On a late-summer stop at a Wawa near Fredericksburg, Virginia, two signs affixed to the plexiglass shield separating me from the friendly clerk behind the counter bore out dueling storylines of the pandemic. “Please do not enter this store without a mask or face covering” was taped to the top of the barrier. Below, a plea: “We need coins. No fees for exchanging coins with us! Requesting pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.” To sweeten the pitch, the store offered a free coffee, fountain soda, ICEE or Shorti, depending on the amount of coin brought in. (You can see how other retailers are handling the coin shortage in our cover story, “Change Management.”)
The associate said his regular customers were helping them out, and things were improving. I asked if anyone had given him grief about the situation, and he shared that a few customers had grumbled when he couldn’t make change. “There’s a lot of conspiracy theories out there,” he said, mainly about a coming cashless society. “The worst was when a woman threw a 40-ounce cup of soda in my face” and yelled about cash being legal tender, he said.
Employees need training on how to defuse contentious situations, especially when it comes to enforcing face mask rules.
His story stunned me, and regretfully, I didn’t follow up to find out how it had played out. For convenience retailers who see half of America walk into their stores every day, I suspect that it’s likely one of the tamer conflicts their teams face.
In this time when everyone’s nerves seem to be frayed, empathy can go a long way. A colleague recently recommended the book “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High” by Kerry Patterson et al. In any high-stakes conversation, the authors say “Skilled people start with heart. That is, they begin high-risk discussions with the right motives, and they stay focused no matter what happens.” When adrenaline starts to kick in, ask yourself: What do I want for myself? What do I want for others? What do I want for the relationship? It’s good advice when we get pulled into difficult conversations. At the store level, employees need training on how to defuse contentious situations, especially when it comes to enforcing face mask rules. In “Angry Words,” two security experts offer practical advice for handling volatile situations.
The most successful companies invest in a rigorous hiring, onboarding and training process to help staff build rewarding careers in the industry. In “Help Wanted,” QuikTrip and VERC Enterprises share how they attract and hire successful employees. NACS recently partnered with The Good Jobs Institute to launch the Good Jobs Calculator to help convenience retailers forecast the benefits that would come by increasing employee wages and implementing a Good Jobs system (see more in “Thrive by Creating Good Jobs”).
Making people feel valued is at the core of what this industry does, and there’s no doubt NACS members have big hearts. To that end, the NACS Foundation is celebrating the tremendous response to the second annual 24/7 Day. In “Thanking Everyday Heroes,” you can read about the 18 retailers, along with support from GSTV, that honored first responders, medical personnel and disaster relief volunteers in a variety of ways, while raising funds for the American Red Cross. I’m proud to be a small piece of an industry that has so much heart.
