Sales at the five-store Horizon Resources co-op based in Williston, North Dakota, are trending upward. Chad Ellis, retail division manager, expects this positive news to continue.
With labor and hiring, however, the numbers aren’t as good, Ellis said in a recent talk with CSP looking ahead to 2024.
Horizon Resources convenience stores are in oil country, an area with plenty of work, Ellis said. Because of this, he expects the region to continue growing.
“Workers, families, consumers, people in general are coming,” he said. “There’s more foot traffic through the door.”
One thing Ellis said isn’t coming through the door much is people looking for work.
“For whatever reason, trying to find help is next to impossible,” he said, calling staffing the biggest challenge along with turnover.
“I’m just hopeful that people will get back out there and get engaged in the workforce again.”
Ellis hopes to reduce the numbers of employee departures. In the Williston store, there are about 12 employees, and one leaves monthly on average; in their Ray, North Dakota, location, the staff is 15 and they lose three or four monthly.
“It’s tough to find committed employees who want to learn and be a part of the co-op and realize they’re working for the company and not for themselves,” he said.
While Horizon Resources considers itself a family, some just want a job, he said.
“We’re hoping they see it as a career path,” Ellis said of Horizon, which offers a pension, 401(k), 10% off hardware, and more. “Trying to train and teach them what we’re about and why we do the things we do versus the next c-store is a hurdle we need to work on ourselves.”
Ellis said the relationship at Horizon Resources is very personable. “We want them to take care of the company and treat it as some of their prized possessions and respect it the same way,” he said. “Because that’s basically how we treat them when they’re here, like family.”
To boost retention, Ellis said it’s important to ensure even before hiring that the new employee knows exactly what they’re doing.
“We need to give them a better representation of what we’re after so when they come in there’s no gray area,” he said.
“I’m just hopeful that people will get back out there and get engaged in the workforce again,” Ellis said. “I don’t know if they’re all working remotely or have other means to do work, but we definitely need people in stores to get our economy and everything growing.”
Ellis spoke highly of the new manager in their Williston store, who has been more aggressive in hiring, going so far as having an interview on the spot for a person in the store expressing interest and grabbing an application on the front counter.
“For whatever reason, trying to find help is next to impossible.”
“That actually landed one person just from that,” he said, adding that they’re using more online job application websites.
Figuring out the biggest barrier to drawing job applicants “is the $100 question,” Ellis said. “We’ve had discussions about this because every location’s struggling to find people. I don’t know if it’s TikTok or if they’re trying to make money on YouTube. I have no idea what a lot of these people are doing these days.”
Ellis said it’s tough to say how hiring issues will fare in 2024. “I think a lot of it has to do with who’s in charge,” he said. “If you have order in the workplace, you’re not going to have chaos. If you don’t have order, you will have chaos.”
His Fairview, Montana, location is a prime example of good management, he said. “There’s no turnover there,” Ellis said. “I think they lose maybe one employee every two years. It’s just phenomenal. The manager has it how she wants it and what she expects, and she doesn’t lose anybody.”
Management replicates the team, he said.
“If you’re working as a team and communicate well, you should have no issues,” he said.