Here is a sampling of praise from the survey commissioned by The Inquirer:
Employees are treated "with dignity and respect," wrote one worker.
"I am given autonomy to get the work done in the style that I prefer," wrote another.
"I have the freedom to run my store like I own it," said another.
"It gives associates the ability to think and create rather than just follow directions," another said.
"Management treats people with respect." And, this worker added, there are "always opportunities to advance."
The kudos come just weeks after Brown (who learned the ropes as a youngster in his father's supermarket at 40th and Girard) sat with first lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address in January.
Brown, 46, and his company have become entrepreneurial poster children for opening supermarkets in neighborhoods that many chains dismiss as too poor to sustain full-service grocery stores with fresh food.
Why the worker worship?
In a word: Trust.
In an industry where megamergers have concentrated supermarket decision making into the hands of corporate chieftains in faraway headquarters, Brown's still runs things more like a small business.
The company trusts employees to make big decisions, allows them to make and learn from mistakes without retribution, and believes that - brace yourselves, Wharton gurus - too many managers can often muss things up.
"He really challenges the people within the departments and the department heads, our union members, to come up with ideas - to try things," said Wendell Young IV, who represents about 2,000 of Brown's workers at nine Pennsylvania stores as president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1776.
"In all the years we've been dealing with him, we've never had one case go to arbitration," said Young, who has known Brown since he opened his first store in 1989.
