Connecting the Dots: Strategic Board Leadership in Action
By Thane Joyal 185 July-Aug 2016 The future is unknowable. Or is it? Courageous leadership relies in large measure on wise choices. In his entertaining novels, Robert Parker often references the military strategist Clausewitz for [...]
Do You Know What Your Employees are Thinking?
No matter how closely you work with your staff, there are some things they may not tell you. There’s a power balance, even though we don’t like to admit it. Your staff may not [...]
POP Report: Hiring For Diversity and Creating an Inclusive Staff Culture
Key Insights The major takeaways from interviews with three co-ops on their initiatives to improve diversity in hiring and increase cultural awareness on their staff teams are make staff diversity and cultural awareness a priority [...]
So Our Co-ops are Mostly White, Now What?
In the more than 30 years I’ve been involved with co-ops—student housing co-ops, food co-ops, even a worker-owned collective—almost all of the participants have been white. The same has been true for most of the [...]
POP Report: Register Round Up
Key Insights Round up is an extremely successful, simple way of collecting donations for partner organizations. Making the ask mandatory is the best way to ensure cashier compliance and consistency. Incentivizing cashiers and making goal [...]
Employee surveys drive workplace improvements
As the competitive environment continues to heat up around us, there is increased competition for employees as well as food dollars. By creating a continuously improving workplace environment where all voices are heard and [...]
Committee Charters Field Guide
All board committees should have a charter – a description of the committee’s purpose and authority. One person, generally the board secretary, should have primary responsibility for drafting charters as directed by the board. This [...]
East Aurora: Early, Impactful Investment Led to Opening Co-op
East Aurora Co-op Market East Aurora, NY Founded: 2010 Opened: June 2016 Number of members: 1,280 Number of employees: 25 Member investment: $200 Retail square feet: 4,445 East Aurora Food Co-op in upstate New York [...]
The Slack App: Weaver Street Market’s Internal Communication Transformation Story
The roll out right before Thanksgiving turned out better than expected. Having a single centralized spot where everyone could see what was happening in real time was an incredible improvement to the status quo experience [...]
Are You Ready to Compete? A crowded marketplace is the new reality
By Mel Braverman, Nicole Klimek, Jeanie Wells 184 May-June 2016 In the back of our minds we knew that [insert name of competitor here] was coming. It was only a matter of time before grocery [...]