Good Morning SkedX'ers!
Today I want to discuss with you all how retailers who hired for the holiday influx can use this as an opportunity to develop and retain top talent. Strong retail sales have increased the demand for employees, notably in Calgary, Alberta. As the sales of the holiday season are over, retailers are optimistic for the revenue back to school shopping and warm weather will bring in. This large amount of growth potential has also drawn in American retailers, but among all retailers the main concern is meeting staff requirements.
"Going into this season, we were fairly optimistic that our revenue would hit targets . . . so we have to make sure we have enough associates in our stores," says Chris Taylor, vice-president of human resources for Future Shop.
Future Shop along with many other retailers increased the amount of people they hired over the holiday season, but they're not so quick to relieve those seasonal employees of their duties either. Having the extra employees allows for the new hires to not only see what working for the organization is like, but also allows for the retail companies to see who fits best and has real future potential.
"We expect to maintain our workforce" in 2012, Taylor says. "Even when a store is fully staffed . . . we tell our managers to be constantly on the lookout for talent."
The Western Canadian retail market is rapidly growing and outdoing the rest of the country in terms of economic outlook. With Alberta expected to lead in retail growth this year, many retailers are looking to expand into the west as well. The retail growth is also sparking growth in the hospitality industry, logistics and transportation which will eventually lead back to the retail industry growing even further.
With such a growing gas and oil industry as well, the retail sector is struggling to find and retain top talent that isn’t already headed towards the gas/oil industry.
"In Alberta, we're starting to feel it become a little bit more of a challenge in terms of candidate flow, but we were able to get to the numbers we needed," Taylor says.
In September retail sales rose 1 percent, which was doubled than what was expected putting pressure on retailers to employ talented individuals.
Although with economic uncertainty in the air still, retailers have to make strategic decisions for the New Year and assess what they can do to draw in top talent easier.
"A lot will depend on what (retailers) are seeing coming out of December in terms of their sales and their boxing week sales," says Jackie Ross, president of JRoss Recruiters.
With the increase in employees, retailers will also be looking how to manage this top talent as well as engage them. A simple way of doing this is by providing employees with the opportunity to have input in decisions that regard the business. This doesn't mean allow your employees to decide what your financial goals are going to be, but rather decisions that are relevant to them.
A great simple way of engaging employees is by letting them have input in the schedule making process. In the retail industry scheduling is a large part of the business and can eat up many man hours with so many edits. So instead why not utilize scheduling software to free up time for other responsibilities but also engage your employees.
To learn about how we here at SkedX can create a customized engagement solution for you, please click here.
Above post contains excerpts from: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Retailers+holiday+hiring+stay+strong+into+year/5918543/story.html
Above image taken from: http://www.lanesales.com/images/ist2_13442944-made-in-canada-product-s-barcode.jpg
Happy Engaging,
Aman
