Staffing at the weekend - how do you manage this?

It's another weekend in retail and it's a story of work for some full-timers, some part-timers and weekend staff. I've worked in retail and with retailers for a long time, so I've seen the staffing at the weekend dealt with in a host of different ways. I'll look at some below-

Weekend-only staff

There have always been weekend-only staff in retail situations. Often school, college or university students that are looking for a little extra money or (mainly) women whose husbands work during the week. There are benefits to this, mainly that you can give your week team a good rest, keep them happy and more likely to stay. However the lack if experience that the non-full-time staff have can sometimes be a barrier to great customer service and high standards. But that's where you come in as a manager. If you ensure that as many hands and as many tasks as possible are customer-facing on the busy weekend trade days, then you minimise the need for staff that aren't in the building as long to carry out what are perhaps the more complex tasks.

In addition to this, it's a case if ensuring that your own workload is majorly focused on customers at this time, so you are there as a guide and influence to your team, as I spoke about in the blog below-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/02/be-on-shop-floor-and-connect-with-your.html

Full-timers working every weekend

I have worked with retailers that do this, and there isn't really as much long-term objection to this as you might think. If you set up the store or vacancy in the basis that this will happen then there isn't a change to cope with. If a full-time member of staff has two days off during the week and works the weekend or a day off in the week and works one if the weekend days then they soon get into a routine and it isn't a problem. Upsides include a continuity in staffing as the busy days will have your more experienced team members. A possible downside is that your team members may (and I mean only may) look elsewhere to employers that don't currently require their team to work at the weekend. Although it's usually not an issue, there is still the stigma attached to working at the weekend and some may want to look at alternatives even if when they sit down and look at it, there isn't an issue that affects their life that much.

A mix -weekend in, weekend off

I've recently seen a rise in the alternate weekend rota as a way of covering staffing, where there is half of your regular weekday team in on one weekend and the other half in on the alternate weekend. This gives a good balance of both worlds, so you have some experienced team members alongside the weekend-only team and it gives everyone the opportunity of every other weekend off. I personally like this idea, as it gives people a weekend off but also gives them time to get things arranged in the week on the alternate week. If you're full-time then it can be a struggle to arrange doctors, dentists, hospital appointments without disruption to your normal working hours. This arrangement can be better for employees and employer.

Teams take on the characteristics of their leaders

I was watching the Champions League football last night between Chelsea and Paris Saint Germain with great interest. Although I'm a football fan, it was the interaction between the two teams and their treatment of each other and the referee that caught my eye. Chelsea were harassing and cajoling, they complained in unison at any minor indiscretion, they were up-in-arms at the slightest foul on their player whilst pushing and mouthing off at their opponents. It was a horrible right and a really bad advert for football, Chelsea and the Champions League.

In short, the Chelsea team took on the characteristics and manner of their manager, Jose Mourinho. He is a manager of some repute, although there are mixed feelings in the game about how positive an influence he is. Mourinho speaks after matches and blames opposing players, referees, linesmen, the referrers association, the football association. He really doesn't like losing, but rather than this becoming an obsession to win next time, it turns sour and accusational.

Mourinho himself started on the back room staff of Sir Bobby Robson, who's teams were passionate, good-natured and driven to win by trying their best.

All teams inherit the characteristics of their leaders if they stay together long enough. And I say leaders rather than managers because different teams have different dynamics, so the leaders are not always the managers.

Think about how you want your team to be, if you are a leader. And to determine how your team are, you need to look at how you are. If you display all the characteristics that you desire from your team, and train, mentor and manage your team in that way then it's inevitable that they will turn out in many ways like you.

Is this all good?

I remember back when I was managing when I was younger, I was often paired up with an assistant manager who was older than me, female and a different style if manager to me. This have a balanced management team that did different things well. In your team, you will want people that have the same goals as you and that you can work with but you will also want a mix of skills. Having people that are great at different things is a really good balance to have in any organisation. Getting there can sometimes be a journey. It's a case of fully establishing what you want when you start the recruitment process. For different roles, you will need not only different experience or qualifications but different characters and characteristics. Set out person specifications as well as job requirements when you recruit and you can start to build the team that you want and need to succeed.

