The holiday shopping season is upon us, and with it comes hordes of customers looking to snag the best deals in-town. For most retail store managers, this marks the best time of the year for profits, however most retail store employees dread the holiday season due to angry customers and hectic shifts. We're recommending three ways you can prepare this for this holiday season while easing the fears of your employees and ensuring your operation runs as smoothly as possible.
1) Seasonal Hires
In many industries it’s common practice to hire seasonal employees during the holidays to help cover the influx of customers visiting stores, and ease the work of the full-timers. Less common is making sure these employees are well-trained before throwing them to the “wolves”.
Many companies will hire on temp workers who have little-to-no retail experience with the expectation that they can “learn on the job”. This mentality is actually quite inefficient and counterintuitive to their goals. Not only are they taking an unskilled worker and expecting them to perform immediately, but when he or she (justifiably) has questions, it is likely the experienced/full-time employees will get pulled away from what they are doing in order to assist the temp workers.
A simple way around this is to record experience levels for each employee within a workforce management software. This way you can see who already knows how to perform, and what skills any individual worker still needs to be trained on. This will help you plan the schedules of your seasonal hires more efficiently while reducing stress for all of your employees.
2) Use your POS system to Understand Key Metrics
A good manager should use their Point of Sale (POS) system not just as a tool for transactions, but also for measuring key performance metrics. For example, compare the data from previous holiday seasons to better your success in the following areas:
Analyze these to adjust your staffing plans accordingly. Be smart with your data and learn from the past.
3) Time & Labor
A good time & labor system is especially important during the busy holiday times. Be sure to use the data we mentioned in the last section, in conjunction with your T&L system, to set schedules for both your full-time and seasonal employees. Being able to see all of this information in one place is extremely helpful, so make sure your T&L and POS systems are able to integrate!
Take advantage of your T&L system to track more data about your employees. See which employees produce the best overall results, who isn’t clocking in/out consistently, and take note of anyone logging overtime. Understanding this data will help you decide if any of your seasonal hires are worth pursuing for a full-time position after the holidays.
Finally, keep track of how much each employee is working. Good sales can make you want to open your business earlier and close later, but remember to set reasonable hours for your staff. Well-rested and happy employees will produce better customer experiences, so be aware of your employee’s schedules!
The holiday season will always be a stressful time for managers and the employees they oversee. However, these three tips can make a real difference when it comes to how well your business performs. Try them out yourself, see the differences they make, and enjoy less stress during the holidays.
If you're curious as to how our system can help you achieve some of our suggestions above, be sure to fill out the form below so someone can get in touch!
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