CHICAGO -- Supermarkets have to do a better job selling themselves to America's youth not just as places to shop but also as places to work, according to the Food Marketing Institute Speaks session at last week's FMI annual convention here.
The problem supermarket companies face in finding employees in this time of dramatically low unemployment was described by Michael Sansolo, FMI senior vice president.
"It's getting harder and harder to find anyone, let alone good people, which is what we want," he said.
Sansolo noted that it takes an average of six interviews to fill a store-level position, and 72% of supermarket companies said it is very or extremely difficult to fill skilled positions.
Along with recruitment challenges, the supermarket industry also faces a worsening retention situation. Sansolo said turnover in part-time jobs is 82%, while turnover in full-time positions, 17%, has nearly doubled over the past decade.
The situation, Sansolo predicted, is only likely to worsen in the near future.
"Technology is going to replace a lot of jobs," he said, "and we're going to need fewer people, but the people we need will need to have different skills than they have today.
"We're going to need people who have better customer-service skills. People who can make the shopping experience a wonderful, entertaining environment so people will still want to come to our stores."
Mike Read, vice president of Albertson's, Boise, Idaho, described the recruitment and retention challenges faced by one of the industry's largest companies.
"We have more than 2,500 stores and more than 200,000 associates," he said. "One of the greatest weaknesses of the industry as a whole is the high turnover rate. It's hard just to get employees trained to do the job, let alone to give them the additional information they need to answer questions about biotechnology or irradiation."
Sansolo suggested some solutions to the recruitment challenge. "We've got more and more companies using incentives, having current workers talk to their friends and bring them in," he said.
He also pointed to SuperJobMart.com, an Internet-based service the FMI unveiled at the convention that enables companies to find candidates for positions from part-time clerk to full-time executive..
Sansolo noted that students today "are folks who know how to gather information and do all kinds of movement around the Internet. This is your chance to reach them in an environment they understand."
Other speakers also pointed out that the retail food industry is a high-tech business hampered in its recruiting efforts by a low-tech image.
Ross MacClaren, president and chief executive officer of Shaw's Supermarkets, East Bridgewater, Mass., said, "The whole retail food and food-distribution industry is one of the biggest users of computers. We don't do a good enough job of selling ourselves to students."
Jim Chambers, chairman and CEO of NetGrocer.com, North Brunswick, N.J., commented, "You have to be in the forefront of change instead of catching up. People want to be able to make a difference."
