With the advancement in technology, life has become a lot easier, and though there might be certain challenges, it surely doesn’t concern what they used to be before. Be it ordering food or going shopping, buying groceries, or planning a trip, all can be done with the ease of your home using your laptop or computer. And as if these weren’t all that could be offered, you can even buy medicines from your mobiles, and they are just a click away. Today’s topic- HOW MUCH DOES A WALGREENS STORE MANAGER MAKE?
Feeling sick and being alone at home, you don’t have to worry about how you’ll get the medicine or who’ll get it for you. Not so interested in asking favors from neighbors? Well, you don’t have to now. Back in the day, nobody would have thought that technology (especially the internet and mobile phones) will be such a perk, and our lives will become dependent on them. But for what’s it worth, this is for the better. Being sick and not feeling well is a problem in itself, and you don’t want to add to your problems by going out in that horrible situation to a pharmacy shop because you don’t have paracetamol or cough syrup.
HISTORY OF WALGREENS
Online Pharmacy shops have increased rapidly in recent times, but some started doing well a very long time ago. For example, Walgreen Company, also known as Walgreens, is an American pharmacy store founded in 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, US. This is the 2nd largest pharmacy company in America and is just beyond CVS Health. The company aims to fill prescriptions, provide medicine and various health and wellness-related products, and information related to health. According to the reports released in 2019, the company had 9,277 stores operating all across the United States. The company was founded by ‘Charles Rudolph Walgreen and had its headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois.
Back in the day, when the company started, it was a small food outlet in Chicago, but the vision and mission of the company were very clear that it wanted to keep growing, and therefore what started from one small front store turned into 4 outlets by 1913. And ever since then, the company has only grown and all the hard work and labor paid off because what it is today is no less than extraordinary. What started as a small front store turned into 44 stores by the mid-1920s and expanded across various cities from Minnesota to Missouri to Wisconsin.
The company and its winning and expanding streak kept continuing, and by 1930, it had lengthened exponentially with around 397 stores across various domains in various cities. But it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns and rainbows. The company had its share of setbacks too. A major one was when Charles Walgreen Sr. died in 1939, and Charles R. Walgreen Jr. took over the company’s responsibility until he retired. His years of work were very affluent. As a result, the company never saw a huge expansion during its regime.
From medication to holiday planning, skincare and vitamins to groceries, toys, and pets, the company has grown multifold and expanded its corporate offices. By 2009, Walgreen had a majorly high employment rate and had a huge 5200 people employed at its headquarters. In 2014, they also inaugurated a new headquarter (other than the Chicago one) in Switzerland as a part of their merger with ‘Alliance Boots,’ which is one of the largest drug store chains in Europe. Although, although allowed many controversies as people saw this as a way of tax inversion, Walgreens cleared the air, stating that they are in no mood to shift their headquarters.
Initially, Walgreen stores were connected to the local grocery store and supported walkthroughs and sometimes shared personnel. But decades after its inauguration and opening, in 2009, Walgreen changed its business models slightly because they shifted to ‘freestanding corner stores,’ which were situated in the highest traffic flow areas. The strategy was a great success, and the company kept flourishing on from it. The stores are managed by store managers and are therefore responsible for handling the store.
WHO ARE STORE MANAGERS?
Since Walgreens believes in diversifying their performances and therefore ensuring that they are improving at every step of the way by increasing their performance goals and encouraging communications among themselves (the company and its employees), these strong values are holding the company for more than a century now and they continue to build upon it. Believing in their heritage and living and working towards it has enhanced their performances.
As the store manager, you’ll be trained to lead the store and all that the store has to offer. Since this career is all about developing leadership skills, the main objective is to enhance your retail career, and for that, the company has built-in very comprehensive programs. You will learn all that you should know about being a store manager.
Candidates can also join as assistant store managers and move on to being store managers through this program and building the required skills. After learning all the required skills and gaining the right amount of experience, candidates can also move up the ladder at higher levels of retail managers, even within the store. The program is called the LEAP program and is explained in detail below.
The 4 stages of the LEAP program are Lean, Engage, Advance, and Perform, all of which are supposed to upgrade your skills.
- LEAP – This stage is supposed to enhance your skills as ‘Inventory Control’ managers. Knowing your inventory is very important for a store manager because that is how the manager what is present and what is required or is absent from the store. It helps to keep track of the stock of various products.
- ENGAGE – This stage is all about learning the ‘Merchandising Techniques’. This is all about how you can advance the sales of the store which is on which revenue is ultimately dependent. Displaying products in-store or telling a story about the product are all part of this stage and are included in its learning.
- ADVANCE – Having everything in the store and finding perfect merchandising skills to engage customers is still only half the job done. The more the customers are interested is very much also depends on how you engage and communicate with them. Having a polite and concerned staff who is attending to the customers at all times and how store managers can make sure this is happening is a very important part of their training.
- PERFORM – Now having all the required knowledge is still a waste if you are not able to execute it and perform well. So performance is the ultimate aim and that can be developed through loads of activities and regular training and sessions. Also, advertisement knowledge is very important and helps in your success.
Gaining all this knowledge is ultimately very important as all these activities and pieces of training and curriculums are so that once you teach these, you can lead your very own Walgreen retail store someday. You will also have the full support of the upper management systems and will be allowed to work on hands-on computer-based technical jobs and other learning activities. Walgreen treats its support staff with utmost care and makes sure that they all have the opportunity to make career jumps and reach the heights of success.
HOW MUCH DO STORE MANAGERS EARN?
The average salary of the store manager at Walgreens is around $57,975 approximately in the United States. This is almost 30% above the national average salary, which is a huge margin and one of the major perks for joining the company. This also ensures that the employees can have a secure life after retirement and make sure that they can save a big amount for their future. To ensure that the employers have a reliable and secure future, some employees/workers also use an employer retirement plan. Walgreens also has dedicated pension plans to help their employees work freely and in a more secure environment. The company is a stable initiative and pays well, so working here comes with all sorts of benefits.
Since this is a very customer-focused company and tries its hands at lots of things or, in other words, is very innovative, this comes with lots of opportunities for your advancement and therefore working here can be a real boon for your career. Not only will it be kind of safe but also with lots of perks and opportunities for advancements. Moreover, the company tries to ensure that the store managers get all that’s due for their hard work and labor and therefore takes proper care of them.
Unlike other corporate sector companies, in such times, if a company is doing so much for the employees, it surely is a catch, and applying there for the job can be helpful for your career.
