Whole Foods Market started with one store with 19 employees in Austin, Texas. Today, with 370 stores and 54,000 employees, it is the leading natural and organic foods supermarket. WFM's motto is "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet," and its guiding "core value," according to co-CEO Walter Robb, is "customers first, then team members, balanced with what's good for other stakeholders." The structure of the company's current health care program is that employees pay a deductible before his or her expenses are covered. Meanwhile, the employer funds a special account (an HAS) for each employee, who can spend the money to cover health-related expenditures. High-deductible plans save money for the employer, and more importantly, they also make employees more responsible consumers.
1. How important would benefits like those offered by Whole Foods be to you if you were working there to put yourself through school or to collect a paycheck while looking for a position in your chosen field?
2. What negative elements do you see in Whole Foods approach to pay and benefits?
3. Why don't more companies use the approach to employee health care pioneered by Whole Foods?