Green Valley Grocery: People Power
Retail
Written by G. Jeffrey MacDonald   
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
Green Valley Grocery: People Power - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
It sounds simple, but Richard Crawford says investing in people helped this family-owned business thrive in the Nevada desert.
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In 1978, Las Vegas was still a small city in the desert. The “metropolitan” area claimed only about 300,000 residents. In the suburban outpost of Henderson, the neighborhood of Green Valley had 150 homes at most. But small numbers and a Wild West environment didn’t deter Richard Crawford from planting his first grocery store. “We were pioneers,” said Crawford, founder and president of Green Valley Grocery (GVG).

Since then, Greater Las Vegas has exploded to a population of 2 million, and GVG has boomed along with it. The chain of 35 stores brings in more than $300 million in annual revenue and employs nearly 300. Thirty-one of the 35 stores also sell fuel, which GVG buys from another Crawford business, wholesale distributor Crawford Oil (the largest distributor of Shell Oil in Nevada). A third family business, Crawford Coin, stocks GVG stores with electronic slot machines.

Being in the right place at the right time has surely figured in GVG’s success, but that’s only part of the story. A winning strategy has figured prominently in the firm’s fortunes, and at the heart of that strategy is a willingness to challenge conventional thinking about clerks who work the register.

For many retail chains, clerks are low-paid, part-time employees who receive little in the way of benefits and seldom last more than a few months on the job. At GVG, clerks keep their jobs for an average of two years—a long time in a role notorious for high turnover.

GVG’s secret has a lot to do with the treatment of employees. They’re almost always full-timers who accrue respectable benefits within a few months. And although that approach requires more than a bare-bones investment, Crawford swears it’s been a key to his company’s meteoric rise from a mom-and-pop operation to a major player among Las Vegas food and beverage markets.

Generous benefits
Workers aren’t the only stakeholders who benefit from their longevity with the company. Customers, 90% of whom reside near a GVG store, appreciate what’s implied by a consistent presence behind the counter.

“They are sales people for Green Valley Grocery. They are part of our advertising,” Crawford said. “When you come into our store and see someone who’s been with us for a period of time, it reassures you that things are operating well in this place of business.”

What’s more, Crawford said, the company benefits when resources aren’t constantly dedicated to training new employees. “The longer someone is with you, the more efficient they are as an employee,” Crawford said. “And you want management to be managing—not constantly hiring.”

When talking about the recipe for retaining good employees, Crawford proudly rattles off a litany of benefits that many white-collar workers would appreciate. GVG staffers get health insurance coverage after a 90-day probationary period, and the company pays 85% of each worker’s health insurance premium. Workers also get access to a 401k investment program in which GVG matches employee contributions. And after six months on the job, an employee starts receiving paid vacation in proportion to his or her time on the job. After six months, workers get two days. After a year, it’s a week. After two years, it’s two weeks.

Offering two days of paid vacation after six months may not seem like a lot, Crawford said, but it gives GVG a leg up in the local labor marketplace. Providing a respectable benefits package helps GVG advance one of its basic goals, Crawford said, in terms of employing a workforce of full-timers. He wants employees who recognize that working in a store isn’t easy, and signing up people who treat the work as their primary livelihood helps ensure reliability.

“Part-time people would treat our job as a secondary job, and we don’t want to be second,” Crawford said. “We want our employees to look on our place of employment as their primary place of work.”

Mentoring success
In addition to bestowing ample benefits, GVG makes sure all employees work closely with store managers to learn how to do their jobs exceptionally well. This mentoring dimension sets employees up for long-term success, Crawford said. Clerks who demonstrate potential receive encouragement to move up in the company. Promoting from within is an ideal to fulfill whenever possible.

When employees aren’t happy, they have an avenue to pursue as an alternative to quitting in a huff. A clear grievance procedure brings them face-to-face with upper level managers who consult with all parties and try to forge a remedy acceptable to all. If an employee worries about retribution on the job for having filed a grievance, Crawford said, the company will sometimes re-assign that worker to another store to minimize distracting conflicts.

Now 63, Crawford is enjoying the benefits of a management practice perfected over 30 years. GVG owns the real estate at about half of its stores and rents space for the rest. The company has expanded beyond the Las Vegas area by opening stores in nearby Mesquite and Pahrump. Last year, the company bought three existing stores and built another three from the ground up to the tune of more than $3 million each.

Having established a sustainable system, Crawford can now focus on long-term planning. He’s currently making plans for weathering a recession, which constrains consumer spending on GVG staple products such as beer, tobacco, soda, candy, and dairy products. Staff reductions could be necessary in a sluggish economy, he said, but GVG prices its products aggressively to compete on price with big-box retailers and turn profits on volume.

Crawford has reason to believe that approach, coupled with sound management practice, will serve GVG and its employees well no matter how weak the economy might get in the near term. In that respect, he looks forward to reaping the rewards of discipline and consistency for a long time to come.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald is a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. Based in Newburyport, Mass., he can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 
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