Kansas City, KS – The Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City, Kansas received top honors from the Human Resource community. The local business received the Competitive Workforce Award at the 2008 Society for Human Resource Management Strategy Conference in Palm Springs, California.
Nebraska Furniture Mart was honored for its leadership and success in reaching out to the Hispanic community. Throughout 2007 and 2008 Nebraska Furniture Mart was facing higher turnover, recruiting and retention problems as a result of the tight labor market. With this increasing problem Nebraska Furniture Mart had to find an alternative solution to traditional business practices. Nebraska Furniture Mart had to branch out and begin attracting other skilled workers.
“The labor market really prompted me to find another source for quality applicants. Hence, our outreach began toward the Hispanic community,” stated Ed Lipsett, Human Resource Director.
With an entire recruiting strategy created to reach the Hispanic workforce, Nebraska Furniture Mart instantly started seeing results. Because of the initial success of their strategy and recruiting they were able to expand by creating programs at work for Hispanic workers. After six months of advertising and recruiting in the Hispanic market they hired a full-time bilingual interpreter, whose responsibilities range from translating during interviews and the orientation process to assisting in employee coaching and reviews. A few months later they began to offer free on-site classes in elementary English for those interested. The classes and strategy were so successful that recently they have begun this same program in their Omaha location.
Ron Blumkin, President and Chief Operating Officer noted “Embracing diversity initiatives like ours makes good business sense because it sends a strong message to our staff that we value a diverse workforce. As a result, we create loyal staff members whose friends and family also become loyal customers.”
Project Timeline:Bienvenido a la Familia de NFM was conceived in March, 2007. NFM Human Resources worked with Dos Mondos (newspaper) and Univision (TV) to advertise job opportunities to the Kansas City-area Hispanic community. HR recruiters attended job fairs throughout 2007. The bi-lingual interpreter was added to the HR staff in December, 2007. Planning and preparation for the ESL (English as a Second Language) classes began in October, 2007. Classes commenced in January, 2008 and continued through the end of February, 2008.
About Nebraska Furniture Mart
Nebraska Furniture Mart was founded in Omaha in 1937 by Rose Blumkin. In 1983,
Warren Buffett purchased Nebraska Furniture Mart and made it part of the
Berkshire Hathaway family of companies. Nebraska Furniture Mart offers not only furniture, but also appliances, electronics, computers and flooring. NFM operates in two states with over 450,000 sq feet of retail space in each store. One store in Omaha, Nebraska and second in Kansas City, Kansas. It also operates a smaller store for flooring, appliances and electronics in Des Moines Iowa.
