Retail Organization and Human Resource Management
How can retail operations be most efficiently organized?
How can managers best learn the critical tasks?
How can shrinkage be controlled?
How can skills be built - Disney case, outstanding training
The increasing importance of customer service
Do non-store forms of retail provide better customer service?
There are Many Structures for Retailers
NOTE: these are nontraditional terms
Mother Hen -
Main store buys and sells - branches sell
Advantage: ok if customers are similar, buyers have skills
Disadvantage: buyers have no contact with customers,
can miss local needs
Separate Store -
Main store and branches buy and sell
Advantage: good if regional differences
Disadvantages: hard to develop a consistent image
Less efficient
Equal Store -
Buying is centralized, main and branch stores just sell
Efficient inventory control, consistent image
Removes buying from the stores, economizes
What Types are Emerging?
Organizing for distribution on the Internet
Can customer buy directly from manufacturer?
Retail fulfillment centers are centralized or contracted with
fulfillment
firms like Fingerhut
Centralization of information, service, ordering, shipping
Local return policies
Local in-store specials
Determining Retail Personnel Requirements
Are there enough personnel? How could the needs vary?
Times of day?
Days of week? Seasons? Specials?
Let’s consider a Dept store that knows that the number of
personnel does
not match customer needs
Sometimes there were too few, sometimes too many
Analyze customer traffic in key areas for full days over a
representative period
Graph the match or mismatch
What about Training?
Are the personnel knowledgeable? Courteous?
What have you taught them?
How have you taught them?
Does capable training exist at all levels?
Can you assess their strengths and weaknesses?
Can you develop growth plans?
Can you give them measurable benchmarks?
Sears video
Challenges in Human Resource Issues
Jobs in retailing can seem
Dull … repetitive … thankless …
Overly-simple…unimportant
How can boring, repetitive tasks be made interesting and exciting?
Disney Builds Courtesy through Standards of Training
Can you name the Seven Dwarfs?
Disney training is in happiness and the experience of the guests
The employees are all “actors in a play” - what does this do?
The “actors” wear costumes and use scripts to ensure quality
The Training is Done by the Staff
All employees, even to the janitors, are trained in courtesy and patience
- they get the same questions numerous times a day and are
one of the most important “cast members”
The “Underpark” and not breaking character
The experience of the Jungle Ride - create reality
Assessments
Relate back to hiring process
Stock-related activities
Knowledge, handling, re-stocking
Transaction-related activities
Service-related activities
Human interaction activities
McDonald’s Turned their Assessment into a Contest
In the 1980’s, they decided to link their training and assessment to
something that was positive
They had a 700 page manual
They had many in the workforce who saw it as just a job
Many would not aspire to more complex careers
They had measurable standards
They wanted a standard product with no variance
They wanted to test differences among employees, managers, and franchisee
How could they do it without making it seem like a test?
They coordinated the contest with the Summer Olympics
They developed a contest that used store standards - such as
the highest
quality of a prepared burger
The highest quality for condiments
The highest quality for cooking to specifications
They encouraged stores to compete as teams - what did this accomplish?
They had trials in each local area with managers as judges - what
did this accomplish?
They had playoffs in San Francisco - flying each team to a central
location
A Successful Ongoing Program
This program was so successful, they have continued it up through current
times
In 2001, McDonalds expanded the program for the 2002 Winter Olympics
in Salt Lake City
An olympic-bound crew was selected from a worldwide restaurant staff
How competitive could it be???
Some Statistics
This recurring contest recently produced 400 gold medal winners from
5 continents
Worldwide competitions held in 2001 among McDonald’s 1.3 million Crew
in its 29,000 restaurants in 121 countries
The World Champion Crew would serve the athletes, coaches, officials,
and media at the Olympic Village
Criteria
Service, speed, accuracy, personality, and teamwork
The assessment built teamwork and reinforced skills, rather than anxiety
McDonald's Olympic Champion Crew
Just as the world's athletes compete to earn a coveted slot on their
home country's Olympic team, McDonald's 1.3 million crew worldwide are
also vying for the opportunity to become a member of McDonald's Olympic
Champion Crew.
Participating McDonald's restaurants around the world are hosting competitions
to select the “best of their best” based on criteria including service,
quality, speed, accuracy and teamwork—reflecting the ideals of the Olympic
Games.
These outstanding employees will be honored in Athens at a special
pre-Games event where they will demonstrate their championship skills to
the world. While in Athens, they will also help serve athletes and spectators,
attend Olympic events and participate in special entertainment activities.
And in Athens in August 2004 . . .
And the winners were . . .
ATHENS, Greece, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Speed, accuracy, teamwork,
excellence -- just some of the important Olympic attributes demonstrated
today at McDonald's Big Mac Building competition, featuring crew champions
from its restaurants around the world. Teams of McDonald's Olympic Champion
Crew competed for top honors in four categories: speed, accuracy, teamwork
and "i'm lovin' it(TM)" spirit. Awards were given as follows:
-- Speed: Team 1 - Maria Mprizi, Greece; Cameron Evans, Australia; Rabson Mwale, UK; Marianne Schoales, Canada; Robert Old, New Zealand
-- Accuracy: Team 2 - Lars Erik Mod, Sweden; Katja Kuchenmeister, Germany; Polly Conway, USA; Alexey Kokalevsky, Russia; Stelios Protopapas, Cyprus
-- "i'm lovin' it" Spirit: Team 3 - Patricia Hogan, Ireland; Kenny Sun Jain Keung, Hong Kong; Stian Seglem Haaland, Norway; Manfred Rothdeutch, Austria; Sonia Duarte, Portugal
-- Teamwork: Team 4 - Rasmus Brix, Denmark;
Alexander Schouten,Netherlands; Anna Acri, Italy; Olexandra Viderska, Ukraine;
Ding Zhen, China; Kostas Alexiou, Greece
What about Shrinkage?
Employee-based shrinkage
Customer shrinkage
Training and appropriate procedures
Danger to customers, employees
What About Online Shrinkage?
US merchants expect to lose an estimated $2.6 billion to online fraud
in 2004
A 37% increase in lost revenue
Fraudulently ordered merchandise tends to be high ticket items
Credit card verification check with three digit number on the back
of the card
Special Topic: Training Retail Employees to work with Persons with
Disabilities
Sears Corporation Training Video
Treat persons with disabilities as customers first
Enable them to make choices
Don’t talk to the person with them and ignore the customer with disabilities!!
What Did You Learn???
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a beginning, but the human side
is not regulated
