Business Analysis: Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market is a supermarket chain that specializes in natural and organic food and is considered the largest retailer of natural and organic foods in the United States. Whole Foods was incorporated in 1978 and came into existence on September 20th 1980 with a Grocery Store/ Health Food Store industry. The products they sell include meat, poultry, prepared foods, seafood, bakery, coffee etc. The company has only one operating segment which is natural and organic foods supermarket. In the year 2003 Whole Foods became the first national “certified organic” grocery store. One of the company’s missions is “to promote the vitality and well-being of all individuals by supplying the highest quality, most wholesome foods available.” Their

Like Pfeffer Selective hiring principles Whole Foods have a large applicant pool, they recruit people from in store applications, career websites, social media websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google plus. They also use job fairs at Universities to recruit people. Before they open a store in a new location they host a hiring event so that locals will have an opportunity to apply for jobs. Pfeffer mentions that people see selectivity as elite universities or graduates schools but at Whole Foods they don’t require degrees for anyone. Whether you’re applying to a senior level position or an entry level position you don’t need a college degree. Whole Foods has adopted this idea from the co-founder John Mackey. Mr. Mackey attended college for a brief period of time and didn’t graduate with a degree. Even though he was not successful in his studies he was still able to establish a successful company. Whole Foods believe that it’s not only about a person’s education level it can also be about the experiences they have and the skills they’ve develop over the years can help to running a successful organization. When Whole Foods hires someone they make sure that person has an interest in their food products and there organization’s core value. Whole Foods is an equal opportunity employer and they pride themselves in having one of the most

Salaries are based upon positions a person can start off at $11.05 and quickly go on to making much more. The organization has a “gainsharing” approach which ties bonuses directly to team performance. As Pfeffer mentions in his work Contingent compensation is also important in any high performance organization. Whole Foods currently participants in gain sharing and all team members are eligible. Each team has a performance target to meet. Gain sharing is an incentive plan that rewards team members based upon labor productivity. The organization reports that in the year 2014 they have paid out over $90 million in gain sharing. With this program in place team members are able to increase their per hour rate. In addition to gain sharing Whole Foods also offers their employees stock option plans. Team members become eligible for stock after three they have accumulated 6,000 hours of service. Stock options are available to both full time and part time employees. They organizations reports almost 95% of the employees receiving stock options are