Managers have an important role in an organization. They provide leadership, give direction and purpose that employees can trust. Through this, they enable employees to reach their goals and handle the daily processes and production of a business. Among the 10 tasks I believe were part of an average day for a manager of a Whole Foods Market store include:
- Conducting performance reviews of teams and recording each team’s results.
- Analyzing the employees’ behavior at work.
- Updating and keeping track of the store’s sensitive figures such as store sales, salaries, and profit margins.
- Screening candidates for specific jobs in the store and recommending them for a job on a specified team.
- Dismissing or firing employees (team candidates) that do not perform their jobs as required.
- Help in the training of team members to ensure a high team performance.
- Quickly respond to the needs, and questions of customers when necessary.
- Oversee team and resolve difficult customer situations.
- Ensures inventory control and proper product assortment by signing invoices.
- Holds team leaders and members accountable for the delivery of outstanding customer service.
The business model used by Whole Foods Market Inc. was successful since it involved much teamwork and coordination. In this case, the entire organization was based on teamwork other than a hierarchy. Employees are put in small teams such as grocery, cashiers, vegetables, etc. with designated leaders and clear performance targets (Fishman, 2017). The team leaders in every store were then placed into groups, store leaders in each region were teamed up and the company had six regional presidents each of which form a team. The teams were the defining unit of activity and employee teams work as independent units with much decision power, values and mission committed to the objectives of the business.
The company’s business model ensured that the individual performance of employees was motivated through competition. The organization’s performance information was made available to every employee. Through this, teams could compete against their own goals. Teams could compete against other teams in the company based on several performance indicators such as growth rates, good customer service, and employee morale (Vol, 2022). In addition to this, teams went through benchmarking periodically where 40 people including regional leaders, two teams, and their store team leaders, from another region tour the store to conduct reviews, and performance audits (Fishman, 2017). As a result, employee performance was kept in check as every employee struggled to ensure they attain higher performance levels, making the organization successful.
The company’s state today is nothing compared to the success the company had in the past. The company’s sales continued declining to a point where it was forced to overhaul its board in 2017 and sell the firm to Amazon.com (Nadar, 2018). The organization’s decline started in 2012 when its reputation of being so expensive spread. Several other organizations had emerged selling the same natural quality foods as those of Whole Foods Market but at a cheap price.
Owing to the success of Whole Food, several competitors were birthed, offering organic produce as their main method of profit. Since other competitors were not as expensive as Whole Foods, the unique proposition offered by the brand was no longer theirs alone. However, the firm refused to reduce its prices to compete with other stores, leading to their decline in sales (Conaway et al., 2018). This was such an unfortunate turn of events for Whole Foods from being the leader in the market to facing sales declines.
Whole Foods Market was one of the best leading organizations selling organic food produce. Its management and business strategy greatly contributed to its success. Through teamwork and coordination, the company was able to succeed and inspire several other companies to enter the market. Today, the organization is still prominent as a grocery company as it is trying to improve its services to cater for a health-conscious population.
References
Conaway, R. N., Regester, K., Martin, S., Nixon, C., & Senior, B. (2018). Amazon Whole Foods: When E-Commerce Met Brick-and-Mortar and Saved the Brand of Conscientious Capitalism. Journal of Marketing Development & Competitiveness, 12(3). Web.
Fishman, C. (2017). Whole Foods is all teams. Fast Company. Web.
Nadar, D. S. (2018). Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods: A Case-Specific Analytical Study of the Impact of Announcement of M&A on Share Price. IUP Journal of Business Strategy, 15(2). Web.
Vol, F. (2022). Why was whole foods successful initially? Bodega Fare. Web.