Galen Weston Should Blog
Jennifer Wells had a good column in yesterday’s Toronto Star in which she lamented the fact struggling but still dominant grocery retailer Loblaws had “become middle-aged, sexless - and this is the worst part - funless”.
Part of the cure, she said, is raising the profile of 33-year-old executive chair Galen Weston (”young, handsome and hip”), who’s family controls the company.
How do it is obvious: Weston should start blogging. What better way to communicate with constituents: investors, analysts, media, consumers, employees than to have a public vehicle to talk about Loblaws’ strategic plans, the competitive landscape and, most important, new products.
In making presentations about blogging, I use Loblaws as an example of a consumer-facing company that have embraced blogging already. It has a highly popular in-house brand, President’s Choice, that is very blog-friendly. Instead, Loblaw has continued to focus on printing increasingly zing-less colour brochures featuring President’s Choice products. As Wells mentions, a lot of people use to look forward to reading these brochures; now they head to the recyling bin pretty soon.
By blogging, Weston can become the new face of Loblaw, and show consumers the company has personality. At 33, he’s hopefully Web-savvy and understands how new media such as blogs can be a powerful corporate communications tool.
That said, I’d be extremely surprised if Loblaws embraced blogging. Its strategic challenges include fixing an inventory systems that has gone haywire and the looming threat of Wal-Mart moving into the Canadian grocery market.
From a P.R./media perspective, Loblaws has always been conserative (one spokesman handles all media calls, and the answers tend to be no-frills and punchless). Then again, 33-year-olds have a way of doing crazy things sometimes.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Personally, I would rather he spend his time fixing Loblaws. He has a lot of work ahead of him.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Galen…next time you’re at your Spoke Club (which has free broadband) e-mail, Yahoo Messenger me from your blackberry and we’ll talk blogging, podcasting and all that fun stuff. Mark may even hire you as a B5 blogger if you play your cards right.
While Rob is right on the money, I can’t imagine Galen can single-handedly roll up his sleeves and deal with the operations mis-steps himself. As the name, face and future of the company, he could provide a youthful, Canadian royal-family hipness to a brand that could grow stale pretty soon. Loblaw’s needs a bold vision and energetic leadership to make us feel good about shopping there.
I’d like to know more about the guy and get the feeling that he’s more than just a rich-kid who’s been handed the key’s to the company store. We still remember Eaton’s…Galen will be dragging that families failed succession along until he ultimately rights the ship.
Wouldn’t it be cool to see him do that out in the open a la Mark Cuban?
February 15th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Man…I really should proof my comments before I hit submit. Forgive the typos and punctuation screw-ups. I am actually pretty familiar with the English language.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:30 am
All I will say is that while it might be nice to see the CEO of Loblaws join the 21st century, it is clear the rest of the company is still stuck in 1999. I dumped my stock after one stupid business blunder after another. I hate Walmart, but I now think Loblaws is going to get run over by the fine folks from Arkansas. And if that’s the case, no blog will save the young Mr. Weston.
February 15th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
This is all about business leadership, not blogging, not creating wonderful visions that sound cool, hip, etc.
Create a compelling vision, support it with a sound strategy, focus on effective execution, and monitor/manage/diligently drive toward reaching goals. The industry is changing for Loblaws…it requires a seasoned, effective leader to guide the organization toward transformation. Whether the young Galen has the goods…only time will tell.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I agree with David that a Galen Weston blog would be one element in getting Loblaws back on the right track. What better way to talk with your customers, suppliers, employees, etc. than a public forum. Of course, Weston has many other priorities but you hire smart people to handle the day to day operations, right? At the very least, Loblaws should have a President’s Choice blog to talk about new products, trends, etc. So should Tim Horton’s and Canadian Tire but that’s another story.
