Navigating Retail’s Shifting Tides as the Holiday Season Approaches

This week marks 15 weeks til Christmas. That’s less than 100 days. With the holiday season fast approaching, traditional retailing is abuzz right now preparing their store and field teams to manage and make the most of the surge of customers who will be shopping for holiday events and the gift-giving season. Yes, there will be stress! Now’s the time to plan for it so you can minimize the impact on your store and distribution center associates. Happier, mentally healthier associates create greater customer experiences and loyalty to your brand.

While not all of our retail clients are impacted by the bustling winter holiday season — automotive, fitness and health, garden, and home, to name a few, tend to experience their peaks at various times throughout the year — regardless of when your peak season hits, retail is in a constant state of flux. That means we’re continually challenged to adapt to change. On the plus side, this is why the retail business is such an exciting career and industry to be working in.

Staying informed and agile will be key to helping our businesses and our teams thrive amid retail’s perpetually shifting tides. As you work through the planning and budgeting process for the upcoming season and year ahead, I encourage you to prioritize the steps below, setting goals that ensure your organization is focusing its time and financial investments in the right spots.

✨Build a Culture of Trust

When the pressure and demands are high, retail employees need to know their leaders have their back. To build a strong culture of trust, leaders have to “walk the talk” of what is expected every day by treating their teams how they want their customers and associates to be treated. Successful retail leaders know that the customer experience is directly influenced by the employee experience. That’s why they use strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence to build trust and fuel performance results. Through modeling and communicating effectively, these leaders set the standard.

✨Evaluate Your Recruiting Process

As Lisa Anderson, Division Vice President, Optometry, at EyeCare Partners, put it in our recent strategic talent revival panel discussion, “The best advice somebody gave me was never wait until you have an opening.” Recruiting must be an ongoing process that’s intertwined into every aspect of a retail leader’s daily routine. Leaders need to consistently keep the lens of finding top talent in front of their view — when servicing customers, engaging with other store/company associates, and in networking. Make sure they have the skillsets and strategies to keep their pipelines full.

✨Prioritize the Customer Experience 

Customers are busy, and that means we only have a few minutes to get it right and build brand loyalty. Now more than ever, your customers expect a personalized experience and the human touch — someone who can pick up on cues and is genuinely interested in understanding and addressing their specific needs. That means retail associates have to be skilled at asking the right questions (and listening!) to understand what the customer truly needs rather than making assumptions.

✨Understand Technology’s Role 

Technology is necessary and will continue to advance, but it needs to be integrated with, not replaced by, the customer service and human interactions people still crave. While retailers have made significant investments in technology in recent years, they need to be careful about not allowing the pendulum to swing too far away from the human factor. Balancing and integrating technology with interpersonal skills is critical and will make a significant difference with your external as well as your internal customers.

✨Put Inclusivity at the Forefront of All Initiatives 

Trust and respect in the workplace and more inclusive practices are continuous development opportunities. Retail companies need to realize that respect and inclusiveness are not a one-and-done, flavor-of-the-month effort. This is an ongoing, ever-evolving business initiative that needs to always be front and center. It is foundational to everything from recruiting and interviewing to succession planning, talent development, customer service, and, most importantly, leadership.

Most retailers still take a reactive vs. proactive position to addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. The retailers with staying power have more diversity and it is woven into their culture, HR, leadership practices, and policies. It’s holistic, and it’s seamless.

Retail Stores: Trends, Challenges, and Solutions

As we look towards the retail holiday season and planning for the year ahead, our next webinar will explore the landscape of retail store environments today, focusing on a range of topics, including the dynamic roles of store teams, the rise and fall of self-checkout systems, how stores are increasingly becoming fulfillment centers, and how successful retailers are addressing issues related to mental health, safety, and burnout amid preparations for the holiday season. Here’s a quick overview of some of these hot-button retail store trends and issues and what we’ll be focusing on during the webinar.

The Evolution of Store Roles: BOPIS and Fulfillment Centers

With the surge of Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS) options and stores doubling as fulfillment centers, retail teams are adapting to new responsibilities. The traditional role of a store employee has shifted from managing in-store tasks to balancing online orders and managing stock all while building loyalty by ensuring a seamless customer experience, both online and offline. This topic will dive into how retail workers are managing these new roles and what it means for the future of retail operations.

• Impact on Store Layouts: How BOPIS pick-up areas and self-service checkouts are changing the physical design of retail spaces.
• Training & Development: Preparing staff for a more digital- and logistics-focused role while handling in-store customer needs with increased foot traffic.
• Customer Expectations: Meeting the growing demands for convenience and speed. Everyone is busy and time is at a premium. Customers will use a multitude of omni-channel touchpoints as they shop this season, and going forward.

The Rise and Fall of Self-Checkout: Balancing Efficiency and Security

Self-checkout was once hailed as a revolutionary step forward in retail efficiency, offering customers a quicker way to check out while reducing the need for staff. However, recent concerns over security, increased theft, and the impersonal nature of the experience have led some retailers to reconsider their reliance on self-checkout systems.

• Security Challenges: Exploring the risks and how retailers are responding and working to ensure their associates feel safe every day at work.
• Customer Experience: Weighing the benefits of speed against the potential drawbacks. How do your customers feel about self-checkout?
• The Future of Self-Checkout: Will it remain a staple, or will retailers pivot back to more traditional methods? Who is stopping, starting, or continuing this practice and why?

Doing More with Less: Strategies for a Leaner Workforce

As staffing challenges continue to rise, retailers are finding themselves needing to do more with fewer employees. This section will cover strategies for maintaining elevated levels of customer service, efficiency, and morale in conjunction with a leaner workforce.

• Optimizing Workflow: Best practices that can help streamline operations.
• Employee Engagement: Keeping morale high and reducing burnout with smaller store teams.
• Creative Staffing Solutions: How retailers are rethinking scheduling, training, and multi-role positions.

What retail trends and challenges are you seeing? How is the changing role of store associates impacting your operations?

Two esteemed retail leaders are confirmed for our webinar panel, and I would love to have two more join us to allow for a deeper dive into these topics and challenges. If you are or know of a senior retail, store operations, HR, and/or talent development leader who would be able to contribute as a panelist in our upcoming webinar, please reach out to me directly. We’re looking for your experiences, insights, ideas, and/or other lessons you might be able to share to add to a lively, thought-provoking discussion. Get in touch for more details!