Enhancing Employee Performance in the Retail Industry
Retail industry faces many challenges today due to rapidly growing e-commerce platforms and the current unsettling political-economic situation around the world. Such challenges Include:
High turnover rates
In the U.S. alone, 2022 saw a turnover rate of 75.8% for hourly in-store positions and 29.2% for assistant store managers. Around 50% of hourly employees quit the job within 120 days
Employee Engagement
A 2022 survey found that 32.7% of retail workers were only somewhat engaged, while 29.3% were not very engaged.
Overtime
More than 70% of worried retail employees report feeling stressed out by last-minute schedule adjustments and long hours. In fact, unpredictable schedules and inflexible start and stop times are the top reasons retail employees consider quitting their jobs (McKinsey)
How can Retailers Improve?
In order to address the challenges above, here are a few crucial tips:
Written By:
Kartik Ramani
Founder of StratRoom
Sherni Makhijani
Aligning Employees’ Goals with Business Goals
Employees tend to be more motivated when they recognize how their tasks and responsibilities contribute to the organization’s success. A sense of purpose at work, according to 55% of respondents, motivates and engages workers, improving performance and productivity.
Clarify Job responsibilities
Which entails giving employees a comprehensive understanding of the duties that make up their position, their specific responsibilities, and their individual performance expectations. This can aid in reducing uncertainty and misunderstanding while keeping workers focused on the appropriate tasks.
Effective Scheduling
Take into account the size of your entire crew as well as the needs of the company and your employees. Align the schedule according to the store’s traffic and sales patterns.
Investing in continuous training and development programs
40% of employees are trained once a year or less, and 48% of them feel a lack of recognition. Keeping track of employees’ learning, and allowing existing employees to upskill on a regular basis shows that you believe in them, it also helps them acquire skills and information to perform better.
Giving Employees a Defined Career Path
Providing employees with a definend career path or professional advancement opportunities are crucial 68% of retail workers indicated they frequently think about the growth of their goals and career. Discovering the goals of your staff can help you to set and explain a clear route. After that, offer possibilities for training accordingly.
How can software tools help employee performance?
Using a performance management system can help simplify the entire process of organizing, keeping track of, and evaluating employees, in a clear and measurable way. Organizational performance and goals are cascaded to individual employees, with responsibility linked to results.
Employees will benefit greatly from clear job descriptions, with clear KPI and job expectations on a platform.
Personal scorecards are used to track contributions, identify and benchmark high performers, provide feedback and corrective action plans for ongoing performance alignment, and assess contributions. This facilitates managers when giving recognition and ongoing feedback for employees.
It helps upper management plan employee development initiatives. This eases performance analysis and recognizing employee achievements, encouraging them to improve their skills and performance.
Keep track of how employee goals are progressing and course-correct as needed, while also keeping track of the resources available. By comparing the predicted time and resource needed with the reality, it allows leaders to better monitor the effectiveness of resource usage.
How Do Organizations Use It?
One company that has implemented this system is one of the largest franchisees and operators of some of the leading fast food chains, with over 2000 outlets across 155 cities. Since using it, they have managed to:
- Navigate and execute brand strategies effectively
- Strengthen team collaboration
- Improve their process efficiency
- Tightened their organizational alignment
- Reduce resource costs by eliminating manual work
- And create a singular source of truth for employees throughout each level, providing clarity
Performance Management Software provides a precise and up-to-date perspective, allowing leaders to set expectations, specify employee goals, define performance measurement, communicate employee performance reviews and appraisals, and provide feedback, managers and employees collaborate within the system. If used continuously, it can increase the productivity of the workforce, strengthen the team, boost revenue per employee, and create a workforce that is capable and dedicated.
For more information, contact sherni@otiinternational.com
Written By:
Kartik Ramani
Founder of Stratroom
Sherni Makhijani
Digital Marketer