February 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Absolutely, Hockey. He should blog and do nothing else. In fact, Galen should sit in his lavishly appointed basement, wearing his silk pajamas and blog his way to a blistering EBITDA. Maybe some Google Ad words will help the bottom line, too.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I don’t understand how Canadians think that Walmart and Loblaws can compete?! Has anyone tried to shop at a Walmart in the US where groceries and general merchandise are sold in the same location? It distinctly not the Canadian way. Hell why don’t they start to sell groceries at Canadian Tire then? Its crazy. Loblaws is pathetic in what they have become. They have lost their focus and in so doing are no longer leaders in anything and it shows. I have yet to talk to anyone who truly enjoys shopping in the new big box, RCSS stores. Customer Service is non existent, their front line employees are so discouraged and de-motivated and their so called management team (atleast at the Retail level) are totally useless as they all came from the stores and have poor people skills altogether. I think the first thing Galen should do is fire all their asses and hire some real managers who care, can be role models and motivate their employees.
Whatever happened to holding your own and doing what is right for your business? The reality is Lederer was an idiot and he totally destroyed the company with a stupid idea that failed more than once. Remember the SuperStores 10-15 years ago that never took off? Here we go again…and again…they are failing.
Did you know that Loblaws was planning on closing all their stores except for 6-7 in the GTA? All the other stores are planned to be converted to RCSS stores. Imagine that? and why? so that they can screw their employees out of wages and benefits. Mind you this was the plan under Lederer’s direction….maybe things have changed now…although I heard he got a hefty package for fucking up the company….sheeeesh….
Honestly…if a woman was running Loblaws, guaranteed the company would have been so much more futher ahead.
Galen should make an effort (or engage someone) to understanding how to make something that used to be great that much greater and to revive a tradition that used represent quality and pride…..bring it back Galen…bring it back…
I agree that Weston Jr. should blog…
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:55 am
I think the 33year old MBA with no actual experience “doing” something is going to be an albatross around the Loblaw neck. The latest news seems to suggest they’re going to try and compete based on price, with Walmart. I suspect other Loblaw shoppers are like me and aren’t there based on a decision that today I’ll shop here instead of Walmart. Many wouldn’t be caught dead in a Walmart. Loblaw should be focussing on the shopping experience, keep prices in line and try to do their core business well… which they certainly haven’t been doing. Jr’s blogging while scorfing Cokes and playing XBox isn’t going to “youth up” the biz and miraculously fix it.
Several trips to their stores lately have ended up with us seeing all US produce in the height of Canadian harvest season - mostly looking miserable and bruisy - so we park our cart and go down the street to a competing fruit&veg store that will actually sell Canadian produce.
Other aisles have big gaps in the products, with the one we want to buy all cleared out.
These two are just examples of an inability to do the core grocery thing properly. Jr. should concentrate on growing the prerequisite MBA goatee, and leave real business to one of the people who know what they’re doing.
March 5th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I would like to know which Galen Weston you are talking about and is this the older Galen Weston and how can I get some info about The Galen Weston on how he became rich and i was just doing a research on him and then i read this and now i am just bothered by it because i thought he was older but i think this one is the younger Galen right? I just wanted to know where i could get some Info about him and to see if it will help me to get info could somebody please help me? I would really appreciate it
March 8th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Jennifer, google him, you find lots about him. Try also google Loblaws. and this is about the younger one.
March 13th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Wow, I the what the boardroom babe has to say!! I work for superstore right now, I have been for 8 years, 6 as a supervisor. I absolutely am disgusted with the store managers that I work for. There is no team work whatsoever. The managers are all about me me me. I hate it. If I am shopping with my family the manager can’t even bother to say hi, as she walks within 2 feet of me. Very rude. How are we supposed to build a team store if the managers aren’t even on board. And how does weston think he can keep the people who have been working there for a long time. They hire supervisors off the street almost making the same as myself. I am really getting tired of being used.
