A Super Session Tuesday at the NRF convention touted the merits of building a retail business around "conscious capitalism," or one providing value — whether emotional, social or financial — to all stakeholders in a business.
The most obvious stakeholders are local communities and consumers, who often become the loyal purchasers and word-of-mouth generators for a brand if their connection transcends the immediate store experience.
Kip Tindell, CEO of The Container Store, said customers "are more and more demanding with their pocketbooks and love when they can really agree with what a company stands for."
The second group includes business partners, from suppliers to landlords and bankers. But vendors, the biggest day-to-day partner in the group, often favor value-driven retailers. Said Mr. Tindell, "Your vendors want to see that company win. Somebody gets the best price in the country; somebody gets the last pallet of the hot item of that holiday season. It's usually us."
Perhaps the most important stakeholder is the store's employees.
"The challenge is to get spectacular performance out of relatively low-pay store-level people," said Jonathan Sokoloff, managing partner at Leonard Green, a private equity firm that has invested in Whole Foods, Container Store and other socially conscious companies.
Mr. Tindell said employees are the cornerstone of Container Stores' goal of having customers sense an "air of excitement" every time they enter one of the stores. Beyond regularly recognizing and rewarding employees, Container Stores in 2010 began recognizing Valentine's Day as "We Love Our Employees Day."
Said Mr. Tindell, "People want to go to work and work with great people and accomplish fabulous things and go home at night feeling wonderful at what they accomplished."
Walter Robb, Whole Foods' co-CEO, said the retailer's workforce can appear "a little chaotic" at times. But that's because staff members are allowed to express their individuality and creativity to hopefully better relate to customers' needs. An associate at one store, for example, created brail tags in the produce, dairy and grocery section to enable a blind six-year-old son of a loyal patron to experience the Whole Foods shopping experience.
Said Mr. Robb, "That's just one example of when you create the space for people to bring their full engagement, their full involvement, their full being to their work, what can happen. The company can move much faster, innovate, change and grow, and deliver great experiences when you help to create the room for them to do that."
A final key stakeholder, actual shareholders, appear overwhelmingly happy as the session detailed stats showing how value-conscious firms have easily beaten the long-term returns on the broader market. Said Tindell, "I think the reason it works is the universe conspires to assist you."