Coronavirus: Are all supermarket jobs really low-level skilled roles?

Wednesday, 19 August 2020

Long queues were seen at supermarkets after new cases of Covid-19 from an unknown source were found in Auckland.

Over recent months, there have been numerous news stories about people swapping “glamorous” jobs for a new role in a supermarket. Salon owners, flight attendants and bar staff have left their day jobs and taken up roles on the shop floor.

But while that was sometimes portrayed as a backwards move, supermarket employees say the suggestion that there’s a lack of opportunity in the grocery aisles is unfair.

While tens of thousands of jobs were pummelled by Covid-19, supermarkets saw extraordinary demand and growth. Queues formed outside supermarkets as soon as higher alert levels were announced last week.

The country’s biggest supermarket companies Countdown and Foodstuff, owner of Pak ’n Save and New World, together hired more than 3300 people during the Covid-19 alert level 4 lockdown, hundreds of those were from the hospitality and tourism industry.

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Foodstuffs corporate social responsibility manager Marshall Gardiner started working with the supermarket company after losing his job at Air New Zealand earlier this year.

Foodstuffs corporate social responsibility manager Marshall Gardiner joined the company in June after eight years at Air New Zealand in a customer insights and research role.

He said that because working at a supermarket was perceived as a low-skill job, learning about the diversity in roles within supermarkets was “an eye-opener”.

“There are career opportunities for marketing specialists, digital experts, accountants, lawyers, HR, food safety, health and safety, category managers, project managers, property and supply chain experts,” Gardiner said.

Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin says staff have had to upskill and take up new roles within the company because of Covid-19.

Gardiner said skills from his old job were transferable to his new role.

He said soft skills such as communication and problem solving were just as important as hard skills when transitioning into a new job.

Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin worked as a truck driver and supermarket shelf stacker at New World Warkworth in the 1980s.

Quin rejoined the company to lead its North Island business five years ago after 20 years in the telecommunication industry at Spark.

Queues formed outside supermarkets moments after higher alert levels were announced last week.

He said there were many like him who had gone back to the business, as well as those who had worked their way up to owning stores.

Quin said the size of the company meant there was a lot of potential to move up the ranks.

“When I meet people in the company who have come from outside the industry they’re surprised by how much technology, data and insight goes into this industry.

“Every role in the company, including the butcher, involves working with technology to forecast or catalogue stock,” he said.

Foodstuffs has a supermarket trainee operator programme that guides staff into ownership.

Countdown opened the country's first dedicated online store in Penrose, Auckland, this year in response to the rapid growth in online sales.

Quintin Proctor, who owns the Wairau Park Pak ’n Save on Auckland’s North Shore, is a qualified butcher who worked in different departments at various New World supermarkets before becoming an owner.

Foodstuffs and Countdown had most of their 25,000 and 21,000 respective workforces working inside the supermarkets as shelvers, checkout operators or in deli and produce.

However, the supermarket companies had also grown their logistics and ecommerce staff due to growing demand for online orders.

According to Glassdoor, a website that enabled employees to anonymously review their companies, the average hourly wage for in-store workers at Countdown and Foodstuffs was between $18 and $21.

Countdown culture and people general manager Pauline D’Unienville said from September all supermarket workers who had been with the company for at least a year would be paid a minimum of $21.15.

Quin did not specify the average salaries of workers but said the company had to pay staff competitively.

Countdown hired 200 workers for its Penrose estore, which is dedicated to online shopping orders.

“We recognise their hard work. This is a competitive market and we have to pay competitively to retain the best people, so that’s what stores do. The stores are local businesses and operators do provide bonuses and rewards for staff,” he said.

Both supermarket companies gave essential staff a 10 per cent pay boost for working through the four-week lockdown, but the bonus ended in April.

Quin said online demand had grown almost four-fold because of Covid-19 lockdown.

D’Unienville said Countdown hired 200 workers for its Penrose estore and was planning to open two more estores in Christchurch and Wellington to cater to the online boom.

“The future of grocery is incredibly bright in my view. It’s changing all the time, and even just this year and this week, we have had to adapt the way we work to meet the environment we find ourselves in,” D’Unienville said.

Both companies said that to keep up with demand because of Covid-19, most staff had to step up into new roles.

Quin said the supply chain staff “had to turn on a dime” with every new alert level announcement.

“Even last week: we got a notification that we’re going into level 3 in Auckland; literally overnight we saw a 70 to 80 per cent increase in demand.

“Imagine what it’s like to be a checkout operator with all the uncertain events and dealing with customers’ fears and concerns. Human skills have been incredibly important and have been developed this year.”

As the industry evolved with technology and a stronger focus on ecommerce, the supermarket would continue to be “people driven”, Quin said.

“Our customer-facing roles and our checkout operators have the biggest impact on customer satisfaction in our business. Human interaction is what makes grocery shopping different. I don’t think it will ever become a completely digital relationship.”

D’Unienville said 5000 staff had been with the company for longer than a decade, changing roles and reskilling.

“While our focus is always to retain our team and help them grow with Countdown, the reality is that people move around jobs and careers, so if we can help people with skills they can use elsewhere, that’s important too,” she said.