April 8th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
As a former Manager with Loblaws I can tell you that most managers feel the same way as the supervisors, used. How a manager treats his staff is a reflection of the way upper management operates and expects him or her to treat the employees under them. To them the employees were cheap labour the superviors were used as long as they towed the company line, and if they started questioning upper management, Then management would simply find another young person to take their place. They were hired not because of experience but more on how easily they could be manipulated,
July 6th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
well I liked all of the managers and employees I met around the greater Windsor area.and Essex county.I’ve done many stores in terms of point of sale advertising-painting large murals on the windows for various seasonal themes. But a good low cost advertising medium seems to have been pushed aside, in order to waste money by treating the public to vicarious and vapid TV commercials…as in “here are the smart Loblaws yuppies, they go around the World in an attempt to help the great unwashed appreciate a really nice tangerine-peanut sauce{memories of Vietnam,etc.)
Then there was the extremely stupid maybe even mindless change of colours at the Superstores. They had the best colours that would signal customers that it was a bargain to shop there…yellow, red, black. But some “experts” changed that to Walmart blue, puce green and dull mustard. A change in identity which likely cost millions of dollars…bags,shopping carts, ads trumpeting the new sickly colours and of course the fees and salaries of “the experts”
Actually , for those of us who live here on earth it’s hard to imagine that a grocery chain thinks that we will become bewitched and bedazzled by some corny TV ad showing a pampered kid shoving a frozen food version of some foreign food down a foreigner’s happy face.
It doesn’t work for me and I must confess young Galen’s folksy approach in the latest ads don’t really work either…who cares about your yuppy green pitch or in other words “wheres the beef?”
As they say in Forbes-the Westons are in the top 100 or so wealthiest families…so how can they understand the lot of the working poor, so to speak…
And how would blogging help Loblaws, the Weston’s, or for that matter the shopper? You have to understand the tiny slice of people that read blogs are about as insignificant as the tiny slice of people that read a throw away flyer or actually choose to hear or watch a silly radio spot ar a lame TV commercial. Point of sale is where it’s at-the people are driving by or walking by and Loblaws has to get them “over the curb” and into the store.
Elitist condescending crap be it through flyers, shitty TV or radio ads or silly websites and blogs won’t bring dollars in to the till at Loblaws-the stores need colour, excitement at the entrance-and I’m not talking about some tattered fly specked posters. And anyways if Loblaws doesn’t care, the employees won’t care and the customers won’t care either.
July 6th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
bang on Jim! you really hit the nail on the head! Have you ever considered becoming an “expert” and helping Canadian retailers? Even helping bloggers to spell might earn you a tidy fortune-sort of like English as a second language for people that speak English… Think it over…and your insight is amazing! Thanks again!
August 4th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
your idea of saving a million bags from going in the garbage doesn’t do
much for apartment dwellers where we have to double bag our garbage in
plastic before putting it down the shute or in the garbage room.
Do you have any suggestions for the many thousands of apartment and
condo dwellers that reside in Ontario? If so, please advise
August 12th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I work for a Loblaws that is soon to be converted into an RCSS. We are slotted to “flip” in mid-November.
Our Loblaws was doing very well. The last 2 years, we have continuously increased our sales, thanks mostly to alot of home development in our area. We have a great group of Department Managers, and have had some good Store Managers as well.
With that said, how can Galen Jr. really justify “flipping” stores that are doing well, and leaving the stores that are losing money? Oh…because, by flipping the ones that are doing well, they figure that they are going to do even better! Pfft.
I think of all the Department Managers in our store, less than half will stay. There will be no protection for them anymore, since all Department Managers will be out of the union. Most also lose atleast $5/hour. Even the senior part-time staff can lose over $5/hour. For me personally, I would get a raise to stay, but that’s because i’m still fairly new in the company.
Sure. They will save money by closing all these Loblaws and opening more of the lower wage RCSS and GCFS stores, but who will work in them? I’m afraid of who they are going to hire as a Dept. Mgr. in my department, since I know my Manager is not staying. And, as a full-timer, they may offer the job to me, but i’d be retarded to take it. So, do they hire a youngling off the street?!
