November 21, 2006
CSD: A Culture of Caring
By Kate Quackenbush
Through special arrangement, we present these opportunities to discuss the subjects of Convenience Store Decisions magazine’s monthly stories.
Ask any retailer in the industry what sets them apart – what’s their most valuable asset – and almost everyone will say “our people.” But for Valero Energy Corp., it’s more than
just lip service.
Led by Chairman Bill Greehey, Valero has created a corporate culture that makes employees feel like they’re doing more than a job. It’s crafted an atmosphere where every employee
feels like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
Valero maintains a no-layoff policy, a dress code for managers and a no-tolerance drug policy. Executives have been fired for being condescending or using profanity when addressing
subordinates, and anyone who willfully violates a safety rule is immediately thrown out.
Paying the Bills and Then Some
Valero believes in rewarding its employees and recognizing the work they do as evidenced when it began its company-wide bonus program.
If bonuses aren’t enough, Valero also offers stock options for exempt employees. Mr. Greehey feels it’s a great morale booster that makes employees feel more like a part of the
company. It’s an even better morale booster when the stock is doing well. The company has affectionately coined the term “Valero-naires,” which are employees who have made $1
million or more with their Valero stock.
Culture, Not Policy
Like any refinery in a hurricane zone, Valero’s St. Charles facility has a disaster plan. The scope of that plan and the way it was carried out when storms hit offers insights
into the Valero way.
“Our employees came first in our minds. Not only for Katrina, but the same for Port Arthur when Rita hit,” said Mr. Greehey.
After the storm passed, Valero began dispatching supplies to employees whose homes were destroyed. Trucks from the company’s retail distribution center arrived carrying food,
water, chain saws, shovels, Nextel phones (the only cell system that worked) and small generators. The company set up air conditioned tents at the refinery with cooks flown in
to make three meals a day for anyone who needed to eat.
Mr. Greehey was at the refinery just eight days after the hurricane hit. The company airlifted barbecues in while the floodwaters were still in place. It also flew in portable
showers, which got the loudest hoots and hollers from grateful employees. Valero also went to a nearby Wal-Mart and bought it out of basic supplies—shoes, pants, soap – and
offered the load up to the refinery so its people could take whatever they needed.
“The president of the union at the Port Arthur refinery said he had never experienced anything like the Valero sharing spirit and what we did for them as a company,” said Mr.
Greehey.
Because crisis and tragedy can hit at anytime the company created the Safe Fund, a grant to give workers up to $10,000 based upon need.
Through Hurricane Katrina, the company helped 102 employees with $545,000 from the Safe Fund. For Hurricane Rita, $714,000 was spent, helping 228 employees, for a total of $1.26
million.
“We empower our people. They appreciate the trust and freedom, and we appreciate their initiative,” said Mr. Greehey. “I think this hurricane, while tragic and difficult, was
our finest hour.”
Discussion Questions: Is the type of commitment Valero makes to its employees’ wellbeing practical or even desirable for other retail companies? Is there
something unique about their situation or can everyone learn by their example?
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Poll
I have worked at the management level in different types of retail for most of my life; larger box retail, larger grocery chain and now for a broker that calls on grocery chains, and I will say that the broker world talks the talk and walks the walk, which can not be said for the other retail areas I have worked. Salaries in all 3 types of the above retail world are not high, so I look for how they deal with me on a personal as well as a business level and I am very happy where I am. You have to feel that they care about you and your family. You have a tendency to do your best work for a company who shows they care about you than you would for a company that treats you like you are a body that can be replaced. There are some Grocery chains out there that do care, and you will see that they are usually listed as the most profitable as well as the most enjoyable to work for when employees are surveyed. I will say the same for the broker world. If employees are surveyed, you will find the top brokers are the ones who’s people are the happiest working for them. You don’t have to give away the bank, but you do need to show them that you care about them on every level.
The first question posed to us is: “Is the type of commitment Valero makes to its employees’ wellbeing practical or even desirable for other retail companies?”
If we evaluate ‘what is good and right’ by the criterion of “practical” we’ve already lost the battle and have gone to the dark side. Does ‘practical’ mean ‘easy to do’? Does it mean that you evaluate it like an ROI – so we do only what will pay us back? Practical has little to do with true good-ness (or God-ness.)
“Practical” comes to us from Old French and originally meant “fit for action.” It sounds like Valero is ‘fit for action’ financially, culturally and, more importantly, spiritually.
The second criteria was ‘desirable.’ “Desire,” also from Old French ‘de sidere, meant “awaiting what the stars will bring.” When we learn to see tough situations like Katrina as something brought to us as the chance to reveal our true soul and nature, doing what Valero (and many others) did becomes an act of divine proportions.
Having lauded Valero, I also agree with Al about firing anyone who behaves less than perfectly. If we take the comment at face value (and I hope it’s not quite that cut and dried) – none of us would have a job. When someone violates the corporate culture that too is a chance for-giving. Every once in a while our mental/spritiual dikes break and we need to help each other build them up again. Comedian Michael Richards probably understands this better than all of us.
Especially at this Thanksgiving time it would be good to remember that the real gift comes to those who give.
This sounds like a terrific company that is very supportive of its employees and that’s a great thing. But firing people for using profanity or “being condescending” and having a “zero-tolerance” policy on drugs may be going a bit too far. Better to have strong employee counseling programs than to toss people overboard when they do something the company doesn’t approve of. The three offenses mentioned are correctable, in most cases. If we fired everyone who ever did any of those things, we’d have a pretty thin workforce.
