SAN ANTONIO, TX - The labor war has quite a few major retailers trying out different tactics. While some have gone the minimum wage route and others a new HQ route, Texas-based H-E-B is instead doubling down on investing in its people, which President Craig Boyan asserts are the retailer’s “key differentiators.”
“We believe the main thing we need to do is invest in people—and better people,” said Boyan, according to Dallas News.
The news source reported that despite feeling technology and price pressures from grocery giants like Amazon and Walmart, H-E-B is set on ensuring its employees remain one of its best assets in the grocery race.
But that’s not to say H-E-B isn’t pushing the boundaries of tech. At a conference earlier this week, Boyan revealed that H-E-B is interested in implementing and exploring technology, but only that which helps create jobs and makes shoppers’ and employees’ lives better. In the past couple of years, Boyan noted, H-E-B has researched and added technology to its entire business operations, from manufacturing plant sensors, grocery shopping robots, and self-driving delivery vehicles.
“It’s a massive logistics-supply chain business, so you are seeing unbelievable innovation through the supply chain,” Boyan said.
The root of Boyan’s argument, however, seemed to stem from the fact that shareholders are investing large sums of money in tech companies that Boyan claims are putting retailers out of business and employees out of work. As a result, H-E-B is ensuring its workforce is growing however the industry sees fit. In the last ten years, the retailer has hired 40,000 employees, increasing its team’s ranks to 116,000.
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