Leading Retail Teams in a Constrained Environment
I have had so much fun this month interviewing some of our clients on how they got into retail, what they loved about the industry in the beginning, and what keeps their passion churning for retail after all these years. Thank you to Chris Freeman from Michaels, Jillian Wiese from Cavender’s and Paul DeSousa, recently with Ulta Beauty, for participating in our Valentine’s month campaign.
Those conversations, along with a new Gallup study that looks at whether staffing isssues are eroding the customer experience, have brought back my own early retail memories, and how I have carried out the key lessons I learned early on throughout my career.
I was destined to be a retailer from an early age. My father was president of a paint and wallpaper retail chain of stores, based in my hometown of Baltimore. This meant most Saturdays my brother Stephen and I accompanied my dad to his office at the back of his flagship store. While he sequestered himself in his office to catch up on his paperwork, Stephen and I would mingle with the staff and help them mix paint, climb the high library ladders for supplies, and, if we were, lucky talk to customers. The mornings always ended with lunch brought in by my dad for the staff, and we got to join them at the table. I could tell it was one of my father’s favorite moments with his team. They respected him and his leadership, and I admired him for the way they showed appreciation for his efforts and how he treated everyone.
My brother, seven years older than me, entered retail first as an assistant manager, store manager, and eventually a district, regional, and VP of stores. One Easter week when I was 14, he hired me and my mom to sell shoes at his downtown shoe store location after school and weekends. That’s when I really got hooked on retail. It’s where I learned about UPTs, reading customer cues, and the guidepost for selling: Make every moment count! Never come out of the backroom with just one pair of shoes! I learned early on that pleasing customers and finding the shoes that were the perfect match (even dying them to match if necessary) was a thrill that energized me.
Today’s environment has thrown up numerous challenges and barriers to delivering that kind of customer experience. Through direction that is being cascaded down from corporate offices, leaders are asking teams to do more with fewer people, tighter budgets, and expanded responsibilities. The result isn’t disengagement—it’s strain.
Some compelling, stop-and-think statistics from the Gallup survey should get every retail leader’s attention. In Q3 2025:
- 43% of U.S. employees strongly agreed they feel personally responsible for customer experience.
- Only 23% strongly agreed their organization consistently delivers on customer promises.
Retail Teams Still Care
I don’t believe this is a motivation or commitment problem, nor do I think it is a “people don’t care like they used to” or generational problem. Call me Retail’s Pollyanna, but I still believe people want to do their best work. Sometimes, though, even when we don’t mean to, we send out messages or create SOPs that inadvertently prevent that from happening.
In our work at MOHR Retail, we spend time with assistant managers, store leaders, district leaders, and executives across the country, and what we see every day aligns with the data. Retail teams care deeply about their customers.
- They want the shelves full of products the customers want and in the size they need.
- They want the lines moving.
- They want the customer experience to feel easy, welcoming, and consistent.
But they are also absorbing:
- Ongoing staffing compression
- Expanded responsibilities
- Reorganizations accompanied with shifting priorities
- Budget reductions
- Increased performance pressure
When retail teams and store leaders are asked to do more with less, something has to give. And often, what erodes first is confidence, not care.
You Can’t “Care” Your Way Out of Understaffing
One of the most telling findings in the study is that staffing continues to rank as the number one barrier to delivering exceptional customer experience:
- Not training
- Not tools
- Not unclear standards
Staffing matters. When staffing drops:
- Coaching drops.
- Recognition drops.
- Time for problem-solving drops.
- Standards begin to drift.
Customer experience does not collapse overnight. It becomes inconsistent. And inconsistency erodes trust, both internally and externally.
The Burnout–Customer Experience Connection
The study also reinforces something we’ve been talking about for years: the relationship between employee engagement and customer experience and how tightly linked they are.
Engaged employees are significantly more confident in their organization’s ability to deliver. They are clearer on expectations. They feel supported. They believe their work matters.
Engagement is not built through slogans, messaging, or cheerleading; it is built through clarity, support, reinforcement of the efforts and behaviors you want to see more of, and realistic alignment between expectations and capacity.
When burnout rises, motivation declines. And when motivation declines, execution becomes inconsistent. All of that directly impacts the customer experience.
Leading in a Constrained Retail Environment
The reality, of course, is that retail is unlikely to return to an environment of surplus staffing and excess capacity anytime soon. And in the meantime, the pressure persists.
The question is how we as leaders respond to it.
- Clarify the non-negotiables.
What truly defines the customer experience in your brand? What must happen every time, regardless of staffing levels? Narrowing focus with realistic and obtainable expectations protects execution.
- Eliminate lower-value noise.
Not every task holds equal weight. Strong leaders continually reassess what can be paused, simplified, or removed to protect frontline energy.
- Protect leadership presence.
When staffing compresses, leaders often get pulled into transactional work. While sometimes necessary, prolonged absence from coaching and team connection has downstream consequences and causes disconnect and disengagement.
- Align expectations with reality.
High standards are appropriate. But high standards without capacity alignment create silent frustration. Goals must be obtainable and realistic.
Customer experience is not built in marketing decks; it is built in the stores, in scheduling decisions, coaching moments, workload distribution, and daily leadership behaviors.
Accountability Is Still Strong. Systems and Operations Must Support It.
The encouraging news in this study is that accountability remains high. Your employees still feel responsible for delivering quality. That is a powerful foundation.
But accountability without structural support eventually turns into exhaustion and burnout.
Organizations that address staffing realities, protect clarity, and equip leaders at every level to prioritize effectively will close the confidence gap. Those who do not risk asking their teams to carry more than the system can sustain. And when that happens, the consequences can be far-reaching, affecting your teams, your customers, and your business.
Retail teams still care. The question leaders must answer is this:
Are we creating the conditions that allow them to succeed and do their best work everyday?