Think about it!

E-Receipts are here!

And what a great way to collect email addresses and communicate with your customers. I've just shopped in Cotswold Outdoors, a first for me, and when I was asked if I wanted to sign up for their loyalty card, one of the benefits stated was that I would receive e-receipts. Now I've never seen it as a benefit before, but having access to an account that can provide proof of purchase for any items you buy from that store is a great selling point to a customer to take away the hassle of storing and accessing receipts.

From the point of view of the retailer, you immediately gather your customers email address, which I know some customers can be reluctant to give. It allows you to feed them more information than just the e-receipt, such as -

* Here's how much you've saved with us this month/year by using your loyalty card

* Thanks for shopping with us today, by way of thanks, here's a voucher for 10% off your next visit. To make it easier we've already pre-loaded this discount in to your card

* Thanks for stopping by today, we wanted to tell you that our sale starts next week with up to 50% off sale items

It's the last one that got me thinking. Boots used to have machines in store where customers put in their loyalty card and browsed for any relevant vouchers. What if you had something similar, where it triggered an email if you went into store but didn't buy. Something like-

We noticed you came into store tad but didn't buy anything. Just to remind you that if you can't find an item in store, you can order it online and have it delivered to store or your home the next day.

Have you downloaded our app? It makes shopping on the go easy, and the app stores all your e-receipts.

Did you buy something in store today? Forgot to produce your loyalty card? Don't worry, come back in within 7 days with your card and the receipt and we'll add the points in for you.

I think that little differences will make some retailers more successful than others. If you can use these little tools to drive customers to your door then you will win.



Not everything can be bought on the High Street

Get totally behind your promotions to make them successful

Retailers of all shapes and sizes run promotions at different stages. For the likes of Tesco and Boots it's a massive part of their to have a 3 for 2 or Half Price promotion. So why, as I make my way around retail outlets, are the so many half-hearted promotions out there? Why do retailers think up what they must believe is a good offer and then not make it look full? Interesting? Appealing? Worthy of a second look?

Customers can spot these half-hearted promotions from a mile off, so why do we do it? What are we trying to achieve by it? Where do we go from here?

Lots of questions asked, so I suppose now it's time to back this up with some answers. There are several trains why retailers have these half-hearted promotions. One is a disjointed structure where, in large retailers, the store staff dong perhaps understand or buy in to what promotion the head office marketing department are trying to push. I've looked at involving each side in decision making in an earlier blog-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/02/opinion-even-fact-can-be-best-judged-by.html

And the relationship between stores and head office here-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/01/when-head-office-tail-wags-dog.html

And in addition to this, communication is absolutely key. If a marketing campaign is sent out to stores with a cover sheet explaining what the promotion is about, why it is being run and what is expected from the stores then it will undoubtedly get a better response than the one that doesn't have this. And, if resources permit, a telephone call to discuss this would turn the success level up even further.

Another reason is just laziness. Again, I've experienced this in large national retailers where the team filling a promotional section know that they will also be the team taking it off when it ends. So they don't fill it right up, it doesn't look appealing, it doesn't sell as well as expected and the team feel less inclined to get behind the next promotion. It's down to the team leaders to monitor this and police it. Once you've set the standards with your team then they will follow and get behind these promotions. Being in control of this and enthusing your team will aid the success of all promotions and team spirit.

To add to this, I'd say that if you are a single outlet or other small retailer that your promotions need to be considered. Just putting on a promotion because "we always have one now" or because "it fits into our promotions planner" isn't a very good reason. Having a promotion because "it's launching a great new product" or because "we have a great offer that out customers will buy into" are really good reasons. Thinking about Boots again, their promotions on skincare and shampoos are great but they seem to follow a schedule where they regularly have promotions on their healthcare department. I don't think that offers on eye drops or fungal nail treatments is going to create queues at their front door. The promotion needs to create excitement, even anticipation to get customers through your door and repeatedly coming back.

If you take a of these factors into account and put them together to create promotions that are well-stocked, look great, and well-thought-out and have a buy in from both staff and customers then this will give your business a real boost.