I honestly don’t see what a blog is going to help. Anyone working for this company knows what Galen Jr. is obviously thinking, and what he intends to change to fix this company. And the answer is…nothing. He’s pretty much following Lederer’s lead on this one.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
“Raising the profile of 33-year-old executive chair Galen Weston (â€young, handsome and hipâ€)”
If this is the saving grace, consider my Weston stock sold…33 is not young…if he’s handsome, so is Bill Gates…as for hip…see handsome…his ridiculous, arrogant smirk in his steakette commercial after telling me, as a consumer, what I should do, leaves me convinced both him and the company are totally out of touch with reality.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
does any one know Galen’s email or a ask galen website
October 9th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
david_eric_burrows@hotmail.com
October 10th, 2007 at 2:19 am
G2 has tons of work ahead of him, even at this stage of the game. They just released a new Milton store, and based on the pictures that I have seen on the superstore website, it looks dramatically better than the superstore that I regularly go to on Weston Rd. the main differences being the merchandising actually looks like something that was well thought out.
Joe Fresh is going to be one of the key drivers of growth for the company. But also all of their fabulous PC products, there are just so many. G2 should institute some free taste testing on Saturdays… kind of what Costco used to do when I was a kid… like literally, a taste test on second every end cap.
For sure Superstore when they were first built, definitely made Loblaws lose focus, and they started to really get out of touch with what their core competencies were: AMAZING FRESH FOOD. The minute they started to try to sell the general merchandise, everything fouled up. They are probably well on their way to fixing that up, especially with Mark Foote as a top Lieutenant of G2 (formerly of CDN TIRE).
I totally agree on the point that G2 should blog… not only for shareholders, but also for customers, and even employees benefits. He can communicate so much stuff via a blog compared to a Press Release. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if G2 pitched all of the amazing new PC products in his blog… I bet you Dave Nichol would totally be down. Mark Evans has come up with a stroke of Marketing Genius!
October 30th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
With Dalton Phillips as chief operating officer and Allan Leighton (former WalMart) coaching G2, there is no savior from the early 70’s available unless you hire me as a consultant. I took my lunch to Loblaws for 40 years in a plastic Loblaws bag and when I became a Customer service manager, did not have to because there were no lunch hours for me. In the stores I worked in, our store always made a profit because of teamwork, starting with customer-store manager-dept mgrs.-employees.
Right people at the right place at the right time.
The 4-7 program is exceptional, if in place, (replacement of old days, all the time).
The 4-walls Store Manager does not seem to have the time to have an open door for employees and rarely sees a customer.
However the customer service manager, my experience, knows or talked to 99% of her 13,000 customers weekly, had to do the schedule
at home, and paperwork-emails on her day off.
No complaint, it is what you have to do to stay up to date weekly and still have time to focus on customers and employees.
La petite famille - Loblaws has lost focus and needs to get back on track (it is not only Wal-mart now, it is Giant tiger - Zellers - IGA with the aggressive ads.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 am
Please respond:We are not the same as Ontario and out West…We treat our customers with Respect (&our staff). Please let me know where you are coming from with the ridiculous idea of not having the cashier tell the customer about the $25.00 coupon? As a customer myself, I would be so PO’d if the cashier did not tell me and I would decide to shop the competion the next week. Please do not try to make us uncaring in the maritimes
December 10th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Wow reading through this was … Not sure really… I know when I worked for Loblaw (FORTINOS). My managers were great and you know what yes the scared the crap out of me and I respected them, yes they respected me too. That’s when there was real respect and to get on topic of profits it was all about the margins then and now. That’s the way it should be. If you are afraid and respected by management then you will see a team… I worked for a few of the competitors and I saw the difference in management. For example In Fortinos the management would be there before I got there (except when I would show up early 4am) and there when I left. The other guys were all about I put in my hours this week or not really caring about the company. It is REALLY hard to find people to care like you do. The funny thing is that I supply Fortinos with products for the produce department and they are still working more than they have too but Loblaw bought them out because they must have seen the numbers. I have known most of them for 11 years and that’s what all the Loblaw stores should follow. These guys at Fortinos store level know what’s up. They still have the drive in them even though there is this commotion of job transferring