H-E-B steps up investment in digital workforce

To support its burgeoning digital business, H-E-B plans to build a 150,000-square-foot technology center at its San Antonio headquarters that will house up to 1,000 H-E-B Digital partners.

H-E-B said yesterday that construction of the five-story building, situated in the company’s Arsenal campus in downtown San Antonio, is scheduled to start by next summer. The Texas grocer expects to complete the structure by summer 2022.

With the project, H-E-B is slated to add 500 new jobs in San Antonio and relocate digital staff from other locations in the city, which the retailer said will bring the digital team closer together. Overall, H-E-B has more than 5,500 e-commerce associates, who are part of the H-E-B Curbside and Home Delivery teams. Those staff include over 1,000 H-E-B Digital partners in San Antonio and several hundred more at the company’s Eastside Tech Hub in Austin, which opened in June.

“The San Antonio tech center will be become part of the new front door to our Arsenal campus, just as H-E-B Digital is creating a new front door for our customers online and via mobile shopping experiences,” Chief Digital Officer Jag Bath said in a statement.

Like the Austin tech hub, the new San Antonio facility will house a variety of work settings across its floors, including open collaboration areas, individual workspaces and meeting rooms equipped with advanced technology and videoconferencing, H-E-B said. San Antonio-based Lake Flato Architects will design the project, which the retailer said will feature modern amenities and incorporate design elements found throughout its Arsenal campus.

Related:H-E-B opens doors to new tech hub

H-E-B Digital encompasses the supermarket chain’s product, design, technology and e-commerce teams. H-E-B said it’s actively hiring across all areas of expertise — including product management, product design and software engineering — to fuel the growth of its digital business and Favor, the on-demand food and grocery delivery company that it acquired in February 2018.

“Our success starts with our people, who provide exceptional hospitality to deliver world-class shopping and digital experiences,” H-E-B President Craig Boyan stated. “We’re committed to hiring more people, adding the necessary skills to become both a better tech company and even stronger brick-and-mortar retailer.”

The Favor acquisition reflects H-E-B’s push to integrate more technology-based services into its e-commerce offerings. That effort also includes the ongoing expansion of the H-E-B Curbside pickup and H-E-B Home Delivery services, slated to be available at more than 200 locations by the end of 2019, and H-E-B Go, which enables customers use their smartphones to scan and pay for their groceries.

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“H-E-B’s service to customers, commitment to community and drive for innovation are why they are so much more than a store, and why the City of San Antonio is honored and proud of this incredible growth of 500 highly skilled jobs,” commented San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “Just as no store does more than our H-E-B, no city achieves more than San Antonio because of H-E-B.”