DISCUSSION
Hy-Vee suspends employee discounts after finding fraud and misuse
Written by George Anderson
Job recruiters at INDYCAR Race Weekend, July 2022 - Photo: Facebook/@HyVeeCareers
Hy-Vee has suspended its employee discount program after discovering a significant increase in the number of people using it that did not share the same household or even the same city.
The grocer, which operates stores across eight Midwestern states, said it found a case where one employee’s fuel-saver account was used in five different states in a span of an hour. Another worker was said to have used their discount to make large purchases and then resold the merchandise for a profit.
“The discrepancies found were significant enough to signal a much broader issue that needed to be addressed immediately,” the company said in a statement quoted by several news outlets.
The employee perk, which enabled workers to receive a 10 percent discount on items bought at Hy-Vee’s stores, was first introduced in 2019, according to an Omaha World-Herald report.
Initial reports of Hy-Vee’s action said the company was planning on bringing back its program this summer, but updates have it now targeting mid-April.
Hy-Vee has positioned itself as having no choice in the decision and has emphasized that its pay and benefits package is an indication that it supports its workers.
Some of the chain’s workers, however, still see the action as punitive.
One worker who contacted KAAL-TV/ABC 6 News in Rochester, MN, said, “This feels like penalizing their frontline workers who have continued to work and support Hy-Vee through the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The grocer came under some criticism last year when it asked over 600 corporate employees to move to jobs in stores as part of a broader cost-cutting effort intended “to head off what a growing number of financial experts predict will be a severe economic downturn as early as next year.”
The predicted downturn has not yet taken place, and many economists including the National Retail Federation’s chief economist Jack Kleinheinz now think a recession will be likely averted in 2023 as inflation continues to moderate.
Hy-Vee is not letting concerns about an economic downturn interfere with its plan to expand into new markets. The grocer in 2021 said it planned to open at least 21 new stores in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Indiana by 2025. The first of the new stores are expected to open this year. Hy-Vee is also opening a distribution center in Nashville to support its growth plans.
- Hy-Vee suspends employee discountings citing ‘significant’ discrepancies, plans to revamp program – Omaha World-Herald
- Hy-Vee to change employee discount program – KAAL-TV
- Is Hy-Vee’s highly public corporate restructuring prescient or something else? – RetailWire
- 2023 could be the year of the recession that never happened – RetailWire
- Hy-Vee plans to go national – RetailWire
- Hy-Vee is coming to Spring Hill: Will be grocery chain's first store in Tennessee – The Tennessean
- New grocery coming to town: Hy-Vee announces where its first Louisville location will be – Louisville Courier Journal