Introduction
This paper will provide an overview of the Kroger Company. The first part of the paper will provide the basic information about the company such as its mission, vision, and values.
The second part will highlight the company’s business strategies that enable it to achieve its objectives. The last part will shed light on the workforce planning approach used by the Kroger Company.
Company Profile
Mission, vision, values
Kroger is one of the largest grocery retailers in the US. The company sells a variety of food products in 2,640 stores worldwide (Kroger, 2014). Kroger’s vision is to be the preferred provider of high quality grocery and personal care products in the world.
In order to achieve this vision, the company has focused on expanding its operations by joining new markets and aligning its products to customers’ needs. The company’s mission is “to be a leader in the distribution and merchandising of food, pharmacy, health/ personal care items, seasonal merchandise, and related products” (Kroger, 2014).
This mission enables the company to establish long-term relationships with its suppliers and customers in order to achieve its vision. The company’s core values include honesty, integrity, respect, diversity, safety, and inclusion (Kroger, 2014).
Kroger’s employees believe in being truthful to customers and suppliers to ensure high standards of integrity. In addition, they demonstrate respect by appreciating other people’s values, cultures, and beliefs.
Demographics
Kroger’s workforce consists of nearly 375,000 full-time and part-time employees (Kroger, 2014). Majority of the employees are members of international labor unions. Diversity is an important characteristic of the company’s labor force. Specifically, the workforce consists of old and young employees who are from different cultures, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.
Organization
Kroger operates supermarkets, convenience stores, and jewelry stores. The supermarkets have different formats, which include combination stores, price impact stores, and multi-department stores (Kroger, 2014). The use of different store formats helps the company to retain its customers by enhancing their shopping experience.
Kroger uses a decentralized organizational structure that consists of its headquarters and 20 operating divisions. This structure enhances decision-making processes by giving authority to the heads of the operating divisions to make merchandising decisions.
Key Strategies
Kroger’s business strategy is to maintain cost leadership while generating good financial returns. However, Kroger’s prices are often not as low as those of major retailers such as Wal-Mart. Kroger focuses on reducing its operating costs in order to sell its merchandise at a low price. This helps in increasing sales, which in turn improves the company’s profits.
Kroger prioritizes customers’ needs in order to achieve its profit and market share objectives. This strategy involves listening to customers and using their feedback to enhance the company’s operations. The feedback enables the company to provide excellent services to customers, stock the right products, set affordable prices, and create a memorable shopping experience (Kroger, 2014).
The rationale of prioritizing customer needs is twofold. First, it enables the company to improve its brand loyalty by retaining its customers. Second, Kroger achieves economies of scale as its customers increase due to excellent service quality. As a result, Kroger is able to sell its merchandise at low prices without compromising its financial results.
Investing in advanced technologies and innovation is central to the company’s strategy of creating competitive advantages by prioritizing customer needs. The core roles required by the company to achieve the desired innovation include technology innovators and customer service experts.
For instance, in 2013 the company’s technology innovators developed a real-time temperature monitoring system that enables the company to provide the freshest food products in its stores. Generally, innovation enables Kroger to improve the quality of its products and services beyond customers’ expectations.
Current Workforce Planning Approach
Currently, Kroger uses a strategic approach to workforce planning. The company aligns its workforce planning initiatives to its overall business strategy to improve its performance. Additionally, Kroger links workforce planning objectives to employee development needs, recruiting/ staffing processes, and contingent labor requirements.
Kroger’s workforce planers focus on determining the talent gaps in the company by performing job requirement analysis in collaboration with line managers to identify the existing skill shortages and redundancies. The planers also forecast talent gaps to enable the company to understand its future labor requirements.
Reducing labor costs and hiring the best talent are key elements of Kroger’s workforce planning policy (Kroger, 2014). The company believes in reducing labor costs by hiring only the right number of employees. Having the right workforce size also ensures that various business processes in the company are executed effectively.
Kroger hires only the individuals with the right skill set to enable it achieve the highest level of performance. Overall, strategic workforce planning helps Kroger to access adequate talent to provide customer-centric services.
Conclusion
Kroger aspires to be the leading grocery retailer in the world. In this respect, the company focuses on providing high quality merchandise and customer services. The company also sells its products at low prices to increase sales and profits.
Generally, Kroger improves its competitiveness by aligning its operations to market needs. Currently, the company uses a strategic approach to workforce planning to access the right quantity and quality of talent.
References
Carre, F., & Tilly, C. (2010). Competitive strategies in the US retail industry: Consequences for jobs in food and consumer electronics stores. Boston, MA: Center for Social Policy.
Kroger. (2014). Fact book. Web.
Kumar, R. (2010). Human resource management: Strategic analysis. New Delhi, India: International Publishing House.
Reinvestment Fund. (2011). Understanding the grocery industry. New York, NY: CDFI Fund.