Photo: Getty Images/slobo
‘All you need is love, love, love’ to work at Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s culture is its secret sauce. It’s why the grocer doesn’t just have customers — It has fans.
On Episode 52 of the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast, the hosts and guests discuss what it takes to find the right people to add to its store crews.
Ty, no last name given, is a captain (store manager) at a TJ’s in Colorado.
“We just look for really nice people that love people,” he said. “We can kind of teach the crew to run register and stock shelves. That kind of stuff is not what’s important. What’s important is if you really like people.”
Building a store culture is also about love, according to Ty.
“It’s hard to talk about Trader Joe’s without talking about love because if you talk to anybody about Trader Joe’s, they’re eventually gonna mention it. They love a product, or they love shopping at our stores, but a lot of it is, they love working here, you know, and that in and of itself is sort of our culture, right?
So how do stores find the right crew members?
“People who express their love for Trader Joe’s in the application are the ones that really catch our eye,” he said. “They put a couple of sentences about why they wanna work here. They’ve shopped with us for years or they grew up on Trader Joe’s. That’s a big one.”
Episode 50 of the “Insider Trader Joe’s” podcast included an interview with Jon Basalone, president of stores at the chain. His answers mirror those of the store captain in Episode 52.
“The goal is to hire nice, kind, empathetic individuals, and then just turn them loose. And so the customer service training is pretty simple. It’s, you know, be yourself. We hired you for a reason. We hired you for you. You don’t have to become something else or transform yourself into something to work at Trader Joe’s,” he said.
TJ’s judges how well stores are working by the answers to two questions, said Mr. Basalone. “Is this a place where I’d want to shop and is this a place where I’d want to work?”
He added, “If the answer’s yes, to both of those you kind of feel it and know it. If the answer is no to one of them, you might say, “Well, why do I feel that way and what is causing that and what can we do to help here?”
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How influential is culture to a retail organization’s performance? How does Trader Joe’s hiring process differ from other retailers?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Culture is critically important to a store. Associates and customers alike can feel what it’s like to be in a store; ambiance is palpable.
You can’t train someone to be kind or nice, but you can train a kind, nice person to do the tasks necessary to do a job.
It appears to me that the BrainTrust really enjoys discussing the retailers that seem to “get it” and we never stop being impressed by what they are able to accomplish. We just love to discuss them…
Culture is critical. It sets the atmosphere that customers feel and that ultimately influences metrics like sales and satisfaction. Trader Joe’s does a great job at this: all their associates are almost unfailingly helpful and friendly. You just feel good after visiting. Contrast that with Whole Foods – which is much more expensive and supposedly premium – where associates are hit and miss. Some are great, others are extremely grumpy. It all comes back to culture.
See my note below. The roots of the cultures run deep.
Thanks Paula, I read that and think it explains a lot!
While it’s hard to precisely measure the impact of culture, it can greatly impact an organization’s performance. In studying the reasons why shoppers leave stores without buying, the attitude of frontline workers plays a more significant role than many retailers fully appreciate. Having engaged, enthusiastic workers can make all the difference in a good vs. great shopping experience.
A few days ago after reading RetailWire’s article on data clean rooms a good friend, Jeff Bourgoyne, emailed me and suggested that instead of analyzing terabytes of data looking for a magic pill, retailers should do what Trader Joe’s does and sell what people want at decent prices. In my response I added, “and they should do so with great people.” On the West Coast, if you want great, customer-centric talent, you look for people that have worked at In & Out Burger or Trader Joe’s. Business success is pretty basic when you break it down to its fundamentals and culture is an essential element of that formula.
The irony of your story is that, in one case, retailers can sift through those terabytes of data to get pretty decent results and, in the case of company culture and the right attitude, they have nothing to do with data and those attributes are hardly even measurable with any device. Go figure!
I make it a practice to ask employees how they like working in a store. When I asked a cashier at Trader Joe’s she started gushing. She used to work at Whole Foods where they just had to “do what they were told.” At TJ’s she said she had lots more latitude and leeway and loves it.
I certainly like shopping there.
I had the opportunity to speak to a Trader Joe’s store manager relatively recently about this thing called company culture. When asked how easy or hard it is to hire what should turn out to be a successful store associate, he simply responded: I can tell within two weeks if we are going to keep the employee or not.
Trader Joe’s managers already know how the right employee is going to have to be, before the person is hired. If the associate doesn’t come in with the right attitude (we all know what that is by now), it’s a very short time before they are out the door again.
For Trader Joe’s, great people and great service are the cornerstones of their identity as a retailer. They emit authenticity. Every time I go into their stores, I can see that the associates that work there really like working there. And they have great products — what else do you need?
Fit is everything. A culture that aligns around a common purpose builds consistency and trust among staff and customers.
Trader Joe’s targets positive, passionate people who love to serve others. I love the line, “We hired you for you,” which celebrates the authenticity of genuinely friendly associates.