Not everything can be bought on the High Street

Be on the shop floor and connect with your team

What happens when your team (good and bad) are allowed to run things for themselves?

I ask this question because it's something I've experienced recently and the medium to long term consequences can be quite devastating.

It's a large team that I've done some work with and got quite close to. It can probably be broadly split into two factions - those that work really hard and have the wellbeing of the store and customers at heart, and those they don't. I think anyone that has worked in a large store has had a similar experience. In this case it's the long-standing team members that take care of everything and this half of the team carry out approximately 90% of the work. I'm some instances it's because they just get on with it, in others it's because the newer colleagues have t been trained. Many of the symptoms of this divide are amplified due to the fact the management team spend so much time in their offices and have no presence on the shop floor. The shop floor is where a management team should spend the majority if their time, and is where standards are set and policed. Without this management presence, this particular retailer has suffered in areas.

The established members of the team that were happy in the short term to pick up the pieces have started to become resentful of their extra duties and the lack of support from management and colleagues. It's created a lack of respect for the management team and two separate teams in the same store.

Now for all you owners and managers out there, a simple solution has probably already occurred to you. It's so often missed by retailers. Far too many managers spend far too much time away from their teams and their customers. If you don't want to spend this time out there then retail management or ownership may not be for you.

Communication and support of your team is of paramount importance and without it you won't succeed. Knowing exactly what is going on with your team, particularly having seen it with your own eyes gives you the opportunity to set the agenda, train effectively, gather customer feedback and get the support of your team. All of these factors not only make your team a success, it makes the job 100 times more interesting. Of you're not doing it already then give it a try.


Not everything can be bought on the High Street-

Opinion, even fact, can be best judged by debate in retail

I am firmly of the belief that reading expands the mind, and I generally get something out if every book I read. I've just finished a short book on the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's called Thirteen Days and was written by Robert F. Kennedy. The book itself is quite factual and it isn't until I reached the conclusions after the crisis was over that I thought of practical applications towards business. In the chapter "Some of the things we learned..." Robert Kennedy stated that he felt it of significant importance during the crisis that there were different points of view throughout the process. The group of people that sat together to deliberate and report back to the President (the ex comm group) had people from different backgrounds and had different ideas on how to handle the crisis. Robert Kennedy believes that from this group, the right decisions and course of action was achieved because "opinion, even fact, can be best judged by conflict, by debate." He even goes so far as to say that this lack of conflict was part of the failure of an earlier Kennedy administration operation in Cuba - the Bay of Pigs invasion.

In terms of the way this can bring about lessons for business for me, is as far as business decisions are made. Too often one part if the business makes decisions that affect other parts of the business without consulting them. Taking the time to have different viewpoints and for this to provide the opportunity for the decision to be debated can only be healthy. I liken this to the coalition government we have had in this country for nearly the last five years. Although we don't 100% what has happened behind the closed doors of government, it appears from the outside that each party have had to agree on policy. In many cases this has resulted in policy being adapted to keep both parties happy - and for the common good of the country.

The book also reminds me of another book I read fairly recently, called Why Your Boss Is Programmed to Be a Dictator: A Book for Anyone Who Has a Boss or Is a Boss by Chetan Dhruve. It's well worth a read and in one chapter he tells about the mistakes made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq because the military's advisers told their boss (President George W. Bush) what they thought he wanted to hear. More debate would probably have resulted in a different course of action and many fewer lives lost.

Lessons for retail in my eyes will include a level of store representation in head office decisions that affect stores for larger organisations. These decisions may have implications for stores that weren't envisaged but someone from store level can ask these questions and point out these potential issues. This will also have the added advantages that the walls between stores and head office are broken down and that stores have a buy-in involvement in the process.

For smaller retailers, as I know many of my readers are, it can mean involving all of your team and ideally some of your customers in the decision making process. Having this discussion and listening to any dissenting voices before finalising a decision can help you to think of the things you may have missed in your own and to refine the decision so it works best for your team and customers alike.


Not everything can be bought on the High Street

How do you retain your talent?

