively affecting the team members in the organization through training, example, and involvement to become servant leaders as

Whole Foods has many important values. For example, they believe that their customers are the most important stakeholders and the lifeblood of their business.[8] Whole Foods has five major stakeholders; John Mackey (CEO), James Sud, Glenda Chamberlain, Walter Robb, and John Elstrott.[9] Whole Foods selectively chose where to do business based on their average customer. Whole Foods knows that its products are for health and food enthusiasts.[10]

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

* Whole Foods Market was founded in 1980 working with natural and healthy foods in Austin, Texas; it’s one of the world’s largest of natural and organic foods supermarkets. In 2009, the sales total $8 billion and had 289 stores in the U.S. The Whole Foods Market plans to come up with strategies to help improve the company but to do so understanding the core values plays a major role in the company’s planning. The strategies

Whole Foods definitely uses human capital as a competitive advantage in multiple aspects of the company business model. Whole Foods built the foundation of their business model around quality, empowered employees. These employees are the key to the unique experience that defines the company and the source of their primary competitive advantage in the marketplace. This competitive advantage is framed around the concepts of human capital value, human capital rareness, and human capital imitability (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2015). Whole Foods human capital value is represented by knowledgeable, capable employees empowered to champion the overall strategy of the company and make decisions at the lowest level to ensure a great product and customer experience (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2015). Human capital rareness is demonstrated by the emphasis placed on sourcing, interviewing, and hiring practices. This ensures Whole Foods hires the unique employee that will champion the quality of their product line as well as the front-line face of the company to customers. Regarding human capital imitability, Whole Foods overall human capital focus and packaging makes a formidable task for competitors to replicate. From the overall compensation package, degree of employee input and interaction, benefits structure, bonus program, and overall company environment, Whole Foods ensures that sourcing and retention of employees provides a definite advantage (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2015).

Whole Food goes by a management philosophy called conscious capitalism meaning "the ethical treatment of customers, employees, and the environment is the main mission and basis for organizational culture (Cheretis& Mujtaba 2014,p.7)." This is a management philosophy that was created by the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey. The philosophy was made to empower people, which is the customer, employer and investors. The three aspects will improve socialism as a whole. It's a win-win for the entire system and he value that is shown to employees in this system ignites enthusiasm to work. It’s just a trickle-down effect for the customer to feel valued and profit begins for the shareholder. People is what makes a successful business and Mackey shows

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

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

Teamwork is important factor, because without social capital an employee will not become a benefit to the company. Whole Foods offer human capital because of the shared knowledge due to training and other qualifications that begin with the hiring process (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). Managers that are selected with potential value to operate very functional is a quality that Whole Foods possess. These are all valuable factors when considering employment at Whole Foods. Overall Whole Foods offer that level of employee satisfaction that is very motivating and compelling to be a part

Culture awareness has become one of the most imperative business tools in every working industry. It is important for businesses to understand the culture of those around them to heighten communication, productivity and unity in the workplace. Civic engagement is working to make a distinction in the civic life of communities and increasing knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make a distinction. It means promote the value of existence in a community, through processes. Civic engagement embrace events where individuals partake in activities of personal and public concern that are both individually life inspiring and socially beneficial to the community.

Whole Foods has been adaptive in fitting its competitive strategy to its situation. The store first grew to prominence by being a stylish antithesis to the crunchy mom-and-pop organic grocery stores, providing a relatively normal but

Marketed as ‘America’s healthiest grocery store’ the company has successfully grown to 408 stores across the world with sales of $14 billion in 2014 (Whole Foods Market, 2015). The firm is positioned as an upmarket grocery due to the emphasis on natural, organic origins, and as a result are able to charge a premium for their products. Through efficiently running its operations and stores, Whole Foods are able to maintain healthy 4.02% profit margins (Financial Times, 2015) and operating margins well above the American grocery store industry average at 6.58% (Bloomberg, 2015). Looking at 2015’s quarter 1 figures it is clear to see that Whole Foods have had a hugely successful year with sales of $4.7 billion, up 10% from the same period last year. Furthermore, they opened 9 new stores and have signed a further 11 new leases.

Whole Foods Market has expanded by a mixture of opening its own new stores and acquiring already existing stores. Today WFM does not follow this strategy, instead their motivation is to open its own large stores. This is due to noticeable sales differences in larger stores as opposed to smaller stores. WFM locates these newer stores in upscale areas of urban metropolitan centers and high-traffic shopping locations. Not all WFMs are isolated structures; some are located in strip malls. WFM offers a larger selection of natural and organic foods than any other grocery store. WFMs marketing expenditure is extremely small. They spend a measly 0.5% of their revenues on advertising. Their chief marketing strategy relies on word-of-mouth. WFM strives to meet or exceed customer expectations. This is so customers receive competent, knowledgeable, and friendly service and become advocates of WFM. The employees here have a decentralized team approach for store operations. This is so some personnel, merchandising, and operating

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.