Safety Training That Works

By |November 8th, 2017|

An Interview with Paul Feiner As a Loss Prevention Certified (LPC) professional, Paul Feiner works full time as Store Support Manager at Sacramento Natural Foods in Sacramento, CA.  On the side, he and his brother [...]

Pro Formas and the New Competitive Challenges

By |October 26th, 2017|

In the grocery world, we live in challenging times. Costco and Wal-Mart carry organic products. Supermarket chains tout local produce and have a house brand of organics. Home delivery has everyone buzzing; even Amazon is getting into the action. Pro forma financial statements are forward-looking projections of how your co-op will perform given a specific set of assumptions. They are useful in many ways, especially for new stores and expansions where your co-op is headed into uncharted waters.

Responding to Workplace Conflicts

By |September 28th, 2017|

Whenever people work together, conflicts will naturally arise. Here’s a framework to help leaders resolve conflicts. This article will describe three categories of conflicts and a process that can be used to resolve each. _______________________________________________________________ [...]

Cooperative Service Training Helps Staff Promote the Co-op

By |September 13th, 2017|

Friendly City Food Co-op Harrisonburg, VA Year founded:  2011 Membership investment:  $200 Number of members:  1,800 Number of employees:  34 Retail square feet:  5,600 When Friendly City Food Co-op in Harrisonburg, Va. opened as a [...]

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

By |September 1st, 2017|

The concept of emotional intelligence is now part of popular culture. Just as we each have an IQ or Intelligence Quotient that measures cognitive ability, some social scientists say we have an EQ or Emotional [...]

The Cooperative Advantage

By |August 24th, 2017|

Sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious. Just because we have co-op in our name does not mean that people will really understand what that means. The formal definition of a cooperative is an autonomous association [...]