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July 21, 2004

Whole Foods Market

“The company had a written “Declaration of Interdependence” (1,571 words, 249 more than the Declaration of Independence). It had a set of written core values ("satisfying and delighting our customers,” “team-member happiness and excellence"). And most striking of all, even for a small company, it had a set of quirky management rules that made Whole Foods an odd but effective workplace.

Each store had a book in the office that listed the pay of every employee for the previous year. The book was available to anyone – and was especially valuable if you were promoted or if you relocated, and wanted to see how your pay compared with your colleagues’. The pay book, surprisingly little used, set a tone of what Mackey called “no secrets management.”

Every store was divided into about eight functional teams: You were hired to the seafood team, or the prepared-foods team, or the cashier/front-end team. But you didn’t just get hired. You got hired provisionally. After four weeks of work, the team you had joined voted whether to keep you; you needed a two-thirds yes vote to join the staff permanently.”

Good tips to grow a company; publish all salaries, get employees to vote for new hirings, give small teams responsibility for choosing stock and limit senior salaries to a fixed multiple of frontline staff salaries (first x9 then x14). A very good read: The Anarchist’s Cookbook

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Posted 2:03 pm by Wrighty —

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