Hannaford, Portland Adult Ed partner on New Mainer leadership program
Hannaford Supermarkets has partnered with the city of Portland's adult education program to help New Mainers gain grocery retailing experience and potentially fill positions at stores in southern Maine.
The program offers 12 weeks of paid real-world experience at local Hannaford markets. The program recently graduated its first group and all three interns successfully were offered full time, permanent positions with the Scarborough-based company.
The training includes both classroom and in-store time. Each student is paired with a Hannaford mentor to learn the operations of a store and what it takes to run one.
“I'm fortunate to have been part of this program,” said intern Mamadou Coulibali, who is originally from Mali. “For someone who had no retail experience, the classroom time and hands-on training in the store gave me the basics of the operation, the coaching of associates and helped me understand the business culture at Hannaford.”
Students work in various departments throughout the store while shadowing store leadership to learn the business at a local level. Additionally, students spend three hours each week in a classroom at Portland Adult Education to reinforce business learnings, develop leadership skills, and share their experiences with each other.
At the conclusion of the program, interns can interview for and move directly into a variety of permanent leadership positions at Hannaford, such as assistant produce manager trainee, produce lead, assistant center store manager trainee, assistant department manager trainee and department manager trainee.
For Portland Adult Education students like Coulibali, the Hannaford program provided training and opportunity. Coulibali has a master’s degree in finance, and experience in accounting and management. After completing the internship program, he was hired as a produce lead at Hannaford.
“Through this work, we are learning how to best attract and recruit potential applicants and support training and career advancement from across different cultures. We can also better understand potential barriers and how to remove these barriers which can include such things as language and cultural acclimation and integration,” said Jim Hamilton, Hannaford’s vice president of operations.
“We’re excited by the results of this pilot program,” said Portland Adult Education Assistant Director Elizabeth Love. “All three interns bring a wealth of skills and expertise, and are highly motivated to build their careers in Maine.”
In addition to the programming partnership, Hannaford donated $15,000 to Portland Adult Education to support program development, coordination and instruction costs. The program is also supported by funding by the city of Portland and administered by the city’s Department of Housing and Economic Development.
“This is a great example of a win-win program, in which everyone benefits. It is a remarkable example of the creative ways in which proactive businesses can address their labor and leadership needs by leveraging the amazing and talented students at Portland Adult Education,” said Xavier Botana, superintendent of the Portland Public Schools, which includes Portland Adult Education.
Portland Adult Education is the largest adult education program in Maine and serves about 2,000 students in its academic and workforce programs each year. Students are racially and linguistically diverse with about 77% of students identifying as Black or African-American, with 45 primary languages spoken and nearly 70 nationalities represented.
Hannaford, owned by Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch multinational company, operates 184 stores in the Northeast and employs nearly 30,000 associates.
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