HRM

HRM

HRM

Case Study - The Container Stores:

People looking for shelves and handy bins for organizing closets, garage, or dorm room need only go to The Container Store. The same goes for people looking for a satisfying place to work. Fortune has selected The Container Store twice as “the best company to work for in America” and ranked it second two other times. The recognition stems from a corporate culture based on hiring great people and motivating them to provide outstanding customer service.

The company has become so respected for its commitment to employees and their creative input that it has catapulted itself into a position of leadership in the HR field. The reason is simple. They give time to educate its employees, pay them well and treat them as equally, you end up with extremely motivated and enthusiastic people.

The company isn't like most old-economy retailers. Much about the organization and how it handles people management is unusual, but well suited to the company's unique business mission: To sell products that save customers space and time. Just as no organizational product solution is ever the same for two different customers, The Container Store believes that people management should be the same way. Rather than filling positions as quickly as possible, rather hold a job open for six weeks or more to make sure just the right person is hired.

The company strives to astonish its employees, which makes it an easy proposition for them, in turn, to astonish customers. "If we expect our employees to astonish customers, we have to first take care of them," says Barbara Anderson, director of community services and staff development. "Because they're going to treat customers the way we treat them. We can't say, 'Go be this wonderful person' with a customer, but not treat them with respect. That's where it all begins and that's why we put so much time and energy into that. Someone needs to role-model how we treat each other." (Laabs, WORKFORCE,2001)

To achieve the company's primary goal of providing extraordinary service, the firm invests in more than 235 hours of training for employees in their first year, an astonishing feat for a retailer in an industry that usually provides workers with an average of seven hours of training per year. Included in rookie training is a full week of orientation training, topped off with a session on learning the foundation principles, offered in an unscripted presentation delivered directly by new employees' managers. But it isn't just quantity that matters, quality is essential for The Container Store. It has achieved that end. Leonard Berry, a leading expert on service quality, profiled the company in his book, discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success (Free Press, 1999). The single most important factor in building a lasting service business isn't a matter of savvy business practices but of human values.

The Container Store carefully cultivates a work environment that's both fun and based on the company's strong ...