Employee Retention of Kroger : The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) is an American retail supermarket chain founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It reported US$ 76.7 billion in sales during fiscal year 2009. It is the country's largest grocery store chain[3] and its second-largest grocery retailer by volume[4] and second-place general retailer in the country, with Wal-Mart being the largest.[5] As of 2010, Kroger operated, either directly or through its subsidiaries 3,619 stores.[6]
Kroger's headquarters are centralized in downtown Cincinnati,[7] but it spans many states with store formats that include supermarkets, hypermarkets, department stores, convenience stores and mall jewelry stores. Kroger-branded grocery stores are located throughout the Midwestern and Southern United States.
In an example of how the web can help retailers manage large, frequently changing work forces, The Kroger Co. is deploying a web-based system designed to streamline hiring in its chain of supermarkets. The Unicru Hiring Management System integrates with back-end databases to screen out unqualified candidates, and cut Kroger`s turnover rate by more than 25% in a test of the system, said Adam Mertz, grocery industry marketing manager for Unicru Inc.
Kroger, which employs more than 230,000 store-level personnel, is rolling out the system to several hundred stores after a 9-month test in 40 locations, Mertz says. The system is designed to lower hiring costs and save application processing time by giving managers web-based access to pre-hire summaries that help them decide which applicants to interview and bring further into the hiring process.
Customer Success Accelerates Unicru Growth
The Unicru system integrates with databases kept by third-party firms that help retailers screen out applicants with records of having committed theft, providing an automatic alert to hiring managers whenever an applicant has a theft record.
The system also integrates with third-party firms that help process government tax credits and unemployment insurance claims. Retailers can earn tax credits based on the amount of government financial assistance received by hired applicants, such as those who were on welfare or receiving food stamps. The Unicru system is designed to ask applicants questions that trigger an alert about a retailer`s eligibility to receive tax credits; the alert is then automatically forwarded to hiring managers as well as to a third-party firm that processes such claims. Hiring managers can also print out forms already filled out with the information required for submitting paper claims, Mertz said.
The Unicru system works in a similar way for unemployment claims. Once an employee is let go, the system sends an electronic alert to a third-party firm that processes unemployment claims and also enables a retail manager to print out the necessary forms already prepared with the former employee`s information. This helps to prevent former employees from filing unqualified claims, Mertz said.
NEW YORK -- Seeking to improve a high employee turnover rate that cost it $80 million last year, Kroger, Cincinnati, is piloting an electronic application process designed to predict a prospective employee's retention probability, according to company officials.
Jim McLaughlin, director, training and organizational development, Kroger, said the retailer is testing a system provided by Unicru, Beaverton, Ore. The system allows job seekers to fill out applications either online or in computer-equipped kiosks set up in stores.
The computer model Unicru uses predicts the probable retention rate of the prospective employee by analyzing the way the applicant answers certain questions, McLaughlin said.
"It asks a question like, 'What was the last name of your supervisor from two jobs ago?"' he explained. "If the applicant can answer that, it is one indication of an expected higher length of retention."
The system also performs routine prehiring screening tasks as well, like performing background checks, McLaughlin said.
Kroger has the Unicru kiosks set up in stores participating in the pilot and it may be launching a full rollout sometime later this year, McLaughlin said.
HE DECLINED TO REVEAL HOW MANY STORES ARE IN THE PILOT.
The move to use this application screening process is just one of several Kroger plans to establish this year as it moves to improve its employee retention rate, he said.
"WE HAVE A HUGE TURNOVER RATE WE ARE TRYING TO WRESTLE WITH," MCLAUGHLIN SAID.
McLaughlin spoke to SN about Kroger's human resource initiatives following his participation in a panel discussion at the National Retail Federation Expo here earlier this month. Some of his comments were also made during the panel discussion.
He said since Kroger has HR offices in 18 locations throughout the chain, there is a need to streamline and consolidate.
The company is working on reducing the amount of duplicated efforts among all of the HR offices, he added.
In this regard, McLaughlin said the retailer is hoping to build a more unified employee-orientation program.
Kroger hopes to establish a core orientation program that will be used throughout the chain, he said.
"If we do a good job of orienting our employees and distribute it throughout the chain, it will be an effective tool for reducing turnover," McLaughlin said.
The program will have some flexibility built in so it could be tailored to different job positions, he added.
It costs the typical employer anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 each time it loses an employee and it has to hire and train another, industry observers said.
Kroger will also be making sure new hires have the needed basic skills to perform their job duties, McLaughlin said.
n the midst of working on a new Supply Chain Academy (SCA) course, I took a trip to Toronto for what I thought was a totally unrelated event. It turns out that the two topics—employee retention and warehouse automation—complement each other.
That seems a bit counterintuitive. I have always thought about automation as a substitute for labor. With automation, retention wouldn’t be a major concern as your warehouse staff would need to shrink anyway. Right? Read on to learn how wrong my thinking was.
