Voice of The Food Industry Blog

By: Sue Wilkinson, Senior Director, Information Service & Research, Food Marketing Institute

Nine in ten department mangers love their job, according to findings reported in the inaugural Supermarket Department Manger Survey, conducted for FMI by The Retail Feedback Group and Harold Lloyd Presents and recently released at FMI Connect in Chicago. Other areas that earned high ratings by supermarket department managers include meeting safety/sanitation standards (96%); working well with store managers (95%), supervisors treat me with respect (93%); and store manager practices our values (93%). 

Areas that were rated low by supermarket department managers, and offer opportunities for their companies to improve, include work-life balance (77%), holding employees accountable (68%); fair compensation (71%); adequate training hours (62%); and department labor hours (54%). 

In his presentation of this report at FMI Connect, Harold Lloyd, president of H. Lloyd & Associates, Inc., stressed that this report contains good news and bad news.  The industry needs to work on the bad news, including more hours devoted to training and more growth opportunities for department managers.

The report provides additional data by segmenting responses to uncover variations among departments by education, gender and years of service. For the report and additional details, visit www.fmi.org/FMIIndustryResearch.