Deb Moore calls them “sticky tools,” the hiring and retention policies and programs that allow Nouria Energy to “really hook [applicants] in and talk to them about our opportunities here, [to] think of our company as somewhere where they can grow.”

Moore came to Nouria a year into the pandemic and was met with a “pretty grim” situation. But before she could set her mind on rebuilding staff in stores, she had to address shortcomings in human resources.

“I was very lucky to have … the leadership team invest in an HR transformation.”

“We had a very basic HR generalist structure where one individual would do everything,” she says. “I hired a talent-acquisition center of excellence. … We brought in an associate-relations team that could do investigations, write policies and procedures and communicate with our teams. We built out total rewards, which is compensation and enhancing our benefits. And then learning and development.”

With the right people in place in HR, the table was set for addressing career-pathing, talent-development and store-level hiring.

Coming from outside the c-store industry, Moore is grateful to company leadership that was willing to make the investments necessary to build those “sticky tools.”

“That’s really where I spent the last year and a half: What is our value proposition for our employees and building that out?” she says. “I was very lucky to have [Founder and CEO] Tony El-Nemr and the leadership team invest in an HR transformation where we were able to [build] an HR structure to support growth in the current demand as far as talent acquisition, as well as HR technology.”