ACI Prensa Workers, Nov 17, 2024 / 08:00 am
“With God, the whole lot; with out God, nothing”: This maxim of her mom left a deep impression on Luz Maribel Jiménez, director of human assets at Carnicerías Jiménez, an award-winning Catholic household grocery retailer chain in Chicago.
In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language information accomplice, Jiménez shared her household’s guiding ideas to encourage entrepreneurs who aspire to guide a enterprise with values and objective.
“A very powerful classes I realized from my mother and father embody placing God and household first, sustaining a powerful work ethic, feeling delight and love for what you do, treating everybody with respect, and providing assist every time potential. These are simply a few of the classes,” stated Jiménez, one of many household’s daughters.
A legacy born from religion, effort, and sacrifice
In 1975, José Jiménez and his spouse, Guadalupe, opened a fruit retailer on the nook of twenty sixth and Pulaski, marking the start of the Jiménez household’s legacy in Chicago. From that first enterprise, they have been capable of broaden and rework their enterprise into Carnicerías Jiménez, now a sequence of eight shops that gives contemporary produce to the neighborhood.
Right now, José and his kids handle the enterprise, which is far appreciated for the contribution it makes to the area people. As well as, the corporate’s workers recognize its household ambiance.
“My mother and father constructed this enterprise from scratch. They constructed it on a basis of religion, love, respect, arduous work, dedication, and sacrifice,” Luz Maribel Jiménez shared.
Guadalupe, the mom of the household and one in every of its pillars, handed away on Feb. 7, 2022, leaving an incredible void however priceless classes, her daughter associated.
“Certainly, essentially the most vital problem we have now encountered as a household and as a enterprise has been the demise of my mom. Though she’s going to all the time be in our hearts, she performed an enormous position in our lives.”
Jiménez, who continues her legacy, shared with ACI Prensa a few of the classes her mom lived by.
1. ‘Religion is key.’
In response to Jiménez, the Catholic religion has been the driving pressure that undergirds the household in all its choices. “My mother and father all the time put God as the idea of each motion, from the smallest to essentially the most consequential.”
A transparent instance of this was when the household opened its retailer on Fullerton Avenue. José, the patriarch of the household, determined to construct a non-public chapel within the retailer to maintain alive his devotion to St. Martin de Porres, which he practiced rising up in Mexico. This resolution permits him and his workforce to hope to the saint and likewise to the Virgin of Guadalupe and St. Jude Thaddeus.
“Religion has been elementary” within the improvement and development of the enterprise,” Jiménez stated.
“Prayer and reflection have been guiding forces, serving to us make clear our imaginative and prescient and make essential choices. It has strengthened our resilience throughout tough instances, permitting us to keep up a optimistic angle and proceed transferring ahead,” Jiménez defined.
2. ‘Sustaining and transmitting household values.’
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The continuity of household values, in line with Jiménez, is one other of Carnicerías Jiménez’s mainstays.
“My mother and father have upheld and handed down our household values all through the generations by fostering open communication, sharing tales, encouraging participation in traditions, and main by instance,” she recounted.
Particularly, her father has been an distinctive storyteller: “For so long as I can bear in mind, he would interact us straight, utilizing examples from his experiences for example his factors, all the time concluding with an ethical lesson.”
On this regard, she addressed future generations of Latino youth to induce them to “all the time bear in mind their roots and embrace and have fun their religion, household, traditions, and abilities.”
“Their religion will information them on the appropriate path, whereas gratitude for his or her blessings will empower them. Household traditions and the shared values they keep are very important connections to the longer term,” she suggested.
3. Be grateful: ‘We can not obtain success alone.’
One other of the primary classes that the Jiménez household can depart to future generations of Catholic entrepreneurs, she stated, is having realized “to guide [their employees] with integrity, respect, and gratitude.”
“Though enterprise and monetary development is essential, we acknowledge that we can not obtain success alone. We should be grateful to our workers, clients, the communities the place we’re positioned, suppliers and advisers: all those that have contributed to constructing our enterprise,” she famous.
4. Consistently educate your self; ‘by no means lose sight of your desires.’
Jiménez additionally suggested entrepreneurs to decide to steady studying since, in line with her, “training is important to create optimistic modifications in your life and within the lives of others.”
“By no means lose sight of your desires; you might have the flexibility to realize them. Additionally, all the time bear in mind to understand those that supported you in your path to your objectives,” she added.
5. ‘Keep an setting the place workers really feel like household.’
One of many priorities of the Jiménez household has all the time been the well-being of its workers. Jiménez emphasised that the corporate has labored to create “an setting by which they really feel like household, valued and appreciated.”
“Our mentality has been to offer for our workers, our neighborhood, and all those that have helped us attain our fiftieth yr in enterprise,” she stated.
As well as, she recalled that the corporate’s insurance policies are primarily based on stable ideas of “honesty, humility, service, and gratitude.”
6. ‘Cash is a device, by no means an finish.’
For the Jiménez household, enterprise shouldn’t be only a means to make a revenue. The human assets director emphasised that “enterprise for the sake of constructing a revenue is rarely the best way” and added that “the top outcome and decision-making primarily based solely on numbers shouldn’t be the one metric to outline whether or not our enterprise or firm is worthwhile.”
“Cash is a device, by no means an finish,” she identified, emphasizing that the true measure of their success is what they will do for the neighborhood.
“Our enterprise has all the time measured itself and its profitability by what we are able to do to proceed to offer employment and stability in our neighborhoods. We do our greatest to offer/donate monetary help to the area people, the Catholic Church, and on the worldwide degree,” Jiménez famous.
Being a profitable enterprise, Carnicerías Jiménez has managed to have interaction domestically by donating monetary and meals help to charities, church buildings, and faculties. As well as, it sponsors neighborhood occasions and provides instructional packages and job coaching for deprived teams.
Globally, the corporate — beneath the management of José Jiménez — has offered catastrophe reduction, sending provides to numerous areas comparable to Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, and serving to to construct faculties, clinics, and houses in impoverished areas.
7. One final piece of recommendation: ‘Pray all the time; all the time take note of the phrases of Jesus.’
On the finish of the interview, Jiménez emphasised to younger people who the important thing to working a enterprise with values is to all the time stay in prayer: “At all times pray; all the time take note of the phrases of Jesus, his teachings, and his instance in the whole lot we do on this life.”
She additionally emphasised the significance of cultivating each oneself and one’s workers, avoiding the temptation to use assets for monetary achieve alone.
“Know that the standard of life you create, the standard of the work setting for your self and your individuals could have a big impact on the profitability of your efforts,” she defined.
Lastly, Jiménez shared two quotes which have all the time accompanied her and sum up her philosophy of labor and life:
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and significance and ought to be undertaken with painstaking excellence” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“Advert Majorem Dei Gloriam” (“For the larger glory of God”), the motto of the Society of Jesus
This story was first printed by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language information accomplice. It has been translated and tailored by CNA.
Diego Lopez Marina has a level in Communication Sciences with a specialization in journalism from the College of San Martín de Porres (Peru). He started his skilled profession in 2015, as an editor for the Journalistic Archive space of the Diario El Comercio. In 2016 he started working as an author for ACI Prensa and since 2018 he has been working as an internet editor.
