More Employee Retention Tips for Retailers

By Allan Pulga

As a wireless retailer, you are no stranger to employee turnover and seasonal staffing. But what are some measures you can take to reduce the need to hire and train new employees?

Kathy Mance, vice-president of the National Retail Federation (NRF), says a major obstacle for retailers is that a large portion of the labour pool considers retail careers as dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.

“Look at Nationwide’s Super Bowl commercial with Kevin Federline dreaming he’s made it big, and he wakes up as a quick-serve-restaurant employee,” she told Tim Parry of Multichannel Merchant magazine. “You can’t give retail a much more negative image than that.”

Parry notes that while retail hours – which typically include nights and weekends – aren’t for everybody, the pay isn’t exceptional and schedules depend on seasonal fluctuations in business, retailers can still do a few things to hang onto good employees.

“Obviously if you’re paying higher wages than your local competitors, store staffers are more likely to stay with you,” writes Parry. The NRF reports that many retailers actually pay above the average retail wage of $10 an hour.

Others go further and offer benefits usually reserved for full-time or corporate employees. Parry says Starbucks and Ikea offer their employees full health benefits. Starbucks even provides workers with stock-option grants and 401(k)s with matching contributions to employees who put in as few as 20 hours a week.

NRF’s Mance says communication between head office and store-level employees is vital to retaining retail employees. “I’ve talked to sales associates in some stores that don’t have a clue where their company’s headquarters are. How do you expect to retain them if they don’t know the company’s culture? What can they be proud of?”

Of the 1,003 retail employees polled by St. Louis-based HR firm Maritz in October 2005, 38 per cent were not satisfied with the way their organization communicated with them. Also, 32 per cent did not regularly receive feedback on how their work contributed to the success of their organization.

“Valuing the store employees’ opinion… and thanking them for their role is not a part of the everyday retail existence,” says Mance, who encourages companies to better acknowledge store employees’ contributions.

Parry writes that last year, upon evaluating the training practices in its North American retail operation, Office Depot created ‘Project Pearl,’ a program to provide a supportive environment for store associates to grow and develop their careers.

Spokesperson Mindy Kramer told Parry that as part of Project Pearl, the company standardized job titles and clearly defined what’s required for associates to advance within the company.

Qualifying for a promotion requires a combination of hours worked and formal training. Candidates receive on-the-job training for their new role as well as the opportunity to participate in mentoring programs.

Programs like these show employees that their success with the retail company is not limited to the job they’re doing – they aren’t stuck in a dead-end job at all.