As a mid-sized regional grocer and retailer, Harris Teeter is in competition with everything from mega-stores to mom & pop shops. To compete successfully, Harris Teeter has a laser focus on three areas of its business: the diversity and inclusion of their workforce; an ever-increasing goal of customer satisfaction; and continued innovation in products and services. The three areas are mutually supportive. By having the associates in stores reflect the diversity in the customer base they serve, customers feel more welcome and comfortable. It also helps drive innovation.
Supporting innovation
Harris Teeter continuously strives to innovate in the way they serve their customers. Examples include having Starbucks locations in stores, offering “Hot Bars” serving pizza by the slice and other chef-prepared foods, omelet stations, sushi stations, burger bars and beer and wine bars. Their stores also support buy online/pickup in-store (BOPUS) convenience for shoppers.
Supporting all of its innovative customer services with a diverse workforce nearing 39,000 associates across its various business segments is a major challenge, especially considering some of the areas it serves have as low as a 1.25% unemployment rate. Harris Teeter chose to deploy Blue Yonder’s retail workforce management capability enterprise-wide to drive innovation in their workforce management practices.
Advanced scheduling capabilities enable Harris Teeter to automatically schedule associates weeks in advance based on past customer traffic and planned events. Harris Teeter gets heightened efficiency and better coverage, resulting in improved in-stock positions and customer service and satisfaction.
Driving associate engagement
Harris Teeter believes driving associate engagement results in higher associate satisfaction and retention, as well as improved customer satisfaction. Blue Yonder's mobile workforce management app gives associates 24/7 access to their schedules and time cards from their smartphones. In addition to their own shifts, associates can see and bid on uncovered shifts, as well as swap shifts with other associates. Managers can post open shifts and approve shift swaps.
Blue Yonder expertise
Harris Teeter believes Blue Yonder’s innovative mobile app can drive greater associate engagement and coverage across locations. “We want to think outside the box and start sharing shift postings across locations. In some of our coverage areas we have several stores within an easy drive of each other. Associates could see and bid for any of those shifts. We think it could be like Uber where associates could see and rate available shifts and managers could rate the associates after they’ve worked a shift.”