Trader Joe’s “love” reminds me of the old Southwest Airlines culture which was all about engaging people and servant leadership. I think they’ve lost some of that lately, but TJ’s love is front and center. It is palpable in their stores. I went on a TJ’s run a few months ago and arrived just before the store opened. That was a mistake. There was a line wrapped around nearly the entire building! Shoppers do love their Trader Joe’s. So the formula that Ty and Mr. Basalone talk about in their podcasts is working: when you love your job and love the company you work for, it doesn’t feel like work.
When you get to wear Hawaiian shirts to work, what could be bad? Trader Joe’s have consistently hired the right people for as long as I’ve shopped there — a pretty amazing task. During COVID-19 when they had limited entry, that is when it was most noticeable. They brought samples to people in line, they helped people in the store more than ever — great company.
It is not a coincidence that the best retailers to work for are also the most successful retailers. Costco, Nordstrom, Apple, Wegmans, H-E-B.
A long-time successful NYC restaurateur has two restaurants in my neighborhood. It is obvious when visiting that the staff is friendly and well-trained. I asked him how he builds such a consistent cadre of staff. Like Ty in Colorado, he said, “Nothing special, we just hire nice people.”
How influential is culture? It is the most underrated of the elements for success, corporately or personally.
I don’t know if the culture is about love — but it is about customer-centricity.
I was in a TJ’s just yesterday. It was teeming with people in the aisles — everywhere. I approached an associate who had a mullet and a tropical shirt and was unpacking boxes, and I asked about a certain product. He said, “I’m not sure — let me check,” and zoomed into the back room while I waited for a minute. Another associate came out and literally picked up where he left off with respect to unpacking the boxes, saying: “he’ll be out in a moment.” The associate returned and said, “I’m sorry — we’re out of stock right now, the next shipment comes in at the end of the month and will be available at around 9:15 a.m.” As I walked towards the exit, a cashier ushered me to his wrap station as if he wanted me to go through. He wanted to be of service.
If this isn’t customer-focused, I’m not sure what is.
Working in a retail store of any kind is a task-oriented job. It’s incumbent on store management and senior management to make sure that those tasks do not become drudgery. It’s easier to execute the details of the business when associates feel fulfilled in their customer service mission, and you can observe the same phenomenon in well-run restaurants too.
Energy attracts energy. Trader Joe’s culture is set up to drive positive experiences with its associates and customers. In a grocery segment where the news cycle is all about removing costs, optimizing supply chains, driving e-commerce businesses, and removing friction from the checkout experience, the Trader Joe’s shopping journey is all about joy — a welcome departure from all the negative narratives.
Trader Joe’s associates and products are why people make an effort to shop at their stores (especially given many have less-than-optimal parking and logistics). Associates that are helpful, positive and knowledgeable are a very important part of the shopping experience.
Trader Joe’s is my go-to food store, and culture is its strength. Sure, their private label brands are fun and high-quality, and their checkout lines move at lightning speed, but their employees are their authentic secret sauce. The store is fun and easy to shop, helpful employees are everywhere, and all are knowledgeable about their products. So here’s an obvious differentiator that other grocers have either struggled to emulate or realized is not in their wheelhouse.
Trader Joe’s has built a brand centered on easy, fun-to-shop stores with great products, staffed with friendly people who create a positive environment for their customers and themselves. They hone their value prop like almost no one else in the business. Culture is a big part of that brand experience. Their success with this strategy can appear to fly in the face of conventional wisdom in many cases when it comes to technology, omnichannel capabilities, apps and so forth. But it works for them. I like to quip about Trader Joe’s stores in my market: “they don’t have a lot of things; no app, no delivery, no curbside pick-up, and no empty spots in their parking lot.”
Trader Joe’s has the right people for sure and they offer the right products at the alright prices. I remember a time that I purchased a large number of groceries (too heavy for me to carry) in their Manhattan store near 72nd Street. I had a car parked a few blocks away. So, I asked the cashier where I could leave my bags while I got the car. He told me that I could leave them with him. He waited at the door and when I brought the car around, he loaded the trunk for me. I offered him a tip and he didn’t accept. He was just “doing his job” in the most friendly, approachable and kind way. Gotta love it!
Not a security camera in sight at Trader Joe’s. The cash either balances or it doesn’t … and the management is actually on the floor observing what is going on in the store as opposed to looking at camera footage as has become custom for management at, specifically, large chain grocers/retailers.
I have noticed Trader Joe’s has had an easier time keeping fully staffed during the current staffing shortage environment than many other grocers.
Everytime I shop at our local Trader Joe’s in Cary, NC I am struck by how happy people are there. It makes a HUGE difference. You hire people with the right attitude and tell them to interact with customers, and you have a winning formula. Period. And yes, culture matters!