Whole Foods Market With Retail

Whole Foods Market

With retail stores positioned within 184 locations (WFM, 2005) around the U.S., Canada and Great Britain, Whole Foods Market is touted to be one of the most watched food retailers in the industry today. The company was formed in the year 1980 by its founders John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of Safer Way Natural Foods, and Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, owners of Clarksville Natural Grocery. Pioneering in the modern concept of distributing and selling organic, nutritious and health foods parallel and emulating the supermarket format of Wal-Mart, Whole Foods Market have gone a long way since its first store opening with only staffed with 19 employees. The company is now in the midst of expanding its market abroad opening store outlets in United Kingdom and countries in Northern Americas. In last years edition of Fortune 500's top companies, Whole Foods Market placed 479 in its first entry bid to the prestigious list.(Wikipedia, 2006)

Figures states that sales of organic products had gone up twenty per cent a year during the past decade, reaching $15 billion in 2004. The share price of the Whole Foods Market, Inc. now stands at $62.49. Adjusting for stock splits and dividends, one share would have cost you $2.92 when the company opened on Nasdaq, in January of 1992, so it has done extremely well. Last year, its total revenue was more than $5 billion and its gross profit was more than $1.6 billion (Stephen Shapin, 2006)

But just like any other rapidly emerging company in contemporary times, Whole Foods Market are not without any flaws and blemish that backdrop its more than 25 years of existence. More over, such obstacles have repeatedly maligned the integrity of this mounting business such that it is directly affecting the organizational structure, concept and policies of Whole Foods Market.

This paper will concisely try to communicate and unfold underlying issues with regards to the overall motivation, decision making procedures, organizational culture and policies and the type of management that Whole Foods Market is imploring to its customers, employees and shareholders.

WFM Organization -Policies and Management

Perhaps one of the clearer and constructive reviews given to Whole Foods Market amidst the entire negative image being pitched to WFM by activist and union sympathizers is the article posted in the National Catholic Reporter, penned by Colman McCarthy. In the article, A CEO Who Cares portrays and gives credit to the fine and respectable management and policies of WFM's CEO and founder, John Mackey. Much praise and recognition is being given to Mr. Mackey as the company's prime mover and plays an important role in the success of Whole Foods Market. He is being viewed as an exceptional leader of the new age stressing that he breaks ranks with conventional capitalism and self-absorbed money hustlers like legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch by placing profits in a moral context. (Colman McCarthy, 2005) More over, his policies are centered more unto the social responsibility of the business towards the welfare and satisfaction of the company's customers, employees, stakeholders and investors. In a reason debate with Milton Friedman, Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business, John Mackey contradicts Friedman's notion "The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits" stating that "taking care of customers, employees, and business philanthropy are means to the end of increasing investor profits, I take the exact opposite view: Making high profits is the means to the end of fulfilling Whole Foods' core business mission. We want to improve the health and well-being of everyone on the planet through higher-quality foods and better nutrition, and we can't fulfill this mission unless we are highly profitable. High profits are necessary to fuel our growth across the United States and the world. Just as people cannot live without eating, so a business cannot live without profits. But most people don't live to eat, and neither must businesses live just to make profits"(John Mackey, Reason Foundation,2005) This kind of reasoning and moral justification have upheld John Mackey's firm decision and position with the nature of responsibility and obligation Whole Foods Market implores to its constituents.

However, such type of policies has not been marked out of notice. Contradictory to the reviews given by The National Catholic Reporter, several articles have pondered through the type of situation WFM's employees are experiencing. Many former employees and social activists claims that While Whole Foods makes millions selling organic and natural foods, employees complain that they are overworked and underpaid (Eric Bates,1998) "It's an old wage for the New Age" (Austin Chronicle, 1991) a conflicting statement from the adhered policies of the company.

Whole Foods Market was ranked by Fortune Magazine as one of "The 100 Top Companies to Work for in America." But with the impeding allegations that are being hurled to WFM's management amongst other such as unpaid employee's insurance coverage, the assessment and evaluation of Fortune Magazine is seemingly unjustifiable.

The organizational culture of Whole Foods Market is directly distinctive among other companies in the same industry. WFM detest Union formation within the company's employee ranks. In a statement made by CEO, John Mackey in his 19-page discourse refers to unions as "parasites feeding on union dues" further comparing it to having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover." (John Mackey, 1988) This company position has earned a lot of criticism from labor unions and other followers of the labor creed. The wages and benefits at Whole Foods contrast sharply with those provided to grocery workers who belong to a union (Eric Bates, 1998). However, WFM's management claims that such stand have not affected the present situation and mind-set of current employees and staff.

According to some observers, WFM's management approach evokes a paternalist nature wherein such revulsion with labor unions has overturned the issue of who would have the last say and the overall decision maker. "Unions are not part of the solution at Whole Foods Market," he wrote. "Rather, they are part of the problem, stuck in the old paradigm that all employees are weak and powerless (childlike?), and that all employers are greedy and exploitative, interested only in profits and self-aggrandizement." Competition for labor, not unions and their "Marxist socialist rhetoric," raises wages and working standards, he argued (Forbes, 1998). The choice is not 'Work for WFM on our terms or starve,' but rather 'Work for us on the terms we offer, or work for...other employers on the terms they offer.' John Mackey adds (The Coastal Post, 1997). This condition depicts a tone of a father towards his children, a paternal adherence of which WFM wants to impose on its employees.