Retailers, how do you keep hold of your talented employees. In my experience in UK retail, there are always a large proportion of the team that are students, those returning to work, those doing this whilst they look for something else. Often these are talented and valuable members of your team, and you've spent time and money in recruiting and training these people. Your customers build a rapport with them and they know your business well. I don't think that there are ways of keeping 100% of these employees happy or a single way to make a large swathe of them stay but there are methods to make each individual have a higher propensity to stay.

If you are in retail, your traditional armoury in this area can often be limited. You will probably have restrictions on pay rises, bonuses, overtime, promotion, transfers and formal training. This doesn't mean that you should give up. There are other means and ways of improving and maintaining employee morale and this means that each member of your team is more likely to stay. And in this sentence lies the first such thing that you can do to help.

If you treat each member of your team as an individual then you will immediately increase their happiness at work. It sounds simple, but I can tell you from experience that not every manager or business owner does this. A large part of feeling valued by an employer is feeling that they understand you and care about you - not just in your job role but in your life. One of the very best mangers I've worked with had a fantastic memory for what her team had told her and could recall those little details that meant something to you. Mention that you were going away for the weekend in a few months and she would wish you a nice weekend just before and ask you how it went just after. Whether this was genuine interest or a faked act it went a long way to ensuring that the team worked really well for her and respected her hugely.

I'd say a similar but distinct thing is to ensure that your team feel appreciated. Money isn't the only form of appreciation here - just saying "thank you" really does go a very long way. Allowing a valued team member to go 5 minutes early to catch their children's school play or a similar act ensures that feeling of value and trust.

There is the issue of promotion that can be a major factor here, particularly with your student population. By promotion, I don't just refer to the straight up and down promotion lines of sales assistant, team leader, assistant manager, store manager that traditional stores have as their structure. Other, sometimes more subtle, changes to someone's job role can add to their interest and commitment to the business. Key holding duties, involvement in special projects, leasing a small team in a specific task or learning new parts of the operation all add to the interest level. And this, in turn, adds to the chance that your team member could stay.

Now these are ways to attract and retain quality employees from whatever their background. Never underestimate how interesting and rewarding the job is on how much your team want to stay. And that goes for all of your team, no matter what their background.

Make decisions based on long-term trends rather than one-off incidents

I've been working with a few retailers recently and we've been looking at the long-term trends in their business. This is getting a fix on what us happening on an average day or event rather than looking at one instance and making a knee-jerk decision.

For example, one retailer has a fortnightly run when they change their promotions over. It keeps their offering looking fresh and keeps customer interest levels high. On the first such changeover of the new year, there were a few changes to how things are done and this meant that the team delivering this were completed early. The retailer wanted to immediately cut the hours allocated to this task and make a cost saving. However, my instinct was to wait and assess how this change went over proceeding weeks, to ensure that the time saving was ongoing, rather than just a one-off event. As it happened, there was a cost saving, but only at about half the level that was expected after the first incidence.

My point is, that by making a decision after the first event, you aren't getting the full picture and may have to make the decision more than once.

Every change to your business will necessitate at the very least, a thought process that looks at whether this changes affects other parts of the business. A new product may need staff training, a change in opening hours will need staff consultations for a change in their hours. And so on.

The next step is how to evaluate the change and how you will make changes, and this is mainly done with evidence. See how the new product is projected to increase sales and how much extra/different knowledge each team member needs to be able to sell it. From there, you have a training budget and can measure this against expected sales. Ensure that it is cost-effective.

As in the example I cited above, an analysis if the changes over several weeks and plotting the amount of time saves on each changeover will give you an average number of hours saved per fortnight and then either a reallocation of hours elsewhere in the business, or a staff consultation to see where hours can be saved. In our case, there was a vacancy that came up somewhere else in the store and someone volunteered to change roles and more over there.

Communication is the key, and being able to discuss these matters openly and honestly with your team will ensure a smooth transition in the event of any change.

How to sell your home: What estate agents don't tell you by Steven Thompson http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5HOJAM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_awF5ub0SFJ9E4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5HOJAM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_awF5ub0SFJ9E4