It is the Holiday Season, so being kind and respectful is the spirit!
Most interestingly, if this supermarket category is defined by and includes Publix, Ukrop’s, Harp’s, Heinen’s, Gelson’s, Molly Stone, West Point, Kramer’s, Sunset Shops, Nuggets and a number of family and small chains and independent groups – Wonderful!!!!!
But, these are the exceptions! For our gigantic industry has done little to promote respect and culture from the top / down to the store level or procurement and merchandising groups.
As long as the perceived enemy of our industry remains labor cost (and there are ways to counter this so called
industry villain without going non union) AND there are no meaningful points-of-difference in the consumers’ minds, the quality labor pool will go elsewhere!
How many supermarket chains led by their CEO or President have a culture that promotes respect towards, and spends money to better, its employees’ education level and needed skill sets? Look what the retail executives, and some competing with each, have done in Great Britain! (Recent RW subject.)
Valero has 22,000 employees and sells its petroleum products at over 6,000 locations. Refining and retailing are vastly different industries. Valero does both, so it’s really in 2 completely different businesses. Refineries are usually staffed by relatively high-paid, unionized, low turnover skilled people. Gas stations and convenience store employees are rarely unionized, low-paid, with high turnover. If Valero published the employee turnover figures in the Convenience Store Decisions article, and separated the refinery group from the retail store group, everyone might see for themselves if Valero’s publicity rings true.
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I have worked at the management level in different types of retail for most of my life; larger box retail, larger grocery chain and now for a broker that calls on grocery chains, and I will say that the broker world talks the talk and walks the walk, which can not be said for the other retail areas I have worked. Salaries in all 3 types of the above retail world are not high, so I look for how they deal with me on a personal as well as a business level and I am very happy where I am. You have to feel that they care about you and your family. You have a tendency to do your best work for a company who shows they care about you than you would for a company that treats you like you are a body that can be replaced. There are some Grocery chains out there that do care, and you will see that they are usually listed as the most profitable as well as the most enjoyable to work for when employees are surveyed. I will say the same for the broker world. If employees are surveyed, you will find the top brokers are the ones who’s people are the happiest working for them. You don’t have to give away the bank, but you do need to show them that you care about them on every level.
The first question posed to us is: “Is the type of commitment Valero makes to its employees’ wellbeing practical or even desirable for other retail companies?”
If we evaluate ‘what is good and right’ by the criterion of “practical” we’ve already lost the battle and have gone to the dark side. Does ‘practical’ mean ‘easy to do’? Does it mean that you evaluate it like an ROI – so we do only what will pay us back? Practical has little to do with true good-ness (or God-ness.)
“Practical” comes to us from Old French and originally meant “fit for action.” It sounds like Valero is ‘fit for action’ financially, culturally and, more importantly, spiritually.
The second criteria was ‘desirable.’ “Desire,” also from Old French ‘de sidere, meant “awaiting what the stars will bring.” When we learn to see tough situations like Katrina as something brought to us as the chance to reveal our true soul and nature, doing what Valero (and many others) did becomes an act of divine proportions.
Having lauded Valero, I also agree with Al about firing anyone who behaves less than perfectly. If we take the comment at face value (and I hope it’s not quite that cut and dried) – none of us would have a job. When someone violates the corporate culture that too is a chance for-giving. Every once in a while our mental/spritiual dikes break and we need to help each other build them up again. Comedian Michael Richards probably understands this better than all of us.
Especially at this Thanksgiving time it would be good to remember that the real gift comes to those who give.
This sounds like a terrific company that is very supportive of its employees and that’s a great thing. But firing people for using profanity or “being condescending” and having a “zero-tolerance” policy on drugs may be going a bit too far. Better to have strong employee counseling programs than to toss people overboard when they do something the company doesn’t approve of. The three offenses mentioned are correctable, in most cases. If we fired everyone who ever did any of those things, we’d have a pretty thin workforce.
It is the Holiday Season, so being kind and respectful is the spirit!
Most interestingly, if this supermarket category is defined by and includes Publix, Ukrop’s, Harp’s, Heinen’s, Gelson’s, Molly Stone, West Point, Kramer’s, Sunset Shops, Nuggets and a number of family and small chains and independent groups – Wonderful!!!!!
But, these are the exceptions! For our gigantic industry has done little to promote respect and culture from the top / down to the store level or procurement and merchandising groups.
As long as the perceived enemy of our industry remains labor cost (and there are ways to counter this so called
industry villain without going non union) AND there are no meaningful points-of-difference in the consumers’ minds, the quality labor pool will go elsewhere!
How many supermarket chains led by their CEO or President have a culture that promotes respect towards, and spends money to better, its employees’ education level and needed skill sets? Look what the retail executives, and some competing with each, have done in Great Britain! (Recent RW subject.)
Valero has 22,000 employees and sells its petroleum products at over 6,000 locations. Refining and retailing are vastly different industries. Valero does both, so it’s really in 2 completely different businesses. Refineries are usually staffed by relatively high-paid, unionized, low turnover skilled people. Gas stations and convenience store employees are rarely unionized, low-paid, with high turnover. If Valero published the employee turnover figures in the Convenience Store Decisions article, and separated the refinery group from the retail store group, everyone might see for themselves if Valero’s publicity rings true.