Costco's Culture: A Case Study

Costco is the epitome of an employee-focused company and “is more focused on their employees than any other Fortune 500 company” (About). Costco provides their employees with a livable hourly wage that is well over the national average. According to The Huffington Post, “Costco’s starting pay for their employees is $11.50 and on average their employees can make up to $21 per hour not including over time” (Short 2013). Costco’s CEO even tells Bloomberg Insider, “I just think people need to make a living wage with health benefits” (Stone, 2013) Besides great pay Costco also provides benefits such as health care, dental care, and vision plans. CEO Craig Jenelik stated, “that 80 percent of the companies employees have company sponsored insurance”

What puts Costco ahead of the game is the culture the former CEO Jim Sinegal created. According to former CEO Jim Sinegal in an interview with the Motley fool he stated that, “Culture is not the most important thing in the world. It 's the only thing” (Byrnes, 2013), and in a CNBC documentary called the Costco Craze, “Jim made it a point to assure that there would never be a division or gap between his leaders and his staff, and that everyone in the company should always know what makes their customers happy. He goes on to say that every employee knows what is being asked of them, and they all understand their role towards creating that ‘Costco experience’” (Brown 2012). Jim also made it a point to take the time to get to know as many of his employees as he could; he even wore a nametag during his time there with just “JIM” on it. ABC News interviewed the former CEO, and his philosophy with culture is simple, "We have said from the very beginning: ‘we 're going to be a company that 's on a first-name basis with everyone’" (Goldberg & Ritter, 2006) and he proved this by once a year making a visit to every Costco (Carmichael, 2007). Luckily for Jim who created this wonderful culture within his company, the Costco’s current CEO Craig Jenelik has carried on the torch with his idea that culture must exist in a company. Elliot Zwiebach writes that in a speech Jenelik made to the Western Association of Food Chains at an annual convention, “’Companies sometimes lose their way because they lose their core values and culture,’ ‘your business can evolve, but it can’t afford to lose its values and its culture’" (Zwiebach, 2015). Costco has also made it a point to have an open door policy. This allows Costco to diminish the gap between their leaders and employees. Overall, Costco is committed to creating a culture that in the end benefits their employees.