High employee turnover means constant headaches for business owners, but it needn’t be difficult to attract (and retain) the right people, says business growth and development consultant to the retail home furnishings industry Gordon Hecht, writing for US trade magazine Your Source News …
Hop onto LinkedIn almost any day of the week and you’ll see people celebrating their work-iversary – you know, the anniversary of when they started at their current job.
Three of my work friends recently completed 25 years at the same company. One more completed 35 years. And this is at a time that people change jobs more often than they change the oil in their car.
I’ve got a few decades in the retail home products biz. It took me 10 companies to get there. The breakdown is 34 years with four different outfits, and 16 years divided among six others. You can easily surmise that I’ve worked with businesses that were great at employee retention. Others, not so much.
You may be experiencing a revolving door at your shop. Employees coming and going. Staff turnover is not always unhealthy to your company, especially if you have a bad player, but the cost of training and lost revenue affects your bottom line and customer service.
Your company’s culture, policies and pay can speed or slow the revolutions on the staffing revolving door. Here’s a few tips I learned about attracting and keeping great people …
Give ‘em a chance
The first retailer I worked for was a major player in our desert town. The operation required several lower-level manual labour positions. Put unkindly, that means grunt work.
The owner, who had come from humble beginnings, had a policy of giving anyone a chance. Even if he only hired them for a day. At the time I started, the 10-person delivery and warehouse team had three former convicts, three people under 19 years old, and one homeless person.
Seven out of 10 were people you might never consider hiring. Here’s the deal. All seven of us were grateful for the chance to earn a buck. We showed up every day and earned our pay, because we knew no-one else wanted us.
It’s OK to hire someone for a day, week, or month. If they are looking for work, they will take it. Give that next misfit candidate a chance. You may be surprised.
Invest in your team
It’s hard enough to find good people. The cost of having empty seats on your sales or operations runs in the thousands. Compound that with the cost of onboarding and initial training, and you’ve got quite an investment.
But training doesn’t end with onboarding. It is an everyday thing. The most successful retail sales team I worked for had over 500 retail sales associates (RSAs). Each day started with a 15-minute training meeting. An interactional review of advertised goods – location, inventory, step-ups and step-downs. How to offer financing and service packages. Every meeting ended with one RSA presenting their best greeting, something that would encourage conversation.
Saturday was an all-work day. It started with sales or vendor training. Sure, specs were part of it, but ‘how to sell’ was the focus. Each region had a monthly sales rally with … more training. That’s 36 training sessions in a 30-day month. Every RSA was primed for success. More closing means more money. And less departures.
Top-heavy pay
Selling is not a very fair way to make a living. The top producers earn more than the cellar dwellers. Your sales staff may complain that Suzy Supersales gets all the ‘good ups’, and Wally Walk ’em gets the tyre-kickers. But it ain’t true. Suzy just works better, harder, smarter.
One of the high-performing retailers I worked for had a unique monthly bonus system. High performers were richly rewarded, average salespeople got a few bucks, and those below average got zilch. The top third of salespeople collected two-thirds of the bonus money.
FYI, bonuses were paid on sales volume, service package closing, and average sales ticket – all the categories that keep your shop profitable.
Holiday presence
Retail is detail. It also means working all of the national holidays while your friends and family are enjoying the day off.
One (and only one) of the retailers I worked for considered sale holidays an all-work day for all corporate managers too. That meant the finance manager, warehouse manager, comptroller, merchandise and marketing execs, and the CEO worked the stores on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and July 4th. They didn’t just stroll through. They greeted shoppers, thanked buyers for their purchase, put away demo boxes and swatches. It became a culture of One Team, through actions and not words.
The RSAs still had to miss family functions. But they saw that they weren’t in it alone.
We’re all in the selling game
When you think about it, attracting and retaining employees is not much different then selling a product in your store. Just as every incoming shopper is valuable, so is every job candidate. Drop your prejudices on appearance, speech, or the vehicle they drove to get to your store. You don’t know when the next $10k buyer or $1m employee will show up.
Good sales training is like a great sales presentation. Once your team has ‘sold themselves’ on your merchandise, it’s easier to sell it to a shopper.
Your employees are buyers too. They are buying your compensation package and selling their services. Give them a good deal and they’ll stay for a while. Give them a great deal and you’ll have them for decades.
Even the best pay can’t overcome a toxic culture. You can’t create a culture, but you can live it. Build a team by being a leader and a player. Celebrate the winners and their victories. Ease the harmful players out. Then you can let more winners in.
Gordon can be reached at [email protected]
