Is there a simple formula to getting the best retail staff on your store floor - and keeping them?

Is there a simple formula to getting the best retail staff on your store floor - and keeping them?

If you join up the comments of a variety of presenters on this year's Westfield World Retail Study Tour, it would seem there is: recruit the best, train them well, make their remuneration appealing and watch your sales grow. It's that simple. Or is it?

It has long been debated in Australia the reasons why retail is not perceived as a career here in the same ways Americans embrace it. And a number of Australian retail chains are now investing time and effort into addressing all three components of a successful employee relationship.

What was clearly evident listening to presenters on the tour was that there is no magic formula - there are as many different viewpoints as there were presenters.

And there's be substantial debate on whether many of the approaches being tried in the US would work in the Australian market. The most contentious of those would be commission-based remuneration programs.
Five retailers explain their approach...


The Container Store:

The 42-strong The Container Store, a big box retailer resembling Howards Storage World on speed, has a novel approach to finding the right staff for their shop floor: All its staff are trained to recruit.

If they're in a retail or service outlet and they notice someone who gives great service, who has the right attitude and exudes friendliness, they'll hand them a card inviting them to apply for a job.

"We have to be really committed to having great great people who feel the same emotional commitment to our store as we do," explains Valerie Richardson, VP Real Estate.

"We are fanatical about hiring great people. What we say is one great person has the productivity of three average people."

The people The Container Store employs "are passionate about helping people, they love the product lines we offer, they know they can make a difference".

"We hire them at soccer games, at cash registers when they're on check out. Everyone in the company carries this ‘hire me' card which - if they find somebody [great] working in grocery store - they hand out."

Once hired, there's an intensive training program which dwarfs anything Inside Retailing has heard of in Australia. First year employees get a total of 241 hours training,.

"In the US retail industry, the average is eight hours. Usually it is ‘here's the cash register, here's the bathroom, you get your lunch there. See you!'."

But it is all done as part of a broader company culture.

"We believe retail is the greatest industry for career development. It offers so many opportunities to contribute to communities in growth and employment, so we believe that the best and the brightest, the most talented individuals, if we can create the environment within the retail organisation then those folk will be attracted to what the retail industry has to offer.

"We have to engage our employees in the same way we want to engage our customers."

Communication is a big part of that engagement.

"Communication is leadership. It makes them feel part of the process."

The Container Store's training encompasses not just customer service techniques, but the values of the business.
Remuneration is set higher than many mainstream retailers, says Richardson. The Container Store pays $12 to $14 per hour - which compares favourably with around $7 at Wal-Mart. But none of the staff are on commission.

Nordstrom:

With 104 full-line department stores across the US, Nordstrom has built a unique culture in which floor staff are empowered to make decisions most retailers would leave to management - and the organisational chart is an inverted pyramid.

"We really believe in empowerment," explains Brooke White, VP of public relations. "We want people to take care of the customer the way they see fit. So we give them all the tools to do that."

And, she says, they'll back them even if the decision is wrong, which it rarely is.

As for the inverted pyramid: at the bottom of the pyramid sit Nordstrom's directors, at the top its sales people.
"At Nordstrom we work our way down the corporate ladder," says White. "They're at the top. Our whole system only exists because of them. If they're not selling anything then we don't have a job."

"From a management standpoint we try to get out of the way of our sales people so they can get on with serving the customers and not have to keep coming to us to ask permission to do things.

"My job is to look after them - I'm working for them."

Before a new sales person is hired by Nordstrom, they're subjected to behavioural screening during their job interview to help the company understand the type of person they're going to get.

"We actually don't care if they don't have a retail background or not. Sometimes it is helpful if they don't because they won't come in with a lot of attitude from other retailers. "We have a lot of people who come to Nordstrom as a second career - from accountants and doctors and bankers to you name it - they just want something different."

Part of the Nordstrom culture is to recognise that every sales associate has their own style, says White. "It's not like saying here's the manual on great service or how to create a great relationship."

The chain's sales people are paid on a commission basis. "So the sky's the limit - there is no ceiling - as much as they can sell they can make."

Nordstrom has an elite group of top sellers - who achieve $1 million or more a year. Last year there were 140 in that group.

"They're great self-starters; we've built them the store, we provide them with business cards, all the technology they need, we buy all their merchandise for them and it's virtually their store - it just has our name outside it," explains White.

"When customers shop with us under those circumstances, they don't really feel like they're shopping with Nordstrom, they feel like they're shopping with Paul or with Susan - they really identify with that person. So it's important to us to build those relationships - to emulate that though our whole workforce."

White says the only message the company gives its front line staff relates to service and selling. "If you take care of the selling, the volume will follow."

With a commission-based sales structure, isn't there the risk that associates will get too competitive to the detriment of the customer, one of the Westfield tour participants asked.

"If there are two people who've helped me and I approach you, you look after me. That's the way it works - everything revolves around the customer. If there's ever any dispute amongst the sale staff the manager will say "well who did the customer choose?"

"At the same time the sales team are helping each other out all the time, covering each other's days off. So if I am your personal and it's day off, a lot of time the sales people will take care of each other. They'll look after the other's customers and give them the sales.

"There are no rules on that. There are rules on not stealing [customers], and we avoid the sharking thing - the shark on the floor, the tough seller, the pushy seller who is cutting all the other people out of the way.

 They won't last here very long. The customer comes first and the customer can't come first if there are sharks on the floor," explains White. 

By Robert Stockdill, publisher, Inside Retailing Magazine.