PHILADELPHIA -- Banter is a bellwether at Wawa. Philly.com interviewed Chris Gheysens (excerpted below), and here’s what the Wawa Inc. CEO said he expects to see and hear when he walks into a Wawa convenience store.
Q: When you go into any store, what are the things that you look for the most that show you whether the store is operating well?
A: Tone. I see the visuals. The first thing I look for is cleanliness.
Q: Like in the parking lot?
A: Oh yeah. It starts on the drive in. So cleanliness. Then when you walk inside, it’s tone. As I tell the story internally, we have labor schedulers and all kinds of things to put people in the right spots, the right time of day, in the right store.
You can tell the personality of the store pretty quickly, and it leads back to the leader and the general manager in that store or the person who’s running the shift. That’s just how the associates are interacting, the eye contact with customers. If there’s a lot of heads down or if there’s not a lot of banter, I’ll typically pick up the phone and make a phone call and ask what’s going on. But that’s infrequent at Wawas. Usually you do see the banter, the smiles, customers and associates talking and having fun, and that’s what I look for No. 1.
Q: In general, how do you try to build a good culture at the store level?
A: In our culture, it’s people that have smiles, people that are happy, people that are outgoing. For us, it’s really what we preach. It’s about the smile at Wawa. Retail--the way that we train, the way that we bring people through our system. We can train for skills. You really have got to hire for personality.
We actually have personality tests and behavioral tests (for prospective employees) to take online as you apply, and it’s not as easy to game as you might think. It scores you in terms of your aptitude, your personality and fit in our culture. So when you look, as a hiring manager, in the system and see the dozens of people that have applied, you’ll see a grade. Certainly our general managers are always bringing in the people for interviews that have scored high on that.
Q: Have you ever tried to take it?
A: I haven’t actually. That’s a good question. I’ve not actually taken it and seen where I score on it.
Q: Are you afraid?
A: Probably a little bit. I grew up in finance, right?
Click here to read the full interview.
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