As convenience retailers compete with other channels to attract qualified workers, it may be time for c-stores to rethink their strategies.

By David Bennett, Senior Editor

The old adage that one bad apple spoils the bunch can apply to numerous things—from pies to politicians. Inside c-stores, a bad apple can impair customer service, productivity and the overall vitality of an operation.

According to the book Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, the average hiring mistake costs 15 times an employee’s base salary in hard costs and productivity loss.

You don’t have to tell that to Sandy Bolinske, human resources director for Boise, Idaho-based Stinker Stores, which employs about 490 employees in its 65 stores throughout Idaho. Bolinske said the c-store chain strives to attract and retain employees who complement the company’s mission. A hiring failure, however, can be equally detracting.

“Not only is this a costly mistake in dollars spent, but the disruption to the cultural fit of the organization in totality and more importantly to that particular c-store can take months to rectify,” Bolinske said.

TRIAL AND ERROR
C-stores that do a good job of recruiting and retaining employees that support the company’s objectives often stand apart from competitors. In fact, developing the processes for harvesting a healthy crop of motivated employees assuredly enables a c-store to stand out among its competitors.

Linda McKenna is the principal and co-founder of Alexandria, Va.-based Employee Performance Strategies Inc., a consulting firm that provides performance improvement strategies to retail companies.

After having worked for Mobil Oil for 10 years, McKenna has an affinity for c-store operations and how to make them more efficient. In 1997 she departed Mobil to launch a consulting practice specializing in the petroleum/convenience industry. To address the particular challenges that c-stores face, McKenna created a separate division in her firm called Convenience Store Coaches, which works with c-stores to bolster performance in areas such as recruiting, retaining, interviewing, customer service and leadership development.

McKenna explained that Mobil’s shift to improve the customer experience through better employee hiring methods helped change the company’s retail workforce culture, making Mobil a forerunner in the c-store industry.

“That was a time when the typical uniform was a heavy metal t-shirt, the bathroom key was attached to a hub cap. It’s not the industry that you see today,” McKenna said. “Mobil was sort of the first of the majors to push the envelope, to change, to redefine the image of convenience stores. We saw a tremendous opportunity with leveraging the people piece of the business and that you can differentiate on service. Of course, it takes the right people.”

Hiring right is one of the most crucial tasks a c-store tackles, but unfortunately, many c-stores aren’t great at hiring. Some retailers think offering an hourly pay rate that eclipses the minimum wage barrier will alleviate their workforce turnover situation, but it’s just the first step of many.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES
“What it takes to get people to apply is very different from what it takes to get people to perform,” McKenna said, referring to c-stores that put pay programs first. “There’s an assumption that ‘if I pay more, I’ll get better people.’ You will get better people to apply, but it doesn’t mean that once they get on your payroll, they’ll consistently perform at a higher level. How people perform is the function of how they are made to feel and that’s directly connected to the leader that they work for in that store.”

“I’ve worked with several clients that do pay more and they have the same performance issues with their managers and sales associates that other companies experience that are paying less,” McKenna added.

Getting a potential employee to come to the interview table is one of the first steps in the hiring process. Determining if that individual is a good fit is another matter.

Many hiring managers depend way too much on personality assessment tests instead of thorough interview techniques to weed out would-be candidates-due mainly to lack of training on how to properly interview as well as committing to the time required to conduct an in-depth interview, McKenna said.

“Training hiring managers on how to interview and spending that extra time, instead of relying on a not-so-bad assessment result and background check, will definitely improve the quality of people you put on your team,” McKenna said. “When we wrote our book Hire the Best C-Store Employees, our research showed the average interview only lasts 15-20 minutes. You would never spend just 15 minutes interviewing your next chief operating officer or district manager but isn’t your frontline just as important? After all, this is the person that influences if your customers come back to your store or not.”

There’s a ton of interview advice that can be accessed through hiring DVDs and the Internet. Some experts say there are considerations to keep in mind when measuring position vacancies, or measuring candidates to fill those vacancies, including these tips:

• Recruit constantly. Source talent before you have an opening. Don’t wait until a role needs to be filled before recruiting.
• Consider the track record. When assessing an applicant, look at the candidate’s history. How often did he or she get promoted? What challenges did he or she accept? Seeing progression in every job is a good indicator of success; seeing it across a couple of different companies is even better.
• Screen for self-awareness. How well does the candidate know him or herself? His or her abilities? Weaknesses?
• Trust your gut. You’re likely giving this person a lot of responsibility. How are you feeling about that? Would you want to give this applicant your toughest task, or would you be worried?

RETAINING WALL
The cost of finding, interviewing, engaging and training new employees is high, not to mention the additional investment companies make in the form of wages, benefits and other costs once that person joins.

Still the working environment that companies strive to maintain is often more valuable than paid vacations.

“Corporate culture includes the way employees interact with one another,” Bolinske said. “How they communicate and get things done fosters the way they frame up their level of understanding and expectation about one another. It will either support or stifle a company’s growth.”

Mike Newman, executive vice president of NOCO Energy Corp., parent of NOCO Express, a family-owned and operated gasoline convenience store chain headquartered in Tonawanda, N.Y., said you can tell after the second training session if an employee is the right fit or not. However, NOCO tries to identify the right candidates even during the interview phase.

“It might sound trite, but we try to hire attitude and train aptitude,” Newman said.

NOCO operates 37 store locations in western New York.

Of course high performers are just as identifiable. Not surprisingly, exemplary employees seem hard to retain because what makes them attractive to your company, makes them attractive to others. Newman said NOCO’s turnover rate is 76.9%, which is the company’s 12-month moving average. Through a combination of more effective HR evaluation tools and better store managers, NOCO has incrementally chipped away at its turnover rate—to the benefit of the organization.

Comparably, the national 12-month moving turnover rate for the industry is 87.5%, so NOCO is performing ahead of the industry average, Newman said.

What we are turning over, we’re turning out the people that we recognize aren’t working, and bringing in people that we can get to work, so it’s not in the turnover rate, it’s showing up in the sales,” Newman said.