threw out the head office. I know from experience that someone needs to step in and tell the guys what their job is and trust them to eliminate any hurdles on the way. I think Galen knows he has to do something but remember people and really think of this running over 1000 stores with 500 plus employees plus specialists plus buyers plus the entire head office of at least 1000. That’s a lot to handle and by the time he tells his main man/woman to do something and that person has to pass it down then so on and so on and so on, by the time the par timer hears about it, it’s just a whisper. Hey maybe Galen should sit in on some of the store level conference calls that would put some pressure and a lot of insight to the caring of the company. For everyone that shows so insight here and good team (family) morels should be the first one Galen contacts!!! Galen good luck it’s a tough crowd. Honestly this is my first time blogging? Maybe Galen could just look it through and snag some ideas and reply to the odd Blogger.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:44 am
Ok the funniest thing I have heard is something I read yesterday in the paper that Loblaws is counting on Joe Fresh to get them out of trouble HA HA HA! That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Galen get your head out of your ass! You have people who are more than willing to help you turn things around! Fire the management team and start over and start with earning the respect that your employees so rightfully deserve.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I work for the loblaws in B.C. (extra foods) Every time I hear galan talking about saving the earth, I want to puke!!! We have a bin for customers to put their old plastic bags into, they think they’re being recycled but we throw them in to the garbage. At our store nothing but cardboard is recycled. Reams of useless paper is sent to each department daily ( I guess it’s so we think the “higher ups” are doing something) all of this goes in the garbage. We have to order all sorts of stuff that does’t sell and then it goes into the garbage, packaging and all. Bakery dept. throws out tons. Nothing to the food bank, garbage. I find it discusting!!! I have talked to managment, and supervisors they are all to busy filling out useless paperwork, to cover their asses. Management is so busy kissing the asses of the ones above, they wouldn’t want to spoil the mood and tell them the facts.
Galen ask someone who’ll give you an honest answer, they’ll tell you it sucks to work in your stores and the customers can tell.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Also I forgot to add, the farmed salmon, and we all know what an enviromental nightmare fish farms are, the farmed fish sold at Loblaws all come from weston’s own fish farms.
galan enviromentaly sensitive?
I think not!!!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Any idea how I would find G2’s email address, I’m just so sorry to see Loblows go down the tube. Maybe I can give him a few business ideas from the point of a customer, given that only 5% of unhappy customers take the time to complain, he should at least read my few lines. The stock might even go up and everyone including myself would be happy.
In the old days. I would love going to Loblows with it’s neat products that were at least available and did not disappoint, but now they advertise but it’s nowhere to be found & staff are very unhelpful, like in Home Depot, they always seem to be walking away from you in a hurry. I dislike going to Wal-Mart because of various issues including the usual bland stuff, but alas, many Loblows shelves have a little tag “Sorry this item is out of stock” not sure why they would call attention to the fact that their inventory systems have failed again. Also it seems like the staff get the training at the LCBO training school on how to be surly and think that you are encroaching on their time. Finally I find that most of the staff are young adults (not that there is anything wrong with that), what happened to the older people that used to work there, do they get put to pasture after reaching say 45 at least they used to be so helpful, I certainly hope that this is not part of the new business model. Wake up G2, unless you want everyone to have “ Memories of Loblows”
February 10th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Yes all age 50 and up got lay off, and they hired staff off the street some rookies,, wake up G2 do you know how much severeance are paid every quarter, Loblaws is going down what left just memories of the old good time
February 26th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
just a comment regarding cashiers not being allowed to tell customers about coupons in the flyer that can save $30 off your grocery purchase or the coupon that gives the customer a free $25 gift card for their next purchase. I am a cashier currently working at a Superstore in BC and I can tell you that we are told not to mention any coupons at all unless the customer mentions it first. We are also not allowed to have extra coupons at our tills or in our smock pockets. If we do we can get in trouble. We must make the customer go and get a coupon themselves therefore holding up the line and the other customers in it.I can also tell you that the majority of cashiers will tell you quietly anyway if there is one of those coupons in the flyer becuase we have had a customer get mad at us in the past for not letting them know.
