Ultimate Innovation Competition!

“Get In The Game”

A Proposal Aimed to Improve Employee Morale at Price Chopper

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Overview:

Price Chopper Supermarkets, a leader in the Northeast for supermarket retailing, has invested
significant amounts of human and emotional resources into bettering their consumer satisfaction.
The following program elements are designed to capitalize on this investment, maintaining and
building on the momentum and pride that has been established within the corporation. These
elements are designed to establish a new sub-marketing campaign that reflects the strengths and
conveys overall message of Price Chopper Supermarkets.

Target Audiences:
• Employees and potential employees of Price Chopper
• Price Chopper customers
• Potential Price Chopper customers
• Surrounding community

Business Objectives:
• Engage staff in a new employee performance competition.
• To improve the practices and consumer satisfaction by increasing employee satisfaction
and morale at Price Chopper.
• Promote and improve the quality of the staff and the involvement in the community to
build community awareness of Price Chopper.

According to ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index), customer satisfaction is measured

in five areas: customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer complaints,
and customer retention. We believe the best way to address these five areas would be to utilize an
inside out approach to improve the overall customer satisfaction at Price Chopper Supermarkets.
With this we believe that customer satisfaction begins with the employees; happier employees
are more likely to perform better in the workplace which is going to better the customer
experience and increase higher levels of affective commitment for both consumers and
employees.

Boosting Employee Morale: In order to increase affective commitment to Price Chopper,

increase efficiency, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction, Price Chopper must first
ensure their employees are happy and performing to the best of their ability. This innovative
effort will engage employees in a friendly competition to increase job performance, leading to
superior customer service and satisfaction. The program will be based on a points system,
encouraging friendly competition, thus increasing efficiency, ultimately leading to excellent
customer service.

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Background:

A deeper understanding of job satisfaction and organizational behavior as a whole is needed to

thoroughly understand and most efficiently address the connection between high levels of
employee morale and improved performance and productivity in the workplace. Colquitt,
Wesson, and LePine’s (2009) integrative model of organizational behavior (see Appendix A)
categorizes the ways to influence job performance and organizational commitment.

Overall job satisfaction represents one’s values and perceptions of their job as well as their
moods and emotions associated with the job. With this, there is a strong positive correlation
between high levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of both affective and normative
commitment. The model of the job characteristic theory (see Appendix B) from Colquitt,
Wesson, and LePine (2009) is almost a direct match to what was discovered throughout the Price
Chopper research process.

According Colquitt et al., a major predictor of job satisfaction is the employee’s perception of
how important their work is to others. With this, it would be in Price Chopper’s best interest to
stress the importance of each individual employee at the company. From baggers to upper
management, each employee at Price Chopper is crucial to the success of the company.

Overall job satisfaction was determined to be the greatest influence of job performance and
affective commitment. It was determined that increased networking along with an empowering
and supportive work environment would increase job satisfaction. With this involvement within
the organization and with the employees can increase levels of affective commitment. As a
result, the Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage would increase not only employee morale,
but improve job performance, perception of individual importance, and affective commitment as
well.

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Focus: Create an internal campaign that will engage employees and increase employee
morale.

Happy Employees Mean Better Employees--

Create an internal campaign called Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage. Employees will
take part in a friendly competition that rewards them for positive actions. The program will give
employees a sense of involvement with Price Chopper and their fellow employees. The
camaraderie encouraged by the Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage program will cause
employees to have more affective commitment to Price Chipper and lead to better job
satisfaction, better job performance, and ultimately higher customer satisfaction.

Focus: Create a campaign that will increase existing customer satisfaction and overall
customer experience.

Keep ‘Em Comin’ Back for More--

Customers notice the little things when they are shopping at Price Chopper. Aside from price, it
is usually these little things that determine whether or not a customer will return to Price
Chopper for their future grocery shopping needs.

The customer experience is something that begins in the parking lot and lasts far beyond the
store visit; customer experience can be the deciding factor when people have to choose what
market to go to for their needs. Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage will help improve such
customer satisfaction, because happy employees mean happy customers.

By creating an inviting and helpful atmosphere, you are laying the foundation for happier
customers, so we’re going to suggest the implementation of a program that will undoubtedly
make both employees and customers happier.

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Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage:

People who can relate to sports know the value of competition. The higher the stakes, the more
the players push themselves to perform to the best of their ability. On a team, each player feeds
off of the other players, meaning if one player is performing well, others will most likely begin to
follow suit. With this, we are equating the employees of Price Chopper as the players of a game
called Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage.

This program will award employees for positive actions (ie citizenship behaviors) through a
points system. Points will be able to be redeemed for days off, leaving early, free lunch, gas
discounts (through the Price Chopper Fuel Advantage Program), or other incentives.

This program will help increase customer satisfaction by creating friendly competition,
generating a team-feel at work, boosting employee morale (through a feel of inclusion and
importance), and most importantly, by increasing job performance. Since the context of
competition is familiar to many, it will generate a great response. Therefore, by implementing
Price Chopper Points for Play, employees will put forth more effort into their job, leading to
more efficient job performance.

Co-opetition and Points for Play:

“Co-opetition is a blend of cooperation and competition when the competing persons, groups, or
organizations collaborate or form an alliance to add value to their products and
services.” (Nalebuff and Brandenburger 1996) While Points for Play isn’t a perfect example of
co-opetition, it still exhibits many characteristics of the practice. Typically, co-opetition involves
more than one company, but in the case of Price Chopper and Points for Play, it involves one
company, but many different stores within the same company. According to Jai B. P. Sinha, “the
more intense the competition is, the more intense the cooperation is within the groups.” This
means if executed properly, Points for Play has the opportunity to increase cooperation amongst
employees, thereby increasing job satisfaction, leading to better job performance, and ultimately
higher levels of customers satisfaction.

