9 Expert Strategies to Improve Employee Performance in Retail
Employee performance directly affects multiple aspects (sales, profit, customer experience, etc.) of a retail business.
The more efficient and productive your employees are, the higher the chances of your retail business becoming successful. Ultimately, employee productivity is the competitive edge when everything else (product, niche, business hours) is the same.
However, employee performance is the sum of different factors. An untrained employee will perform poorly, but so will an unhappy employee. Therefore, to improve staff performance, you must address the issue from different angles.
To fix this problem, we have outlined nine expert strategies to improve employee performance for your retail business. Let's start at the beginning, i.e., hiring.
1. Focus on Attitude When Hiring
It is better to hire for a positive attitude rather than years of experience; here’s why.
Firstly, retail is a heavily customer-facing sector. You can always teach skills and processes. However, positive traits like kindness, empathy, respect, and a desire to serve go a long way in improving customer experience.
When you focus on these traits while hiring, you push your business one step closer to success. Moreover, since every retail business is different, you might have to retrain new hires in relevant skills anyway.
2. Education and Training
A key strategy to improve employee performance is to ensure your new (and old) hires know as much as possible about your business.
Employees are the face of your business, and the awareness you instill in them ultimately makes you more profitable. Conversely, a lack of business-related knowledge directly affects employee potential and productivity:
Ideally, your employees should know:
● All the features and benefits of all your products
● The best business practices and processes thoroughly
● How to deal with customers of different nature
● Ins and outs of inventory management based on their position
3. Go Beyond Product Knowledge
Going beyond basic training and product knowledge is an effective strategy to improve employee performance.
Your customers can find all they need to know about a particular product online. Moreover, they can even find product reviews and make up their mind about what they need to buy before entering your store.
However, if your employees are efficient salespeople, they can not only convert interested visitors into customers but also upsell them other items.
Secondly, apart from sales, you should train employees in how to relate to a customer on a personal level and how to show empathy to understand their problems. This will not only make staff perform better but will also improve customer experience greatly.
4. Keep Employees in the Loop
Your retail staff is the first line of connection with the customers, which makes their feedback, suggestions, and recommendations valuable for your business.
Regularly meet with your retail employees and ask for their input regarding what is working and what needs to be improved. Your employees will also tell you which products are slow-moving and which products sell as soon as they’re restocked.
Doing so will give you valuable insights to improve your business, boost employee morale, and improve their performance.
5. Streamline Scheduling
One of the highly intuitive strategies to improve employee performance is to streamline your employee scheduling.
That’s because more than 30,000 employees in the US retail sector rarely receive advance notice of their schedules. If you fix this one thing, you can instantly make your employees more productive than your competitors.
To achieve that, notify your employees two weeks before a schedule change and try to reduce on-call shifts. Sudden and unpredictable schedule changes can disrupt their personal lives, make them feel agitated, and turn them indifferent to your business goals and problems.
6. Consistent Motivation
Consistent employee motivation is essential. As one of the best strategies to improve employee performance, it makes your staff feel connected to and responsible for uplifting your business.
However, motivation is not a long speech on how important it is to achieve success. It is impractical and doesn’t engage your employees effectively. Instead, focus on providing real benefits to improve the day-to-day lives of your employees.
Here are some ideas you can implement to improve employee performance:
● Discounts on products from your store
● Gift cards
● Free food
● Health and wellness programs
● Personalized gifts
● A chance for a flexible schedule
● Limited days off
● Monetary prizes
● Recognition and appreciation
● Prized contests
7. Uplift Employee Experience with Technology
You can use multiple retail software solutions to improve employee experience, save time, and increase profitability.
For example, investing in retail analytics software can give your employees accurate data on foot traffic relative to days and hours. You can use this information not only to schedule shifts more strategically (more staff present during busy hours) but also to generate more sales.
Similarly, you can implement a digital inventory system to eliminate collecting data on paper. It will help your employees focus more on customers instead of spending hours listing down inventory in the stock room.
You can explore multiple retail management software in this manner and creatively boost employee performance using technology.
8. Set the Right KPIs
You may set out sophisticated KPIs, but if they aren't the right ones, you may see little to no progress in employee performance.
Typically, retail managers measure employee performance by looking at sales generated per labor hour. It is a useful metric, but it doesn’t give you an accurate picture.
That's because different factors, such as the number of shoppers, peak hours, and weather, affect sales during a particular time. If the sales are low because of these factors, blaming employee performance would be counterproductive.
Instead, you should measure employee performance by analyzing sales per visitor. If you’re able to calculate how many visitors entered your store and how many of them were converted, the data on a particular employee’s performance will be much more accurate.
Measuring this KPI will also help you pinpoint specific employees who are unable to convert visitors. You can then approach them individually and figure out what’s stopping them from reaching their best potential.
9. Make Training Easier for Employees
Since retail employees deal with customers all day long, the idea of setting time aside for training feels exhausting. On top of that, if you have a fixed training schedule for all the employees, it might not provide any benefits.
It is better to make training and skill development easier for your staff by dividing it into short and flexible sessions. You can employ commonly known methods like modular training that allows employees to choose when they want to train and be done with it quickly.
It will not only motivate employees to educate themselves but is also a proven strategy to improve employee performance.
FAQs
How can I improve the performance of my retail staff?
You can implement various strategies to improve employee performance in retail. Some examples include:
● Consistently motivating your staff with discounts, days off, cash prizes, bonuses, appreciation, etc.
● Investing in employee training and making it easy.
● Streamlining scheduling for employees and avoiding sudden changes.
● Always collecting feedback from employees regarding customers, challenges, products, etc.
How do you measure retail staff performance?
Retail managers use different KPIs to measure retail staff performance. However, calculating sales per visitor is one of the best metrics you can use. It specifies which employees are finding it harder to convert visitors into customers.
What are the key responsibilities of retail employees?
Typically, the key responsibilities of retail staff include:
● Greeting and engaging with store visitors
● Analyzing customer’s needs and recommending products that fulfill those needs
● Identifying and using opportunities to upsell other products
● Understanding of how to process payments and use cash registers
● Listening to customer’s complaints and satisfying them accordingly
Summing it Up
No two retail stores are the same. And even though these strategies are proven through research, some challenges are unique to your particular store.
In such cases, you may need the help of a retail expert who can develop tailored solutions for your business. Such an expert is also called a retail business coach.
Not only will they deeply understand the root cause of your low employee performance, but they will also implement strategies that can help you consistently beat your competition. If you want to learn how retail coaching can maximize your staff’s performance, hop on a free call here!
