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From the Publisher: May 2006 |
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Written by Sue Fredericks
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Training for Success
The March issue of The Graff Retail Report had an
interesting article describing the way successful retailers hire and
keep employees today. The story, which originally appeared in the
Boston Globe, stated that, “Retail has long been considered a second or
third choice by many job seekers because of low starting salaries, high
turnover rates, and relatively sparse benefits … But that may soon
change as a new breed of upscale, service-oriented companies look to
lure, train, and retain a more professional workforce – including the
elusive college graduate.”
The story is about The Container Store, a U.S. chain that specializes in the sale of household organizing goods, which claims that their 20-25 per cent annual growth comes from the emphasis they place on training and retaining employees. Some of the hallmarks of their success include: 240 hours of paid training in the first year of employment (compared to an industry standard of seven hours); cross-training on multiple jobs; higher wages – a full 10 per cent of revenues are committed to store payroll versus an industry standard of three to four percent; and generous benefits packages.
While this ‘new breed’ of retailers is good for retailing in general, I can see where some independent retailers, florists included, might see them as a threat. Margins are already squeezed tight and stores with lower revenues already commit more than 10 per cent of sales to wages. But don’t be too hasty in discounting their success. Why not focus on the items on the list that you can do something about and see what improvements you can generate? Remember, The Container Store credits ‘training and retaining’ for their amazing growth.
The average work year is 2,000 hours. When you do the math, 240 hours is 12 percent of the work hours in the first year at The Container Store are spent on training. Although there is no number cited for ongoing training, let’s take approximately half of that number and say you want to commit five per cent of an employee’s time to training, or two hours a week. That’s four 30-minute sessions or six 15-minute mini lessons. Now the really scary part – what will you train them to do? You’ve already covered greeting customers, answering the phone and taking orders, ringing up sales, care and handling plus packaging. What else is there?
Well for starters, how about selling? Does your staff know the difference between an ‘order taker and an order maker’? Sure they’ve been taught to upsell, but can they close the original sale? Have you spent time with them exploring the psychology of why people buy and how to create an atmosphere that encourages buying?
Do you have objectives for your staff when they hit the sales floor at the beginning of a shift? I am not talking about the usual instructions on your way out the door: dust the giftware, empty the trash, and clean out the cooler. I am talking about sales targets. Does this person know you expect them to sell five bouquets, one arrangement and three pieces of giftware in a four-hour shift? Have you given them the ‘tools’? People naturally want to do well, but if we don’t share our expectations with them, they will never meet them.
Take the quiz you see on this page and see how many answers you know. Find out the answers for the ones you don’t know and then have all of your staff do the quiz as well. If you and your staff know all of the answers, you are on the right track. Move on to some other training. If you don’t know the answers, here’s the basis of your first training session.
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