Perks of Working for H-E-B

There are always perks when working for a certain company but H-E-B makes sure they take care of their partners no matter what. There are endless benefits that comes with working for the company but I’ll explain a few good ones. Everyone who works for the company after three months receives a partner perk card. This is the card you swipe before paying for your items and it gives you 20% off of every H-E-B item you purchased plus your coupons if you have any. This card really comes in handy because it saves you a lot of money.

At H-E-B we believe that a company of Owners will outperform a company of employees any day of the week. The Partner Stock Plan allows Partners to share in the performance of H-E-B stock. You can invest in certain H-E-B stocks and watch them grow. Because we care about the future of our Partners, our 401k plan offers a $1.60 match for each dollar contributed up to 2.5% of your salary. There is also a partner health plan that covers yourself, and also your loved ones. There are also vacation and time off benefits, which comes in handy when you earn paid time off.

It’s also hard finding a company that truly cares for you and your well being. A lot of companies just want you to be present and make them some money, but H-E-B is totally different. The company makes sure you’re good on a daily basis and it truly makes you feel like you have another big family. The health care plan makes you feel like your are solidified because H-E-B is showing you that they are also invested in you and not the other way around. We love working for the community and serving a purpose while doing so.

Site Experience

Every thing comes to an end, this is just a quick summary regarding my thoughts and research of my site. One thing I would improve using this site is the use of importing videos included in the free trial. I think videos tell you a better story than photos and gives you real emotion. I could have better promoted my content by posting them on more social media platforms than just twitter. The more exposure then the bigger your audience and the better your results are. My best experience for this project had to be going inside of my store and getting real feedback from my peers regarding my site. I got a lot of good feedback which makes me want to pursue doing this on more than an assignment level. It has influenced me to do something more than a wordpress site and showing me something new I love doing. I really enjoy making websites and it feels better when you’re doing it about something you truly love doing with your life.

This experience has really shown me that I have the ability to do technical things and it’s also another thing I can put on my resume. This experience was a really fun one and I now know that I can do anything if I really just focus and apply myself. Making a website is truly a respectable thing depending on the quality of your site and I really think the tools I learned while doing this project will fit in and help me run my own store one day from a technological standpoint. These things aren’t easy to learn but once you learn them then it can only help you later on in life. This is more than just a project to me, this is a thing I love to do and want to continue learning how to improve.

My most popular week during this entire project was the week of April, 21st when I had a total of 7 visitors to my website. My most important post was my Introductory post which resulted in a total of 8 views and 4 likes. I think this post was most popular because people want to know why you’re doing what you are doing and also want to get to know you. I did a great job trying to connect with the audience in those regards. Out of all of the data, the most surprising thing to me was the amount of traffic I had throughout my site. I didn’t expect to have as much people visit my site and it really caught me off-guard. A few of my posts on twitter regarding this project got a lot of attention and one of my videos I posted on my profile regarding me showing off what I do inside of my store went viral and brought me a lot of exposure.

Keeping smiles on faces

We are here to serve a purpose and that purpose is ensuring you enjoy your experience within our store. It doesn’t matter if you are a partner or if your are a customer. We truly thrive off of knowing that we have made your experience with us a great one. We value hospitality and ensure that we are offering the best possible because there is no store like H-E-B. We will go to extreme measures to make sure you walk out of our store with a smile on your face and nothing but great things to say about our store.

No matter the time or place, we will make sure that we make you smile even if we have to put ourselves out there. Our partners and customers are the top two things that keeps our store going. We value making our partners working experience a good one because no one wants to work at a place they don’t enjoy being at. Even us managers keep an honest smile on our faces, even though we do a lot and things can get very stressful, we still love what we do. Smiles let us know that we are doing our job and it keeps us going day in and day out.

Being the amazing company we are, we do things for the community to ensure that we are proving that we are different. We do a lot of things for the kids because we understand that they can affect the parent(s) mood for the entire time inside of our store. If the kid is happy, then the parent(s) are happy. H-E-B really cares for the youth and a lot of the things we do revolves around that, not because we have to but because we enjoy doing so. There is never a dull moment in our store or any H-E-B and we live up to the hype, “No store does more than my H-E-B.”

The Fun Side

In every job that you love, there is always a fun side of it. Work isn’t meant to always be serious and boring. If you love where you work then it isn’t all so serious because sometimes the job throws events for their partners. That’s exactly how it is when working at HEB, we make sure our partners feel like a priority and not an option. We live up to all of the hype and nothing is fabricated because we truly are a family.

