FOUR SQUARE HELP FOR YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30879, 12 October 1965, Page 26

FOUR SQUARE HELP FOR YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS

Co-operative's Incentives For Assistants

There is ample room at the top for young men in the Four Square grocery organisation, which is one of the largest coioperative grocery chains in the world outside the United States.

A staff training scheme for young grocers was launched by Four Square in 1948. During the second year of the scheme’s operation, an attractive award system was introduced as an incentive to the many young assistants on the organisattion’s staff. Top prizes under the scheme can lead to young assistants becoming established in their own shop.

Four Square conventions are held annually in the main centres throughout New Zealand. From these, the leading assistants are given a year’s probation in a Four Square store. If they show the necessary aptitude, they are then wholly financed into the store. The training scheme aims to continually improve the standard of Four Square assistants —and thus the service that the group’s stores can offer to the public.

All the courses and test papers are compiled by an Education Committee, which comprises a panel of experienced grocers and experts in the various fields of grocery merchandising. Assistants are divided into junior, senior, and advanced senior groups. During the year, assistants are forwarded bulletins, with test papers, attached, which they study and answer. They also attend monthly evening meetings in various

centres where practical demonstrations and lectures are given, all designed to improve the standard of service given by assistants. The grocery business is the main theme of these meetings. But they are also socially valuable because they enable assistants to meet one another and this helps to produce the enthusiasm on which the organisation thrives. This year, more than 70 young assistants from many

parts of the South Island attended the Christchurch convention. During the weekend they sat their tests and

at the grand finale on Monday evening awards were announced and prizes presented.

During the convention, the assistants undertook a wide range of practical tests and also sat a three-hour arithmetic and general knowledge test. Their performances were weighed by the judges, together with the standards the assistants had attained in the theoretical tests during the year.