“Without our team members, we're just four walls and food.”

That's the saying at Whole Foods Market, where every employee that's hired is purported to have a DNA that matches the culture of the company. What would become "Whole Foods Market" began in 1978 by then 25-year-old college dropout John Mackey with a girlfriend in Austin, Texas; Whole Foods has grown to more than 400 stores throughout the UK, Canada, 42 states in the United States across 12 regions.

"The way Whole Foods recruits is to place team members that are passionate about both food and people into our store, because people come into our stores to talk to our people and learn about food." Andres Traslavina, Global Talent Recruiter and Social Strategist, explains. That passion translates into better education on the value of food and improved customer service for consumers, which beyond the high-end interiors and swank food selection is what he says really "keeps people coming back to our stores" over the competition. But to maintain that level of engagement, particularly in an industry known for disenfranchised workers, requires a ceaseless commitment to careful culture building- which is something else that Whole Foods has shown it knows how to do well... 17-times over, in fact: they've been on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since 1998. They credit this achievement to their team members and shared faith employees have in the organizational mission and the company leadership has in its workers.

Walking the Talk

"Keeping the faith" isn't just lip-service at Whole Foods. In fact, the company has a policy that restricts executive pay to no more than 19 times the average salary in the company. It adds a credibility to the leadership team that translates into a belief amongst the team that everyone is in this together. The Co-CEOs have the same benefits as all other team members, they fly public transportation vs a cushy, private jet - backing their words up with action. In fact, both John Mackey and Walter Robb have taken up the causes of manageable CEO compensation and "living wage" as part of a commitment to "conscious capitalism," a belief and way of business on which the entire company runs. While starting pay for the inexperienced worker is $11.25/hr, the average worker compensation is $15/hr, with roughly 40% of employees holding equity options- a rarity for companies in the US and nearly unheard of in the grocery industry.

“Business is more than just a buck.”

The Value of Connected Culture

This translates to a 9% voluntary turnover in the "rank and file" and less than 3% in management for this company of 73,000+ employees within an industry known for 100% turnover, year after year. It's good for business, too: as of today, Whole Foods' stock is up .82%, not too far off from it's 52-week high of $56.42 a share in Feb. 2014. Their fiscal fourth-quarter profit in 2014 topped analysts earning projections by 3 cents a share and their third-quarter 9.4% revenue gain (translating to $3.26 billion) was on par with earnings projections. “Business is more than just a buck,” Robb explained to Austin Business Journal Editor Colin Pope at a Face 2 event in 2013. Co-Founder and Co-CEO John Mackey agrees, “I see business as fundamentally heroic … [and] it could be so much better.... [yet] business is the only industry that is judged by its worst practitioners." Whole Foods is on a continued mission to change that stigma.

A Shared Belief and Eyes to the Future

In addition to their commitment to maintaining a connected culture, Whole Foods has some ambitious goals within both marketing and Talent Acquisition. Marketing efforts to shed the "Whole Paycheck" image of yesteryear are well underway and, if their earnings reports are any indication, working: their "Values Matter" campaign, the company's first national ad campaign, rolled out in Q4 2014 and has helped the company attract new shoppers whilst promoting their conscious capitalism beliefs.

The company plans on launching a brand advocacy program in 2015 to reward shopper loyalty and, joining the ranks of Target and other sophisticated retailers, has invested in predictive modeling and analysis for customer acquisition and retention purposes. Andres Traslavina realizes that this focus on analysis and metrics provides recruitment an opportunity to improve mobile recruitment for the company and the overall candidate experience. Since the reality is companies will reject more applicants than they will hire, he's determined to find better ways to reject candidates - they currently have to turn down over 8,000 candidates each year - and he's determined to find a way to do so in a way that preserves the brand affinity for both the employer and consumer brand. Makes sense, since a 2014 study by Harris Interactive showed 9% of U.S. workers will tell others not to purchase products or services from a company with which they've had a poor recruitment experience. In fact, Forbes reports the estimated revenue loss associated for organizations with negative candidate experience sits at 1% - which means for Whole Foods, ignoring candidate experience could translate into a $36.2MM impact. Fortunately, that's something Andres is determined to not only avoid, but work with marketing and the organization's consumer social team to increase an already positive brand affinity for both the employer and consumer brand.