Free item coupons may not be mentioned because that holds our line up even more as the customer has to go and get the item ( usually something at the back of the store). We can sometimes get the price checker to get it but on busy days they are told not to. Of course the store could put stacks of the free item up front closer to the cashiers but then that would be to convenient now, wouldn’t it.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
[...] and young face on the Loblaws brand. Personalizing the brand was first suggested over a year ago, by people like Mark Evans (read the comments, it’s one of those bitter but everfresh [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
To G2,
Chapter 4
Loblaws is a fine chain. All the other grocery chains have their problems also. It takes time, guts, planning and changing to make the masses happy. At the end of the day Loblaws has to make their bottom line to exist. Loblaws could leave all the competion behind and increase their bottom line in one swoop.
Sell local food stuffs and get into the Canadian greenhouse business to produce on a huge scale all our needs in Canada. Eventually with the uncertain weather and climate conditions that are occurring now and in the future, everything will have to be under greenhouse control and not subject to greenhouse effect and its expensive wrath. Let’s create our own Canadian suppliers locally for our Canadian market with total profits, and all capital remaining within.
The Canadian consumer is ready to buy and support themselves even if they have to pay more now, because for sure they will pay less in the future as well as secure our food source. Farming will be on a new Eco and controlled scale that will catapult Loblaws into strong and congenial national supermarket. Who ever steps up to construct this evolution will be able to feed Canadians faithfully during the oncoming uncertain global harvests.
Purchasing general merchandise is available from safe law abiding Canadian and American manufacturers who don’t pollute or unlawfully employ one dollar a day human beings. The $2 item now, they will charge us $15 as the sole remaining manufacturer left in the very near future. G2, buy the $4 item now and put more of us to work.
Chapter 5 next time.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
To G2,
Chapter 4
Loblaws is a fine chain. All the other grocery chains have their problems also. It takes time, guts, planning and changing to make the masses happy. At the end of the day Loblaws has to make their bottom line to exist. Loblaws could leave all the competition behind and increase their bottom line in one swoop.
Sell local food stuffs and get into the Canadian greenhouse business to produce on a huge scale all our needs in Canada. Eventually with the uncertain weather and climate conditions that are occurring now and in the future, everything will have to be under greenhouse control and not subject to greenhouse effect and its expensive wrath. Let’s create our own Canadian suppliers locally for our Canadian market with total profits, and all capital remaining within.
The Canadian consumer is ready to buy and support themselves even if they have to pay more now, because for sure they will pay less in the future as well as secure our food source. Farming will be on a new Eco and controlled scale that will catapult Loblaws into strong and congenial national supermarket. Who ever steps up to construct this evolution will be able to feed Canadians faithfully during the oncoming uncertain global harvests.
Purchasing general merchandise is available from safe law abiding Canadian and American manufacturers who don’t pollute or unlawfully employ one dollar a day human beings. The $2 item now, they will charge us $15 as the sole remaining manufacturer left in the very near future. G2, buy the $4 item now and put more of us to work.
Chapter 5 next time.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
All the top management have to do is:
1) Fire out management personnel whose positions are redundant.
2) Redundant positions include administrative positions doing no decision making at all but simply data entry work and phone answering. Just imagine doing your payroll and answering phone and earning 50 grand a year.
3) Hire competent people up to the grassroots. don’t Hire just anybody..
4) Don’t discriminate your employees. Union employees and non-union employees but all working for Loblaws are not treated equally. Though union employees have some benefits, loblaws have to shoulder some too.
5) Don’t say as if you don’t care. In one of the ask galen forums, when we asked how he can be able to bail us out of our losses because of the stock decline (we have invested our earnings via an employee stock option plan), the simple response is we have DONE SO IN OUR OWN FREE WILL. While it is a fact, how rude and insensitive response coming from CEO to a hapless employee.
6) Hire managers and employees with ethics and good manners. If they don’t train them to have one.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Hi I work for superstore. I supervise a fresh department out west. In the middle of a staffing shortage, we have been hit with a new initiative almost every month. Plenty of visits from Dalton and co.
