After a tough year, retailers including Pets at Home, Beaverbrooks, Marks & Spencer and Asda have decided to give their colleagues Boxing Day off as a thank you. Retail leaders offer their view on whether the rest of the sector should follow their example.
Anna Blackburn, managing director, Beaverbrooks
We understand that this year has been challenging for the retail sector and appreciate Boxing Day is one of the biggest trading days of the year, so it’s a big decision for businesses to close their doors on December 26.
For us, we think it is more important than ever for our colleagues to be spending time at home with their loved ones and restore some normality and tradition for them after an unconventional year.
Despite not trading in-store for approximately four months due to Covid, we will be closing all of our 72 stores on Boxing Day, as we have done for every year of Beaverbrooks’ 101-year history, to enable colleagues to be with their loved ones. Customers can still shop our Sale online on Boxing Day and in-store when we reopen on December 27.
This year our people really have gone the extra mile. The hard work, dedication and resilience they’ve shown over recent months have been truly remarkable and we couldn’t be prouder. They more than deserve to spend some well-earned time with their loved ones over the festive season.
While we know this may not be possible for every business, we stand by our people-centric approach and absolutely believe this is the right thing to do for our colleagues.
John Colley, chief executive, Majestic Wine
We normally close on Boxing Day, so that’s not an unusual step for us. This year, we want to give our colleagues the opportunity to maximise the time they spend in their family bubble. We are looking at ways to do that during the Christmas period and balance the wellbeing of colleagues, the lockdown situation and business trading.
That’s where the problem lies – because Boxing Day Sales are big for a lot of retailers. So many retailers are still in crisis mode and they will need to maximise their trading hours as much as physically possible over the Christmas and new year period while they are allowed to – we could get through Christmas and go into another lockdown, which could be disastrous.
A lot of businesses will want to stay open as long as possible and trade as hard as possible while consumers are allowed to go out.
It’s a really tricky dilemma for a lot of businesses. Whatever they decide, the key will be to speak to colleagues. We are fairly open with our conversations as we try to balance their wellbeing, the commercial impact and the legislation around trading. Our intention, certainly, is to give our colleagues as much time as we can with their families but there is no easy decision.
Ian Shepherd, retail NED and author of The Average Is Always Wrong
Good retailers look after their colleagues. With that in mind, and after an incredibly demanding 2020, it is not a surprise that some have made the decision to close on Boxing Day and give their teams a rest.
For some sectors that is a sensible call on what would be a quiet trading day. For others, however, Boxing Day is still a huge trading opportunity; many homewares retailers, for example, will do more business on that single day than in any week of another month.
For them, the decision is a more complex one. Rather than miss out – and risk handing yet more business to online giants that won’t close at all over Christmas – many will choose to trade and find ways to appreciate their hard-working teams at a different point.
With 2020 trading devastated by lockdowns, we should support their fight for survival.
No comments yet