By John Lofstock, Editor
Jim Collins, the renowned author of corporate culture bible “Good to Great,” wrote that good is the enemy of great. “And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.”
In today’s competitive convenience store industry, your corporate values and what you stand for are just as important to customers as the products you sell. More precisely, it is what will help you make it to great.
As the convenience store industry evolves, your brand image and what it stands for will define you in the eyes of your customers and your employees. Consider the outstanding social perceptions of companies like Southwest Airlines and Google to realize the importance of how your brand is perceived in the marketplace.
As such, brand image is something convenience store retailers need to constantly coddle. Once a concern primarily for larger chains, brand image is a hot topic for even the smallest of convenience store chains. Forward-thinking chains across the industry are building new store formats with eye-catching graphics and impressive branded and proprietary foodservice programs. The newer stores present a refined retail experience and they help to build the perception of brand excellence.
Still, many c-store owners talk about their company culture, but often can’t define it. A well-defined culture is crucial for attracting top talent and keeping the customers coming back to your stores.
How often have you considered another company’s success and recognized that it was largely the result of a corporate culture that begins at the highest levels of the organization? Culture is not just a function of employee happiness or a “cool” store design. It’s deeper than that. Corporate culture includes the values, beliefs and priorities that underlie every aspect of an organization’s activities. It is the foundational context that guides employee behavior and corporate decision-making.
Quite simply, if you can’t make people see what makes you unique, your offering is a commodity and you’ll be competing primarily on price alone. This approach will be short lived as your competitors offer a shopping experience.
Jessica Rohman, the senior content manager for Great Place to Work, outlined three things retailers can do right now to immediately improve retail culture and enhance the value of their brands.
1. Hire for skill and culture fit.
Turnover is expensive, and it’s important that companies do everything they can on the front end to ensure they’re bringing the right talent into their organizations. The best companies have rigorous hiring processes that not only assess skill, but also the candidate’s natural synergy with the organization’s culture. What’s more, leading chains will often hire less-skilled employees if they are a strong culture fit, knowing that skill is something that can be trained, but culture can’t.
2. Put your organization’s values to work.
In great workplaces, a company’s defined shared values and other cultural pillars are integrated into everything that is done—hiring, communication, recognition, celebration, even firing. They can also act as a compass during difficult times and decision making. Shared values provide a sense of consistency, cohesion and purpose across the organization.
3. Find out what makes your company great—and build on it, internally and externally.
Why do your employees think your company is a great place to work? What do they enjoy the most? What makes your organization special and unique? Having a clear sense of what you do well is just as important as knowing what to improve, because what you do well is what you need to highlight, build upon and leverage.
You can control the culture at your company right now. Seize the moment and be great.
