CHICAGO -- Promoting women and minorities into management positions is a sensible business decision, not just a social issue, Liz Minyard, co-chairman of Minyard Food Stores, Coppell, Texas, told a Food Marketing Institute audience here last week.
le will shop where they feel comfortable."
Minyard is co-chairman of FMI's Diversity Task Force, along with Ron Pearson, chairman and chief executive officer of Hy-Vee Food Stores, Chariton, Iowa. The task force has just begun to look at the issue of promoting more women and ethnic minorities, Minyard said. It has hired two consultants to prepare a report that will be ready next year, she told the FMI session.
Sharing the podium with Minyard was Darioush Khaledi, chairman and CEO of Top Valu Markets, a 13-unit chain based in Long Beach, Calif.
Khaledi hires from the communities where his stores are located, he said, and he gives employees the power to make decisions. "When employees are invested with the power to make decisions, they do well," Khaledi noted.
His willingness to hire from the community has paid off in unexpected ways, he said. For example, following the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, members of the local community -- "both our customers and our employees," Khaledi said -- volunteered to clean up Top Valu stores that had been damaged.
"It was the neighborhood that did it," Khaledi said.
According to Minyard, part of the supermarket's responsibility is meeting the needs of specific consumer segments in the areas it serves. "We need to look at the neighborhood beyond our storefront and do what we can to help," she said.
Donating to local food banks and supporting local schools are two ways supermarkets can contribute to the communities that support their stores, she said.
Minyard sponsors a Teacher of the Week program, in which students write in and nominate teachers, she noted. Selections are made based on the letters, with the teacher and the school each getting $1,000.
"It's in our best interest to be involved in our schools and to support our education system," Minyard said. "After all, we have to hire people these schools turn out, and if they don't have the basic skills, we're all in trouble."
During the Speaks report segment on social concerns, several programs offered by retailers and wholesalers around the country were cited as examples of good community involvement, including the following:
In southern California, the Mexican American Grocers Association worked with a local employment center to develop a training institute that provides marketable skills to inner-city residents.
In New Jersey, the ShopRite/Wakefern Supermarket Careers program provides job-skills training for otherwise untapped workers.
Roundy's, Pewaukee, Wis., sponsors a program that has evolved from a successful midnight basketball league to keep kids off the streets into a program that offers mentoring, scholarships and job opportunities. Since 1992 Roundy's has provided $5,000 worth of scholarships and 30 full-time jobs.
Wegmans Food Markets, Rochester, N.Y., has a work-scholarship program that brings together job opportunities, scholarships, mentorships and emotional support to help underachievers graduate from high school. Since 1987 the program has had a 60% graduation rate.
