6 minute read
INDUSTRY NEWS
from DSN-1222
by ensembleiq
CVS Builds Affordable Housing in Two States
CVS Health will invest $6.2 million with Homestead Affordable Housing and WNC to build 36 new affordable housing units in Bel Aire, Kan. The effort is part of the company’s commitment to advancing health equity by addressing social determinants of health at the local level.
“When people have access to high-quality affordable housing and supportive services, they are able to focus on taking care of their mental and physical health,” said Jane Brown, Aetna Better Health of Kansas CEO. “Our investment in Kansas will help improve health outcomes for seniors and provide them a space to feel connected to their community.”
The nine one-story four-plex buildings, called Homestead Senior Residences Bel Aire, will be located at the corner of Oliver Street and E. 53 Street North in Sedgwick County. It will offer a community center and supportive services to residents, including workshops on financial management, identity protection, detailing plans for success in housing and fire prevention. Additionally, HSR residents will benefit from the Beef for Seniors program, where beef from local farms is purchased by banks and community members through donations after the county fair. The beef is then distributed to senior citizen apartment buildings in the area at no cost to residents.
CVS Health also is making a $14.3 million investment with Chief Seattle Club and Raymond James Affordable Housing Investments to build 120 affordable housing units in Seattle, Wash.
The five-story development called Sacred Medicine House will be located at 14315 Lake City Way NE in King County. It will offer on-site counseling, a healing garden, preventive healthcare services, and will have a community room where residents can engage in traditional healing ceremonies, such as drumming, singing, storytelling and talking circles.
According to the King County Department of Community and Human Services Cross Systems Homelessness Analysis, the number of King County homeless is up nearly 14% since 2020 and 57% remain unsheltered. Additionally, 15% of people experiencing homelessness in King Country identify as American Indian, Alaskan Native or Indigenous, but that group makes up only 1% of King County’s population.
Target Stores Get a Makeover
Target is debuting a reimagined store design and layout.
“Our new store layout is bigger than our previous stores, and that extra space and optimized layout ensures our team can offer the very best of Target to our guests, whether they’re shopping online or in our stores,” said John Conlin, senior vice president, properties at Target. “Guests are turning to us for more things now than they ever did before — more joy, more inspiration, more fulfillment options, and this new store design enables us to even more easily and efficiently deliver for our guests all those things and more, now and into the future.”
To help bring the latest evolution of Target’s store design to life, the retailer built and tested the concept using virtual reality.
“For the first time, Target’s store design team created a fully virtual, life-size representation of the reimagined store, allowing them to analyze and redesign features in real time while virtually ‘walking’ the store to ensure the enhancements would work for guests and team members,” the retailer said.
The optimized store size and updated store design can be experienced at its new store outside Houston in Katy, Texas. Starting next year, more than half of Target’s expected 200 full store remodels and almost all its approximately 30 new stores will feature elements of this new design. Beginning in 2024, all of its remodels and new stores will feature the majority of these reimagined store design elements, Target said.
Walgreens Boots Alliance is strengthening its commitment to increasing the representation of people with disabilities at all levels across the company’s U.S. segments and redesigning its annual bonus plan in the United States to include a disability representation metric to drive this commitment.
The company will be the first in the S&P 500 to include disability representation as a separate, standalone metric within a disclosed incentive plan.
Walgreens said the effort is a core component of the company’s expanded U.S. health equity performance goal, which focuses on positively impacting key areas of health and wellbeing, especially for underserved communities, including women, people of color and people with disabilities.
“We are very proud of our pioneering leadership in disability inclusion,” said Holly May, executive vice president and global chief human resources officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance. “By increasing our representation of people with disabilities, we are continuing to unlock a critical talent pipeline, providing sustainable work to this underrepresented community, and as such helping to address a number of social determinants of health including economic instability, social isolation and unemployment.”
To further support these efforts, the company has formed a partnership with Neurodiversity in the Workplace, which designs plans and programs for companies to recruit, attract, hire and retain neurodiverse talent. The first cohort is expected to begin work at WBA’s global support office in Deerfield, Ill., in early 2023.
These new initiatives build upon Walgreens’ commitment to hiring people with disabilities and complement the company’s existing retail and distribution center programs — Retail Employees with Disabilities Initiative and the Transitional Work Group program.
The REDI program began in Dallas in 2010 and expanded nationally in 2012. TWG began in 2007 at a Walgreens distribution center in Anderson, S.C., has since expanded to 12 Walgreens distribution centers, and is now being implemented across Walgreens microfulfillment centers.
Ahold Delhaize USA’s CEO to Retire
Ahold Delhaize announced that Kevin Holt, CEO of Ahold Delhaize USA, plans to retire and step down from the Ahold Delhaize management board when his term expires at the Annual General Meeting of shareholders on April 12, 2023.
Ahold Delhaize will nominate JJ Fleeman as a member of the Ahold Delhaize management board and CEO of Ahold Delhaize USA at the AGM.
Fleeman’s appointment to the management board of Ahold Delhaize is subject to shareholder approval at the AGM. After the AGM, Kevin will remain with Ahold Delhaize USA in an advisory capacity until he retires at the end of 2023, to ensure a seamless transition.
Fleeman has served as president of Peapod Digital Labs and chief commercial and digital officer of Ahold Delhaize USA since May 2018. Through Peapod Digital Labs, a center that drives digital and e-commerce innovation and technology, Fleeman is responsible for enabling the local brands of Ahold Delhaize USA to deliver an unparalleled omnichannel grocery experience, the company said.
“JJ is an inspiring leader who will advance the U.S. businesses through omnichannel market share growth and who will continue to deliver on the Connected Customer strategy that Kevin has so carefully developed and implemented with the team over the past few years,” said Peter Agnefjäll, chair of the supervisory board of Ahold Delhaize. “It is a testament to Kevin’s leadership that we were able to select his successor from our own ranks.”
