Permanent lessons from temps

As the Christmas and Sales period draws to a close all retailers will be working out what they have learnt from Christmas 2009.

But while head office and regional directors will be looking at the bigger picture, valuable lessons can also be gleaned from the fresh eyes of the Christmas temporary workforce.

But getting the most from such staff - rather than just losing contact and their knowledge when they leave at the end of their short-term contract - can be a tough task.

“The biggest challenge when we visited stores used to be that we got huge amounts of anecdotes but no way of collating that,” says Boots UK head of retail recruitment Paul Stretton.

However, he says the retailer’s systems now allow it to track not only staff opinions but staff themselves. Each member of the temporary Christmas team will undergo an exit interview.

The same happens at Marks & Spencer. “We hold exit interviews with all our seasonal staff, and that feedback is then collated and stores implement the key points,” says a M&S spokeswoman.

At Boots, a random selection of about 1,000 employees will also be asked to complete an anonymous survey to assess their experience of working at Boots.

But the retailer also canvasses those that never took a role in the first place - either because they refused an offer of employment or dropped out part way through the application process. “We operate along the lines that every applicant is a potential customer so, for instance, I’m curious to know why someone started an application process online and then stopped,” says Stretton.

And valuable lessons are learnt. “One of the biggest lessons of 2008 was that candidates were struggling to get their paperwork back to us at the centre and found it easier to drop it into their local store, so for 2009 we let the paperwork go where they are and then we got it back to head office via our distribution network,” says Stretton.

Boots’ systems also allows the retailer to keep track of its ex-temps. Of about 8,500 temps employed in Christmas 2008 about 2,000 stayed on as permanent employees after the Christmas trading period and a further 3,000 were offered roles when further vacancies arose during 2009.

“Clearly those that perform really well become the first choice contacts after Christmas when we have a vacancy,” says Stretton.