How are we doing in our pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion at Willy Street Co-op? Below you can find our goals and how we are measuring our progress toward them. Not only do we plan to update the metrics quarterly, we also expect to add and change metrics over time to better measure our progress. Updated 4.12.24.
Owner & Community Engagement
1. Our customers reflect the demographics of the communities we serve.
Click to view metric: Demographics of the Communities We Serve
Why are we tracking this?
We want to see how and in what areas the ethnicity/race of our stores' customers deviate from the ethnicity/race of the communities around the stores. Deviations may indicate that we are being unintentionally unwelcoming to certain customers, are not carrying products they may be interested in, or other factors.
What is shown by these charts?
In summer of 2022, we partnered with MTN Retail Advisors on a market study. MTN geocoded all customers provided by the Willy Street 2021-2022 list of transactions comprising approximately 12 months. They ran demographics for these areas to look for patterns and trends that identify the type of customer who likes to shop at Willy Street Co-op. They then limited the analysis to addresses within 150 miles from Madison, because any address outside of that range would not be representative of the core Willy Street customer.
MTN focused on these Household and Individual customers for further analysis since (1) they comprise 86% of the transactions and 90% of the sales, and (2) demographic data is connected to residential locations. There were 31,800 total household (HH) and individual customers, or 94% of the total customer count from the Willy Street Co-op.
MTN then looked at the demographics in the trade areas around each of the three Willy Street stores to look for market characteristics of the immediate neighborhoods around each store. This data is based on their findings. This data is based on their findings. We don’t expect to get a new market study for at least three years, but we are looking for other sources for this data so that we could provide yearly updates.
In each chart, the 0% line represents the race/ethnicity of each group in the given trade area; the bars show by what percentage our Co-op customer demographics are above or below. In other words, where are we over- or under-represented by race/ethnic group and by how much?
Click to view metric: How Well Does the Co-op Prioritze DEI?
Why are we tracking this?
Owner perception of how much we are prioritizing DEI at the Co-op is one way to hold ourselves accountable.
What is shown by this chart?
This is the first time we’ve asked this question on a Co-op survey, so we are considering this year’s responses to be the benchmark.
2. The Co-op is a place where our community participates and is proud to shop.
Click to view metric: Completion of Customer Experience Surveys
Why are we tracking this?
Customer Experience (CX) surveys are distributed to randomly selected customers at all three stores after a transaction. The customers are invited to complete a survey about their experience that day in exchange for a $5 coupon. We feel that completing a survey that asks for such feedback is one way to measure Owner engagement and participation (goal #2).
What is shown by this chart?
This chart shows the percentage of distributed CX surveys that were completed by customers of our three stores by month. We will be working on increasing the percentage. CX survey invitations were not being offered at the self-checkout stations at West in Q2, but we have since rectified that issue and responses have gone up recently.
What is our goal?
Starting with quarter 4 of 2023, our goal is to always be increasing, or at least maintaining, the percentage each quarter. We achieved that goal in this quarter.
Click to view metric: “Likelihood to Recommend” by Store
Why are we tracking this?
The CX survey asks how likely the customer is to recommend Willy Street Co-op to friends and family. We feel that measuring this is an indicator of how proud to shop customers are (goal #2); one way we want to measure this data is by store at which he customers shop.
What is shown by these charts?
The chart shows the percentage of respondents who rated this question a 5 on a 5-point scale, with 5 being “very likely to recommend.”
What is our goal?
Starting in quarter 4 of 2023, our goal for this one is to increase or at least maintain the percentage of customers who gave us 5 out of 5 each quarter. We achieved that goal this quarter—the numbers stayed the same or increased slightly at each store.
Click to view metric: “Likelihood to Recommend” by Background
Why are we tracking this?
The CX survey asks how likely the customer is to recommend Willy Street Co-op to friends and family. We feel that measuring this is an indicator of how proud to shop customers are (goal #2). A secondary way we want to measure this data is by the background (ethnicity/race) of customers to determine where there may be discrepancies.
What is shown by these charts?
The two bar graph charts show what percentage of respondents, sorted by their answer to the “background” question, answered “5” on the five-point scale. The first of the bar graphs shows responses for the first quarter of 2023 for all three stores vs. responses from the first quarter of 2024. The second bar graph compares responses from all of 2022 vs all of 2023. No data in a column means that there were fewer than 20 respondents in that category, which could lead to an unreliable result.
Based on this data, we will need to investigate both what we are doing well, where the metric has increased and why the metric went down in some areas.
What is our goal?
Starting in quarter 4 of 2023, our goal for this one is for all BIPOC groups to meet or exceed the overall percentage. We did not achieve our goal in this quarter compared to 2023Q1.
Click to view metric: Owner Survey Response Rate
Why are we tracking this?
Measuring the proportion of Owners who complete the Owner Survey is one way for us to measure community participation.
What is shown by this chart?
We received 1,249 surveys by the end of February, 2023; at that time we had 33,184 active Owners, so 3.8% of active Owners completed the survey. We are considering this year’s survey response rate to be the new benchmark for three reasons: we have not conducted a survey since 2019; previous surveys were open to all customers rather than being focused on Owners; and this survey is notably longer than previous surveys. So we are not using a chart currently but will in the future when we have data to compare.
Retail & Supply Chain Strategy
1. Increased focus on DEI in the Co-op’s vendor pool.
Click to view metric: Number of Local & Inclusive Trade Vendors as Portion of All Vendors
Why are we tracking this?
Our goal is to increase the number of Local and Inclusive Trade vendors and products we carry. Prior to the implementation of the Inclusive Trade program we had not tracked demographic information for our vendors. We’re planning to update this information annually.
What is shown by this chart?
The following charts show the proportion of Inclusive Trade and Local vendors in our total vendor pool. Local Definition: We define “local” as anywhere within 150 miles of the Wisconsin capitol building or anywhere in the state of Wisconsin.
Click to view metric: Sales of Local & Inclusive Trade Products as Portion of Total Sales
Why are we tracking this?
Our goal is to increase the sales of Local and Inclusive Trade products we carry. We’re planning to update this information quarterly.
What is shown by this chart?
The following charts show the proportion of sales of Inclusive Trade and Local Products as a portion of our total sales for the last quarter.
2. Product mix that is aligned with our brand identity while also reflecting the communities we serve.
Employee Engagement
1. Our employees reflect the demographics of the communities we serve.
Click to view metric: Employee Demographics Compared to Community Demographics
Why are we tracking this?
The Coop desires to have a workforce that reflects the demographics of the communities we serve.
What is shown by this chart?
WSGC Employee Racial demographics % difference compared to Madison Area as of March of each year since 2021.
2. We will become an employer of choice through a culture of acceptance, inclusion, and respect.
Click to view metric: Employee Retention Rate by Quarter
Why are we tracking this?
The Co-op wants our employees to stay with us and continue to grow. To evaluate how many employees stay at the Co-op, we analyzed the employee retention rate.
What is shown by this chart?
This chart shows the employee retention rate by quarter since July 1, 2021. Retention rate is the percentage of employees who were still actively employed at the end of the period compared to the start of the period. The average retention rate for 2023 for the retail industry is 64.6%. Demographic data is updated in March annually.