Let’s start with the labor retention topic. As I have worked on the SCA course, I have come to realize that retention is not just a management issue. It is a challenge to find, train, and retain quality frontline logistics employees, regardless of the economic conditions. Combine that with the aging workforce in many industrialized countries and there is a real imperative to minimize turnover of your transport, warehouse, and customer service personnel.
One of the course lessons focuses on the very topic of retaining frontline logistics personnel. It requires a multi-pronged strategy to keep the employees engaged, satisfied, and motivated. The strategies include:
Resource management: Managers must provide the right tools and technologies to employees to efficiently and safely perform logistics activities.
Respectful relationships: Leaders should adopt a management style that fosters interaction, positive attitudes, and trust.
Growth opportunities: Companies would be wise to establish programs that develop the skills and talents of frontline employees.
Internal marketing: Managers must actively promote an atmosphere where employee productivity and contributions are recognized.
That’s pretty straightforward and logical, but what’s the connection to automation? It’s right there in the four retention strategies. During the 2010 WITRON Retail Congress, I had the opportunity to tour the Sobeys Logistics Support Centre (LSC) outside Toronto earlier this month. As we were guided around this impressive facility, I heard many of the same issues being discussed—employee productivity, safety, satisfaction, and positive attitudes—as benefits being gleaned from the automated distribution center.
The LSC is a highly automated 500,000 sq. ft. facility that has been in operation just over a year. The automation begins at receiving. Product is received, inspected, palletized, and inducted into a high bay storage area. As product is needed, it is automatically retrieved from storage, de-palletized, and transferred to trays. Each tray holds a single case of product and is held in the selection area of the automated storage/retrieval system. When a store order is placed, the system identifies, picks, and transfers each case to the shipping areas. The transfer process coordinates the flow of products, with goods being palletized by store aisle and shrink wrapped. Receiving and shipping dock activities are the main activities that are not automated.
My description hardly does justice to the amazing synchronization of LSC activities, the labor savings, and the system accuracy. To see the automated system in action, click the link to view the Sobeys LSC video.
As you’ll see in the video and the graphic, automation of the LSC also facilitates excellent results. After more than a year of operation, the LSC has not had a single lost time accident. That is a remarkable feat given the fact that the facility ships over one million cases of product per week with employee productivity exceeding 500 cases per hour.
The facility is pristine and quiet, the employees are engaged in problem solving and external relations (the tour was largely run by Sobeys LSC hourly staff), and the atmosphere throughout the facility was very positive. All this adds up to excellent service to the stores, improved LSC performance, and low employee turnover, not to mention greater long-run profitability.
Kroger's headquarters are centralized in downtown Cincinnati,[7] but it spans many states with store formats that include supermarkets, hypermarkets, department stores, convenience stores and mall jewelry stores. Kroger-branded grocery stores are located throughout the Midwestern and Southern United States.
In an example of how the web can help retailers manage large, frequently changing work forces, The Kroger Co. is deploying a web-based system designed to streamline hiring in its chain of supermarkets. The Unicru Hiring Management System integrates with back-end databases to screen out unqualified candidates, and cut Kroger`s turnover rate by more than 25% in a test of the system, said Adam Mertz, grocery industry marketing manager for Unicru Inc.
Kroger, which employs more than 230,000 store-level personnel, is rolling out the system to several hundred stores after a 9-month test in 40 locations, Mertz says. The system is designed to lower hiring costs and save application processing time by giving managers web-based access to pre-hire summaries that help them decide which applicants to interview and bring further into the hiring process.
Customer Success Accelerates Unicru Growth
The Unicru system integrates with databases kept by third-party firms that help retailers screen out applicants with records of having committed theft, providing an automatic alert to hiring managers whenever an applicant has a theft record.
The system also integrates with third-party firms that help process government tax credits and unemployment insurance claims. Retailers can earn tax credits based on the amount of government financial assistance received by hired applicants, such as those who were on welfare or receiving food stamps. The Unicru system is designed to ask applicants questions that trigger an alert about a retailer`s eligibility to receive tax credits; the alert is then automatically forwarded to hiring managers as well as to a third-party firm that processes such claims. Hiring managers can also print out forms already filled out with the information required for submitting paper claims, Mertz said.
The Unicru system works in a similar way for unemployment claims. Once an employee is let go, the system sends an electronic alert to a third-party firm that processes unemployment claims and also enables a retail manager to print out the necessary forms already prepared with the former employee`s information. This helps to prevent former employees from filing unqualified claims, Mertz said.
NEW YORK -- Seeking to improve a high employee turnover rate that cost it $80 million last year, Kroger, Cincinnati, is piloting an electronic application process designed to predict a prospective employee's retention probability, according to company officials.
Jim McLaughlin, director, training and organizational development, Kroger, said the retailer is testing a system provided by Unicru, Beaverton, Ore. The system allows job seekers to fill out applications either online or in computer-equipped kiosks set up in stores.
