Store Employee Mangaement

Store Employee Management

Brendan Lutz

January 25, 2013

Every single retail outlet in America employs part time workers, whether they are cashiers, sales people, maintenance or stock room staff, or anyone else necessary for the store’s day-to-day operations. With any part time job, people are very likely to leave their position for a variety of reasons. When an employee leaves a position in a store, it costs the store between $700 and $1000 (Jackson). Organizations are always working to reduce employee turnover, however, this is an even more challenging task in a retail setting, especially when dealing with part time employees. Some factors that may influence the employee job retention rate are work hours and schedules, relationships among staff members, and employee overall job satisfaction. Consequently, employers must utilize effective strategies to combat high employee turnover, especially with part time workers. Taking a look at the real life example of what happened when Harrods changed their outdated policies will demonstrate how an employer can effectively improve their employee retention to go above and beyond the industry average.

Retail stores are open longer hours each day than a typical business might be. Therefore, the standard 9-5 shifts will not always apply in a retail setting. Some stores are open later than others, but today you can usually find stores (typically gas stations, convenience stores or grocery stores) that are open 24/7. Retailers experience wide swings in labor needs throughout the day and week, just as other direct service sectors do. The prevailing human resource strategy in retail has necessitated heavy use of part-time workers who receive few or no benefits, particularly in grocery retail. In recent years, part-time work has spread to many areas of retail and can include low guaranteed weekly work hours, but there is also an expectation that workers “flex up” or agree to work as many as 40 hours per week on demand...