Wegmans Food Markets is a family owned grocery chain with 95 stores mainly in the northeast part of North America. Founded in 1950, Wegmans has been on Fourtune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” since 1998 when the first list was created, topping the list in 2005 at #1, and most recently in 2017, ranking #2. Wegmans is different from a normal grocery store chain because of their strong belief, company wide, in their mission statement of “helping people live healthier, better lives through food.”

Wegmans motivates its employees by having a strong employee benefit program. This benefit system includes tuition assistance totaling $4.5 million every year. Wegmans also is very loyal to their employees, spending $50 million on employee development, including department universities, online training, workshops, cooking technique certifications, and talent development programs like internships, management trainee and leadership development programs to name only some of them. Wegmans also filled 50% of open positions internally last year. Wegmans encourages their employees to share new and innovating ideas with “higher-ups” with things such as Open Door Days, Huddles, Focus Groups, a two-way Q&A blog with their SVP of Operations. Wegmans believes that this will allow the voice of the everybody to be heard.

I believe Wegmans is a great company to work for because of the time and money they invest into their employees. If I were a Wegmans employee, knowing how much the company cares about each individual employee would motivate me to be at my best every time I went to work because I know that the company will be there for me when it’s needed. I don’t think I have ever heard of another company spending so much of its resources on advancing the lives of their employees. And this is why I think Wegmans is at a deserving spot at #2 on the list.

“100 Best Companies to Work For.” Fortune, 2017, fortune.com/best-companies/wegmans-food-markets/.

“Company Overview.” Company Overview & History – Wegmans, 2018, www.wegmans.com/about-us/company-overview.html.

“It’s the Actions That Count: Find Out Why Our Employees Enjoy Coming into Work Every Day.” Wegmans Food Markets, 2018, jobs.wegmans.com/employee-satisfaction-at-wegmans.

2. I choose Whole Foods Market for my discussion this week. Whole Food Market was ranked number 55 on the 2015 list and has been on the list every year since the list started. WFM was founded in 1980 with only one store. Over the last 38 years they have grown to 477 stores throughout the US and the UK. The company’s website (www.wholefoodsmarket.com) had the following values or what they call their motto “Our motto — Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that our vision reaches far beyond just being a food retailer. Our success in fulfilling our vision is measured by customer satisfaction, team member happiness and excellence, return on capital investment, improvement in the state of the environment and local and larger community support.”.

WFM really tries to make their employees happy and it shows by the fact that they have made the list many times. I also have personal experience with this since I once worked there. I started out gathering carts from the parking lot and transitioned through out almost every department in the store. They continually try to promote from with in and give you opportunities to cross train and learn new skills. They have gainsharing or profit sharing that helps keep employees involved in their teams and strive to make the organization better. One thing that really stood out was their constant pressure to help the customers. If you have ever been indecisive about buying a new food, this is the place to go. All team members were encouraged to open a product up for a customer so that they could taste it. While I worked there I tried more food and expanded my food knowledge more than any other time in my life.

What really makes an organization a great place to work is the care for the employees. This makes the biggest difference. You can tell when a company cares about you versus a company that just wants you to make them money. Having worked for two different companies on the “100 Best Places to Work”, caring is what makes the difference.