The computer model Unicru uses predicts the probable retention rate of the prospective employee by analyzing the way the applicant answers certain questions, McLaughlin said.
"It asks a question like, 'What was the last name of your supervisor from two jobs ago?"' he explained. "If the applicant can answer that, it is one indication of an expected higher length of retention."
The system also performs routine prehiring screening tasks as well, like performing background checks, McLaughlin said.
Kroger has the Unicru kiosks set up in stores participating in the pilot and it may be launching a full rollout sometime later this year, McLaughlin said.
HE DECLINED TO REVEAL HOW MANY STORES ARE IN THE PILOT.
The move to use this application screening process is just one of several Kroger plans to establish this year as it moves to improve its employee retention rate, he said.
"WE HAVE A HUGE TURNOVER RATE WE ARE TRYING TO WRESTLE WITH," MCLAUGHLIN SAID.
McLaughlin spoke to SN about Kroger's human resource initiatives following his participation in a panel discussion at the National Retail Federation Expo here earlier this month. Some of his comments were also made during the panel discussion.
He said since Kroger has HR offices in 18 locations throughout the chain, there is a need to streamline and consolidate.
The company is working on reducing the amount of duplicated efforts among all of the HR offices, he added.
In this regard, McLaughlin said the retailer is hoping to build a more unified employee-orientation program.
Kroger hopes to establish a core orientation program that will be used throughout the chain, he said.
"If we do a good job of orienting our employees and distribute it throughout the chain, it will be an effective tool for reducing turnover," McLaughlin said.
The program will have some flexibility built in so it could be tailored to different job positions, he added.
It costs the typical employer anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 each time it loses an employee and it has to hire and train another, industry observers said.
Kroger will also be making sure new hires have the needed basic skills to perform their job duties, McLaughlin said.
n the midst of working on a new Supply Chain Academy (SCA) course, I took a trip to Toronto for what I thought was a totally unrelated event. It turns out that the two topics—employee retention and warehouse automation—complement each other.
That seems a bit counterintuitive. I have always thought about automation as a substitute for labor. With automation, retention wouldn’t be a major concern as your warehouse staff would need to shrink anyway. Right? Read on to learn how wrong my thinking was.
Let’s start with the labor retention topic. As I have worked on the SCA course, I have come to realize that retention is not just a management issue. It is a challenge to find, train, and retain quality frontline logistics employees, regardless of the economic conditions. Combine that with the aging workforce in many industrialized countries and there is a real imperative to minimize turnover of your transport, warehouse, and customer service personnel.
One of the course lessons focuses on the very topic of retaining frontline logistics personnel. It requires a multi-pronged strategy to keep the employees engaged, satisfied, and motivated. The strategies include:
Resource management: Managers must provide the right tools and technologies to employees to efficiently and safely perform logistics activities.
Respectful relationships: Leaders should adopt a management style that fosters interaction, positive attitudes, and trust.
Growth opportunities: Companies would be wise to establish programs that develop the skills and talents of frontline employees.
Internal marketing: Managers must actively promote an atmosphere where employee productivity and contributions are recognized.
That’s pretty straightforward and logical, but what’s the connection to automation? It’s right there in the four retention strategies. During the 2010 WITRON Retail Congress, I had the opportunity to tour the Sobeys Logistics Support Centre (LSC) outside Toronto earlier this month. As we were guided around this impressive facility, I heard many of the same issues being discussed—employee productivity, safety, satisfaction, and positive attitudes—as benefits being gleaned from the automated distribution center.
The LSC is a highly automated 500,000 sq. ft. facility that has been in operation just over a year. The automation begins at receiving. Product is received, inspected, palletized, and inducted into a high bay storage area. As product is needed, it is automatically retrieved from storage, de-palletized, and transferred to trays. Each tray holds a single case of product and is held in the selection area of the automated storage/retrieval system. When a store order is placed, the system identifies, picks, and transfers each case to the shipping areas. The transfer process coordinates the flow of products, with goods being palletized by store aisle and shrink wrapped. Receiving and shipping dock activities are the main activities that are not automated.
My description hardly does justice to the amazing synchronization of LSC activities, the labor savings, and the system accuracy. To see the automated system in action, click the link to view the Sobeys LSC video.
As you’ll see in the video and the graphic, automation of the LSC also facilitates excellent results. After more than a year of operation, the LSC has not had a single lost time accident. That is a remarkable feat given the fact that the facility ships over one million cases of product per week with employee productivity exceeding 500 cases per hour.
The facility is pristine and quiet, the employees are engaged in problem solving and external relations (the tour was largely run by Sobeys LSC hourly staff), and the atmosphere throughout the facility was very positive. All this adds up to excellent service to the stores, improved LSC performance, and low employee turnover, not to mention greater long-run profitability.
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