We throw events such as partner picnics which consists of food and fun. It is always good when your partners come into work with smiles on their faces and realizes work is really their escape from their personal lives. We offer the best hospitality possible to not only our customers but our partners too. Without a healthy work atmosphere, there would be no success in the workplace. We just like to have fun and smile while doing so, if that takes one of the leaders going to lengths of embarrassment then we are going to do just that.

The HEB experience is totally different than the typical grocery store. HEB isn’t just a “grocery store” it’s a store that allows customers to enjoy their grocery shopping experience. We offer the best service and we stand out from our competitors, there has never been a customer that hasn’t told me that HEB has the best hospitality out of all the stores they have been to. We do a lot of things to ensure that our establishment feels like a comfortable and safe environment.

How did HEB start?

Well it all started on November 26th, 1905 by Florence Butt in Kerville Texas. It all started as an imagination that would have never expected to come to fruition. H-E-B opened its first air conditioned store in the 1940’s and then its first supermarket in the 1950’s that only consisted of frozen foods. Florence just wanted to help the community and his family so he opened H-E-B. The company grew rapidly and continued to open many stores all across San Antonio, Texas.

H‑E‑B introduces a new H‑E‑B Brand in the 1990’s, under their concept of “Own Brands.” Today more than 11,800 H‑E‑B Own Brand products have been launched, ranging from eggs and yogurt to personal and sun care items. And in 1994 H‑E‑B opens the first Central Market in Austin, featuring a European bakery, deli with meats and cheeses from around the globe, and juice and ice cream bar. This opening of a store in Austin has allowed me and other people to have jobs in the city. This move was significant because it brought major revenue to the city of Austin. In 2000 H-E-B introduced it’s major icon which was “Buddy” their mascot.

These are major dates for the company because it signified their most important moves and helped them be the powerhouse they are today. H-E-B is continuously growing and expanding but one thing it’ll always remain labeled as is “privately owned” so it can continue to have it’s own rights and do its own thing. Other stores like Walmart and target are publicly controlled and has limitations. The history of H-E-B is important because it didn’t just benefit itself, it benefited the state of Texas and the city within. Today H-E-B ranks 4th among all grocery stores in America and its continuously finding ways to beat out its competition.

Blog Review

This blog is very unique because just by reading it, you are properly educated on the roots of H-E-B. It tells you who founded the company and how the slogan came about. a lot of people don’t know how the company has grown to be the powerhouse it is today and this blog touches on that also. It explains not only who founded it, but how it was founded and the steps it took to start the company. The title of the blog is very creative also because it goes hand and hand with the slogan. overall I like the organization of the blog too, its easy to read and you don’t get confused trying to read it.

The blog goes above and beyond by even explaining the good deeds H-E-B does for the community which is donating money to schools and scholarly programs. One thing about H-E-B is that it is a huge supporter of education. It even touches on one of the primary attention getters of the company which is their mascot “Buddy.” Buddy makes all of the kids happy and he really serves a purpose for H-E-B. One thing a lot of people don’t know about H-E-B that the blog touched up on is that the company is privately owned. Being privately owned means that it is regulated by their own label and no outside authority can regulate it.

One important thing that H-E-B started was recycling. The blog explains the process of H-E-B focusing on saving energy and reusing its’ resources. H-E-B even does reusable bags which has become a huge success in caring for it’s environment which resulted in less bag pollution. Overall I love the detail of this blog and even the pictures that are utilized to bring meaning and life to the blog. It caught my attention as soon as I read the title of the blog, which was super creative and catchy. The blog can be viewed below.

Store Details

My front end team.

My store is located off of 600 W. William Cannon Drive in Austin Texas. It’s a small store but it stays busy. Just because it’s a small store, doesn’t mean it’s an easy task. Working here is a tough task because I basically have to do everything. Everything goes through me when the Store Director and the Assistant Store Director isn’t present. Being the Manager In Charge (MIC) you have to deal with multiple incidents, keeping up with store conditions and making sure each and every partner in the store is doing their job. Smaller stores are harder to deal with rather than bigger stores because with a bigger store, comes with a bigger team. The smaller the team, then the harder you have to work and that’s the case with my store.

Normally bigger stores have 15+ individuals in their team for the front end but as you can see in the image above, mine only has 6. You have to be dedicated working this type of job because there is so much to do and it is easy to lose track of what you are suppose to be doing. First and foremost, you have to be articulate and quick on your feet. Knowing your partners is another important factor, we utilize the strongest and fastest partners on the express lanes (15 items or less) because those are the busiest lanes throughout the day. Knowing where you are going to utilize which partner really makes your job a lot easier, that’s why you have to know their strengths and weaknesses.

