Editorial

When the SVP, Stores got up to address this group of multiunit managers, he talked about people.  He made the connection that when times are tough in retail, the leadership message is often more focused on operations and back to basics.  But he wanted this group to know that the focus now more than ever…

As pre-work to the follow up training last February, DMs were asked to identify 3 success stories with business impact after applying the leadership strategies from RMM.  We heard about Store Managers who were ‘on warning’ moving to the top of a district’s performance in key metrics.  There were stories about turnover being reduced by…

Retailers are looking for more ways to be efficient and better connect with customers and employees through technology.  We have also said in the past “….if you can’t motivate. Automate!”  Like a alot of sweeping trends that have shaped the retail industry, such as being customer-centric, re-engineering processes, shifting cultural mindsets, and more, each of…

Managing budgets is part of every support manager’s job.  However the influence you have over how much budget you end up with can be fairly limited.  But managing versus leading are two very different things.  When you ‘manage’ you look at what you have and make the best of it.  When you ‘lead’ you imagine what could…

I just had a conversation with a Regional from one of our clients.  He was lamenting the fact that he had not had time for formal, 1-1 follow up meetings about our training with his DMs.  He had remembered however that even a small, quick effort could produce results.  So he took a moment to…

The movement to create and use more eLearning in retail training is driven as much by the need to reduce payroll costs and time off the floor as to improve actual learning.  The are a number of data points that tell us that eLearning improves consistency of learning, cuts training time, and over large scale…

Once a retailer chooses MOHR Retail the real work begins to ensure that whatever the training we’re putting into place that we are all clear on the importance of the senior leaders and their role.  The Vitamin Shoppe understood this well.  Their SVP Retail, SVP HR, and all of the Regional Directors met to agree on how…

Most support departments are cost-centers not profit-centers.  They take resources and capital from the company to support the brand and customers.  Supervisors and managers in support areas are concerned with controlling costs and reducing them whenever possible, staying within budget or below.  There is a fair amount of technical training to ensure that people in…

Merchants and home office Support Managers are more likely to attend cross-funtional meetings and have far greater exposure to senior executives than any of the field management in retail like DMs and Regionals.  Some of the interactions are quick, “five second hallway conversations” one participant said, to massive strategy meetings with many people and levels…