Help your team be better prepared this Christmas Season

The old saying “Retail is detail” rings loud and true especially during the holiday season.
The holiday season can be the time of year when store maintenance is over whelming, updating signage, and creating new displays can be time consuming, stocking and restocking can become tedious. At the same time customers are in a rush to pick out the best gifts, and can forget that the sales person helping them, is a person. It can be one of the toughest times of the year to keep all of the details taken care of, and keep moral up on the sales floor as a manager or owner of a retail business.
How can we as managers and owners, help to coach our staff through this busy time of the year? It sounds pretty simple but checklists, or a written daily plan can be helpful anytime of the year. For part-time staff hired to help out over the holiday season, it can be especially helpful. Helping employees to be self directed, and be able to move onto the next task on their own makes them feel more empowered, and helps to get all of those details taken care of.  It is important for managers to follow up with employees to make sure that the checklist, or daily plan is being carried out, answer any questions, or provide further instructions. The best part however is that it gives the manager/ owner a chance to check in with their staff and give employees a high five and say thank you, or give them added encouragement if they are having difficulty finishing a task. Catching your employees doing things correctly, and saying thank you, is one of the best ways to keep moral up, and get the details taken care of. Checklists … simple… but effective.
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Michelle Oruski is a certified Winning@Retail™ coach and has been in the retail industry for over 25 years. Her experience consists of sales, sales training, customer service, inventory control, buying, store management, merchandising, bookkeeping, and human resources.