The Original Storage and Organization Store
Hello, welcome to Container Store. What is it about some stores that create raving fans that swear by them? At the Container Store, there are now 49 of them across the country, co-founder and CEO Kip Tindall believes We focus on the employee the most, not even the customer, the employee. Wait a minute, did he say the employee, not the customer? If you take better care of the employee than anybody else, they'll take better care of the customer than anybody else, and then wonderfully and ironically enough, the shareholder will be very happy too. Tindall believes that by paying You walk in the store and you can feel it. Everybody that's in the store loves to be there. The customers love to be there. The employees love to be there. Awesome, thanks. Veteran employee Allison Copeland remembers when she first heard about the company's distinct culture. And I'm t And 15 years later, it's absolutely real, still true, and still so alive. Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Newbie Greg Heft has only been with the company six months. The container store is nothing One big difference is the company's approach in worker Applicants are subjected to up to nine interviews, and only 3% of them are Once on board, they get about 260 hours of training. That's over 30 times the industry average. Tindall says the investment is worth it. When you're selling empty boxes, you better have great people. Of course, the great recession You can't go around calling yourself an employee of first culture, then lay people off, so we didn't do that. But benefits were cut. Everybody was very happy to not get 401K for a couple of years to freeze their salaries, because they knew they were literally saving their fellow workers' jobs. You know, team is a really beautiful h And now, profits are up, and the 401K match is back. But Tindall is critical of how other businesses have handled the recession and its aftermath. On average, if you look at the top 50 companies in the United States, how are we doing? C-minus. C-minus. Tindall's peers have given T I they vote with their pocket money. Tindall calls what he's doing conscious capitalism. We're not just being nice. It's a successful profit strategy as well. And if it's profitable, maybe the employee-focused culture won't be contained to the container store.
