Sheetz and Foxtrot – workforce for the future
Joe Sheetz, Executive Vice Chairman of Sheetz and Liz Williams, President of Foxtrot join the conversation in this episode of Shop Talk LIVE.
Foxtrot was founded 10 years ago in Chicago and describe themselves as ‘a modern convenience store, an experience that’s on a mission to redefine the category. They are doing this by developing beautiful spaces and then combine these with an online, e-commerce omni-channel business that delivers rapid delivery in under 60 minutes.
Foxtrot’s impressive proposition features a wide variety of prepared foods, up and coming as well as established brands, everything from salads to fruits, breakfast tacos, chicken piccata for dinner tonight and an exceptional coffee offer. In the evening you can either sit down and take a glass of wine or have a bottle of wine to go. Foxtrot has more than 25 locations in Chicago, Texas, and the Washington, D.C. region.
Sheetz
World famous Sheetz was originally a dairy which began life as one store in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1952. Now the business has 675 sites and 24,000 employees in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Viginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and soon Michigan too. The business is most known for proprietary foodservice and for being, in 7 of the last 8 years, top 100 best places to work in the US with a very big focus on employees and culture.
Although still family owned, employee ownership now accounts for approximately 10% of the company’s value. The other thing Sheetz does is quite a bit off vertical integration. It owns and operates distribution centres, bakeries and commissaries from where it makes deliveries to all stores and also delivers fuel through its own fuel trucking company.
The Vision Group
Convenience Leaders Vision Group
Convenience Leaders Vision Group (CLVG) is part of Vision Group Network(VGN), a knowledge sharing network for retailers which also includes The Vision Group (TVG), and Convenience Technology Vision Group (CTVG).
As our industry and particularly exemplars like Sheetz and Foxtrot lean into foodservice, workforce is one of the biggest issues and recently came up for discussion in a recent Convenience Leaders Vision Group meeting. Roy and Eva Strasburger and Myra Kressner have assembled some of the best minds in our industry and recently published and important report on this topic which we highly recommend. (tvgsolutions.com/vision-reports/). Two of the CLVG members who participated in that discussion join Shop Talk LIVE today – Joe Sheetz, Executive Vice Chairman of Sheetz and Liz Williams, President of Foxtrot.
As our industry and particularly exemplars like Sheetz and Foxtrot lean into foodservice, workforce is one of the biggest issues and recently came up for discussion in Roy Strasburger’s Convenience Leaders Vision Group meeting. Roy, Eva Strasburger and Myra Kressner have assembled some of the best minds in our industry and recently published and important report on this topic which we highly recommend. (tvgsolutions.com/vision-reports/). Two of the convenience leaders who participated in that discussion join Shop Talk LIVE today – Joe Sheetz, Executive Vice Chairman of Sheetz and Liz Williams, President of Foxtrot.
In a wide ranging discussion on this subject, our host Carolyn Schnare and guest host Roy Strasburger talk through the key workforce issues for our industry touching upon the best strategies for hiring, long term employee retention, as well as simplifying processes, to support and empower Assistant and Store Managers who play an absolutely crucial role in the company.
As Liz says: “Show me a good store and behind that you’ll find a great General Manager – how do we empower them, simplify their jobs?. They own so much of the P&L and bring the Foxtrot culture to life.”
And as Joe says: “It’s very rare that we hire someone in from outside the business as a Store Manager. We have a small management team at each location, so there is always a Manager on duty at all times. This gives Sheetz the internal training ground for the next Assistant Manager, the next Store Manager and frankly the next District Manager who runs a group of sites.”
Retail Insight
Shop Talk LIVE is brought to you free thanks to our sponsors.
We’d like to thank our newest sponsor Retail Insight for supporting this episode. Retail Insight works with 3 of the top 10 grocers in the US as well as many other leading convenience retailers around the world.
Global Convenience Store Focus recently spoke to Retail Insight CEO Paul Boyle. With over 10% of the World’s grocery sales data running through Retail Insight’s systems every day, Boyle has an expert read on the market. Read more about what Retail Insight do here.
