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from the happy-employees-make-happy-customers dept.
Wegmans is a family-owned grocery store chain. NYTimes noted it can actually claim a "cult following".
The Center for American Progress reports
It manages to have a huge selection while offering prices that can compete with Walmart, but that it does it while treating its employees well.
The perks start with pay, which for hourly store employees is a little more than $33,000 a year on average. By contrast, Walmart has admitted that more than half of its employees make less than $25,000 a year.
[...]but that's not what makes the company famous for employee satisfaction, landing it on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list every year since the list began. It also offers generous benefits. It pays about 85 percent of the costs of health care coverage, including dental, for its full-time employees and offers insurance to part-time workers who put in 30 hours a week. It offers 401(k) plans with a salary match of up to 3 percent of an employee's contribution.
And it has a scholarship program[...]
Wegmans also offers more work/life balance than most retail jobs.[...]
These benefits aren't just altruistic. The company generates $7.1 billion in revenue and is profitable. "When you think about employees first, the bottom line is better," the company's vice-president for human resources has said. The company boasts a 5 percent turnover rate among full-time employees, compared to a 27 percent[paywall] rate for the industry. That comes with a cost, as it often eats up about 20 percent of a worker's salary to replace him.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Saturday May 16 2015, @09:11PM
The "fuck you" reaction is basically saying change is bad and we should all be shopping at A&P and Roses like we did in the 1970s, paying higher prices because of extreme logistics and operational inefficiency. Why don't we go back to using a 286, too?
No, it's a reaction to people who bitch about Wal Mart and all the "evils" it represents, but continue to shop at Wal Mart. No one forces anyone to shop there instead of "A&P and Roses" except the idea of saving a few bucks. Well those few bucks of "logistical and operational inefficiency" happened to be supporting inefficient jobs. You can't insist on rock bottom retail and then wonder where all the retail jobs went. Tell me, in the near future when everything is made by robots who exactly do manufacturers plan on selling their products to if they don't have any actual employees? You'll have perfect efficiency and everyone will be broke except the factory owner and the guy who repairs/installs the robots. Inefficiency is not necessarily a bad thing if it keeps people employed. The alternative is when they come with pitchforks to smash your factory. How efficient is that?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:34PM
If our system holds back technology progress so people can keep doing jobs they are less efficient at than the technology, then our economical system is broken and needs to be replaced. Perhaps we should think about a basic income for everyone rather than slowing down innovation.