Keeping the workforce on side

Much is being asked of retail staff today. With pay freezes or redundancies, employees can find themselves working harder without the normal rewards of pay rises or bonuses.

Even for those retailers doing well, both their store and head office staff are having to put more effort into winning customer spend. And if that wasn’t enough, retailers are surrounded by doom and gloom stories as others collapse around them.

It can seem a thankless task and in such an environment it is easy for bad feeling and disillusionment to develop. Equally, staff may be taking on extra responsibilities they feel ill equipped to deal with, causing further stress and anxiety.

Some managers may have worked through a recession before and understand the extra effort needed at this time to help maintain morale, but many more will not.

Communication is essential. Laura Ryan, owner and director of business consultancy Knowhow HR and former group HR director for MFI, says: “Don’t hold back bad news. Open, honest transparency is key in business at the moment. Keep it simple and treat people how you want to be treated.”

Being upfront is also vital. The managing director of one retailer, who asked not to be named, says: “We had to do a pay freeze this year and knew in March that we wouldn’t be able to give an increase in July. We sent a letter to people’s homes in April to let people know so they could make plans and many staff came back and said they appreciated knowing early,” he says.

So how do you turn things around? Employee engagement researcher People & Culture recently published a white paper Upsizing the Individual in a Downsizing Economy. It suggests redundancy, leading to an increased workload for those who survive, doesn’t have to have a negative impact on staff morale because internal reorganisation can result in faster decision making, more cross-functional working and a broadening of responsibilities that can help future prospects.

But retail leaders also need to think through the business of downsizing. As People & Culture director David Conway says: “Upsizing is about achieving a new psychological contract for difficult times.”

This has been the focus at Jessops, which has reduced its head office count by two thirds. “We have been very open and transparent about not only what we are doing but why we are doing it. We are also now much more focused on the remaining people,” says HR director Jo Steen.

It is a similar picture at JJB Sports, whose staff showed their support for Sir David Jones at the company’s July AGM. Even when you might assume that morale is at an absolute rock bottom, if you treat staff correctly they might surprise you.