If you don’t know how to utilize everyone around you, then it’ll show and the customers will become unhappy and they will call you out on it. It’s crazy to believe, but my team and I always take care of business. No matter the circumstance, we find a way. If that means having to jump on the cash register ourselves then we will do just that whether it’s to help our cashiers or to knock out a rush (times when it gets very busy.) The cool thing about all of the leaders in my store, is no matter what we are doing, we always help each other when asked. We are here to serve a purpose and our purpose is the customers.

Life inside my store

This is my coworker (Cynthia) gifting a young man his prize for hitting an insntant winner on the buddy machine. This made his day, including his mother! This is what working at H-E-B is all about.

Working at H-E-B means being all about your business but also having fun while doing so. You never want to have employees that work with/for you but there’s no fun involved. Coming to work can always be a drag, but that isn’t the case with my store. We have multiple partner events, raffles, and contests to keep the fun going. Being a manager, the mood of the day is set by you, you deal with so many people and incidents daily that you may start losing track of your own life, everyone can’t run a store but if you put your mind to it then it’s possible to achieve.

Keeping everyone around you happy can make your job ten times easier. The key to having great customer service is to always make the customer feel welcomed and appreciated. Another key is if the customers recognizes that everyone is having fun while doing their job, when the customers sees that, then it puts a smile on their face and is a great conversation keeper. One of our slogans for H-E-B is “purpose over task.” This means that no matter what job we are doing, we have to remember our purpose which is providing the best customer service possible. If that means going out of our way to make the customer happy, then that is exactly what we are going to do. H-E-B is more like a family rather than a business.

When the customers see all of us smiling, then they know it’s a safe place so shop. The cashiers are really the life of the store, the reason being is because they are the first and last individuals of the store that the customers see. It can get hard to keep the fun fresh, but if you have a good team behind you, then nothing is impossible. Keeping smiles on faces is my teams’ number one priority day in and day out. My H-E-B always has one of the top store scores out of all the Austin Central stores, because we take care of our customers every single day.

HEB Opportunities

You can go many directions when working for HEB, the company has so many growing opportunities whether you’re choosing to be a department manager/lead, a total store leader, a front end manager, a talent director, a unit director, corporate HEB, etc. I initially got hired with the company just to have a job during school, but the company saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. My first two months with the company I got promoted to a Front end manager, the following two months I got promoted again to a Total Store Manager. After those two promotions I am now looking to further my growth with the company. There are programs called SORM and SORL, SORM stands for (School Of Retail Management) and SORL stands for (School Of Retail Leadership.) The difference between the two is that with SORM you’re going in to be a salary department manager or Store Leader and with SORL you’re going in to be an Assistant Store Director. Going through both of those processes aren’t easy because they don’t choose just anyone, they choose the best of the best so everyone who applied doesn’t make it in the first time.

The cool thing about going the salary route is that no matter if you’re a manager or not, anyone can apply for SORM/SORL but few get in. Once you work your way up, it requires a lot of your time and focus just like any serious job. It requires you to be able to have the ability to be very articulate, being in this position requires you to have people skills. If a person doesn’t poses people skills, then you’ll either learn it along the way or won’t learn it at all. The customers of HEB are the main part of the company, so in order to have a successful store, you must have great customer service within. Just sit back and think about your Walmart experience vs. your HEB experience and tell me which company offered you the best customer service.

These are my other two front end Coworkers Ben (the middle) and Jonathan (on the right hand side) and myself (left hand side) all getting nominated and winning in store awards with the company. All of the managers were up for nominations for different awards and only a few got them, hard work really does pay off and not only are the customers watching, but the employees are too. This is just another example that there is endless growth working for this company. There are pay raises twice a year, the money is very good but it’s better when you work your way up. Management positions aren’t for everyone, in store jobs aren’t for everyone but it’s truly an amazing job to have. HEB takes care of it’s employees by offering many benefits and having a great 401k program.

Introduction

My name is KyJe’ Gascey, I am a senior at Texas State and I major in Mass Communications with a minor in Digital Media. I am basing my research off of H-E-B’s job opportunities. Many people think HEB is just a job that can get you through the summer, be your first job, or just be a temporary job until you find a “real one.” I know first hand what HEB has to offer because I am an employee for the company. I’m not only an employee but I am a total store manager. That means running an entire store but to be specific I am an CCS (Central Checkout Specialist) which is a manager who runs the front end and I am also an MIC (Manager In Charge) which is over the total store, every department within the store and anything store related. My goal is to show the abundant opportunities HEB has to offer with in store positions, Corporate America positions, and to shed some light on some of the positions themselves.