We have a new shrink initiative, which works. By following that program we’ve managed to cut our shrink down to less than 1% (from 8% last year), which is really good for a department that deals with perishables. Kudos to Galen.
We have a new inventory program, which works, as long as the department supervisor stays on top of it, I’ve managed to have no holes for months. However, we still have warehouse shorts, thanks to poor planning by the buyers. We will have items in the flyer that the warehouse will short us on halfway through the week because they have not planned enough inventory for the sale, Galen needs to work on this.
We have a new training program that allows me to spend more than 40 hours training a new employee one on one. This is going to make a big difference. This is good, it means better customer service. Happier, more productive employees who are confident in their abilities. Also, if they wish, we now have a structured way of training them further into leadership positions, which is good. Now I can delegate more to them to prevent my life from becoming a three ring circus that revolves around my job and staving off burnout.
We are now more accountable for how we are running the business. We have to plan out our sales, think about up-coming ads, manage our labor force and how we are allocating employee hours. Although it is no cake walk right now (if fact my stress level is through the roof, I’ve been putting in more than 60 hours a week and being paid for 40!)) I know that 6 months from now, a year from now, the company will be stronger, my job will be less stressful, the employees will be happier, the customers will be happier. If we do not have customers, we do not have a business.
I think it’s good that the company does not rest on the stale laurels of the 80’s but is making itself competitive for the 21st century. Anything worth having requires hard work to get there, and we can do it! I rather shop at Superstore than Wal-mart any day! In fact the only thing I usually buy there are shoes, because the Joe Fresh ones are not designed for 12 hours on a concerte floor! Especially the woman’s ones. I like many PC products. Generally I’ve never bought anything that I could honestly complain about.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Loblaws is so disorganized! And constantly changing policies only confuse experienced people further. When will Loblaws decide on a policy and actually keep it (for longer than a month?).
All the while, they are trying to run their stores on a shoe-string budget, and hiring very inexperienced/young staff.
Very disorganized and very unprofessional. Definitely not the place to build a management career imo.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hi, I think I speak for all employees that work in the bakery department at Zehrs stores when we all complain about looking after customers at the door. The free cookies for kids has got to stop we can not get any work done while people are asking for things making us stop work. e.g. kids asking for cookies.
It is the whole shift all day long. looking after people asking for cookies.
It is getting to the point where it is all day long.
i dont mean to make a big deal of this but, i personaly think this should come to an end.
September 27th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
If you think the stores are bad you should see what the loblaws warehouses are like, they treat there employees like garbage and I don’t trust any of the food that leaves the warehouse as it is either mouldy or bruised from falling on the floor.
This is a company that thinks a yearly 16-20% accident rating in one year is good, and half of the injuries are severe.
I can tell you right now loblaws is on it’s way down…
October 25th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I work for Superstore in B.C. and have been employed there for 18+yrs as a cashier. I’m wondering why we don’t have hand held scanning devices and maybe coin counter machines on our lanes. There is so much more that the company can do to help the cashiers do their job more effectively,thus treating the customers better.We are all getting wrist/hand/shoulder/back problems because of old and USED hand-me-down computers and scales etc.Why is that? How does the company expect us to do our jobs on machinery from the 1990′S??
Why can’t we tell about the “free item” coupons? Why can’t we get a policy that sticks and the managers actually backing up their employees instead of appeasing the angry customers?
If you treat employees better, they then care about their job and thus it will benefit the CUSTOMERS!
November 11th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
hi I have worked for extra foods in sask for 8 yrs.I have always believed that they were a company that cared about families and children, but everyday they do things that make me wonder if they realy care about anyone.They keep store open 24-7 never close on stat except for xmas and new years which will likely change to, how can this be good for the family.All it would take is one of the big companies to say no more of this, and start closing at 9pm ,sundays and stats. Then we would have enough employees to work and cover the shift better,because we would have more people appling for jobs. we would also have more time for our children,maybe this would stop some of the crime with young ones.I think the customers would be severed better because we wouldn’t be worried about our families all the time.Just a thought.