QuickBites: Estimating the Return to Normal

Sheetz’s Colino cites four distinct labor markets in the past year: pre-pandemic, pandemic uncertainty, lockdown and the current market, in which jobs available outweigh labor market participation.

do this at scale (and it costs more), but in the end, we think a human experience will be a differentiator when the rest of the world leans into the opposite approach.

CSD: How would you assess the current market for labor, and how do you think it will change over the next few years?

JC: In the last 12 months, we’ve seen four distinct labor markets: pre-pandemic, pandemic uncertainty, lockdown and, now, I’m not even sure what to call our current situation! I’ve never seen a market where there are so many jobs available but so little labor market participation. How long this lasts and what happens on the other side of this recent trend is unknown. I think what we’re seeing is the uncoiling of a pent-up desire for people to have more fl exibility at work, get paid more, have better benefi ts and so on. What person wouldn’t want that? So I would expect this to continue as a labor market trend, but not indefi nitely.

CSD: Do you see more people returning to the offi ce sooner rather than later?

JC: Not everyone wants to sit on Zoom calls all day, isolated from their coworkers. And not all business models work with remote employees or indefi nite wage increases. Something has to give. In the long term, I think if companies focus on a win-win solution between business model and labor preferences, everyone will be in a better place.

CSD: Why should people come to work for Sheetz?

JC: Whenever I get a question that has so many possible (great) answers, I always revert to fi rst-principle thinking. This just means getting down to a basic truth. From that perspective, I believe that all companies compete on just one thing — how they treat their employees. Put excellent pay, benefi ts, brand, growth, location or whatever you want on the table, but people generally will not stay at a company if they’re not treated well or feel valued. At Sheetz, our competitive advantage is something that my recruiting team calls our “work family” or “work fam” for short. It’s a term that captures how the Sheetz family takes care of its employees and how our employees take care of each other. It’s a culture unlike anything I’ve seen before. Fortunately, we have all of the other components, too. So we All companies compete on one thing, said James Colino, Sheetz’s head of talent acquisition — how they treat their employees. like to say that people come for the perks and stay for the culture.