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About the Game:

• The game will be an annual event that will last 3 months each year.
• By making it an “event,” we hope Points for Play Advantage will garner store-wide and
company-wide excitement, further encouraging better performance.
• If the competition was a continuous program, employees may lose interest and the program
would lose it’s potency.

• Employees can earn Points for Play by performing positive actions at work.
• The manager on duty will note the action, and mark it down in the tracking program (an
excel-like based program that will track and rank points, then export and post them onto a
screen (see Appendix C) in the break room.
• Employees will be able to track their own points as well as the points of their colleagues,
spurring a friendly competition in the workplace. With this interactive points tracking
system, employees will be able to see how fast points will add up for simple actions,
encouraging them to do their best at their job.
• Customers can report superior customer service on their customer feedback receipt or in
person to the manager on duty at the customer service desk.
• Fellow employees can report positive behaviors and/or actions to the manager on duty.
• At the end of the three month competition cycle, points will be tallied, the employee with the
most Points for Play will be named the Points for Play Advantage Champion at an employee
celebration.
• We believe that at the end of the cycle, there should be a banquet to bring all of the store’s
employees together to highlight their successes with the Points for Play Advantage program.
At this banquet, a multimedia presentation would be played in the background while staff
socialized and ate; this presentation would show pictures of employees doing their jobs and
highlight each employee, showing their importance to the company.
• Once employees are done eating, everyone will sit down for a quick presentation about the
top Points for Play performers, then each employee would be able to “shop” in the “Points
Store,” to trade in their points for rewards.
• The exchange of points for prizes will show the direct relationship between positive
actions and positive rewards, hopefully encouraging employees to perform better all year
round.

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Actions and Point Rewards

Action Point Reward

Cashier/bagger team checks a customer out at a rate of 5 seconds per 1

item.

Employees of the specialty sections of Price Chopper do not have a 1

customer wait time of more than 4 minutes. (ie. Bakery and deli)

Customers should not have a wait time of more than 4 minutes at check 1
out.

Showing up to work on time for five consecutive work days. 2

Positive feedback from fellow employee. 3

Positive customer feedback (either on survey or in person). 3

Accolades from supervisor for positive actions witnessed. 4

Staffing

When implementing Price Chopper Points for Play Advantage, staffing requirements will not
change. As long as there is a manager or leader on duty (LOD), Points for Play does not require
additional staffing. The manager or LOD will have to be trained on how to add points into the
Microsoft Excel program in order to track the competition progress.

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Points and Rewards

Employees can mix and match rewards; for example, an employee who earn 4,800 points
through the Points for Play competition could choose a $5 Subway card (700 points), $25 Price
Chopper gift card (2500 points), one extra 15 minute break for each day of work for three chosen
days (1000 points), 10 cents off per gallon of gas (100 points), and choose the task for their shift
for one chosen work week (500 points). This rewards system reinforces positive actions by
employees by directly relating them to rewards. Employees will be able to see the positive
correlation between their actions and rewards, subconsciously pushing them to do their job to the
best of their ability each day.

Points (can be divided for various Reward

rewards)

100 10 cents off per gallon through Price

Chopper Fuel Advantage program

500 Choice of task for your shift for one chosen

work week

700 $5 Subway gift card

1000 One extra 15 minute break for each day of

work for three chosen days

1500 First choice in scheduling for a chosen work

week

2000 2 movie passes

2500 $25 Price Chopper gift card

3000 Dinner for two at restaurant of choice (from

list provided by Price Chopper)

3500 iPod Shuffle

5000 One paid day off

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Cost Benefit Analysis

Costs* Benefits

Computer monitor to display scores:
$119/store (120 stores)=$14,280
End of year banquet: approximately
$1,500/store=$180,000
Cost of prizes: approximately $70/
employee (average 40 employees/store)=
$336,000
The benefits of Points for Play Advantage
are mostly intangible. The implementation
of the program will cause employees to
become happier, healthier, and more
productive. As a result, there will be
higher levels of customer satisfaction at
Price Chopper. Also, by creating an
environment where employees enjoy
what they are doing, there will be less
employee turnover. As a result of the
increased retention, the high costs of
turnover (finding, selecting, hiring, and
training new employees) will be
drastically reduced.

In the long term, the intangible benefits will lead to a higher return on investment for Price
Chopper. The $530,280 investment put forth by Price Chopper will be offset by the myriad
benefits that the company will experience as a result of the Price Chopper Points for Play
Advantage program.

*The cost of prizes will vary depending on how many points are earned per employee per store.

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Appendix A

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Appendix B

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Appendix C

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Appendix D--Timeline for Operation

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References

Colquitt, J., Wesson, M., & LePine, J. (Ed.). (2009). Organizational behavior: essentials for
improving performance and commitment. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Best Buy Company Inc. (n.d.). Computers. Retrieved March 2010, from Best Buy: http://
www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+18.5%22+Widescreen+Flat-Panel+LCD+Monitor/9366312.p?
id=1218093381780&skuId=9366312

Find Your Favorite Store. (2010). Retrieved from Price Chopper: http://www.pricechopper.com/
StoreLocator/Store_S.las

Sinha, J. B. (2008). Culture and Organizationational Behaviour. SAGE Publications.

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