Keeping your employees motivated

Of late, employee motivation has become the catchword in the retail industry as employees form one of the three pillars of the retail, after product and customer. If they stumble, the chances of retail’s fall increase.  Employee retention and motivation should be the focus of a retailer to enhance efficiency. However, what do the retailers need to do to keep their employees motivated? 

Measures taken

To minimise the rate of attrition some retailers have embarked on innovative HR policies that keep the employees’ morale high. Shoppers Stop, Pantaloon Retail, and Aditya Birla Retail endorse robust HR policies to address the issue.

Shoppers Stop’s Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar

At Shoppers Stop, different employee motivation programmes are followed, for example, ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.’ Under this programme, each Customer Care Associate (CCA) is rated on product knowledge, operational skills and customer feedback. After the evaluation process, Sikandars or Champions are selected and endowed with monetary rewards. Cash rewards are also offered to the best store, which is then distributed among the team members with good performance. Also, there are open employee/management forums and employee opinion page in the company’s in-house magazine, Retale. 

Pantaloon Retail’s Employee of the month

At Pantaloon retail each division is categorised as house named after colours like women’s apparel is red house and men’s apparel, blue house, to select the employee of the month. Two employees from each house are nominated for the title and the store manager along with the unit HR officer selects the employee of the month for each division. 

Benefits of motivated employees

Motivated employees imply improved productivity and hence growth, so do not just hire good talent but retain them too. Motivation enables reduced sickness and absenteeism of employees.

The flip side

The flip side is that still there are a few retailers who see their employees as salaried staff, who are obligated to follow the set rules. The fact is that these organisations have a high rate of attrition. These retailers must learn the ways to keep their employees pepped up.

Engaging your employee

Involvement can boost the sense of belonging and hence the level of commitment. By involving the front office staff in the monthly management meetings and seeking their advice for increasing sales, retailers can motivate them.   

Sounding board

Sanjay Jog, Chief People Officer at Pantaloon Retail says, “Keeping an employee motivated has many dimensions, providing opportunities for learning and growth, encouraging employees to take additional responsibility, financial security and respect, and having fair policies. We ensure to provide these.”

N V Balachandar. Chief People Officer, Textiles & Apparel Business, Aditya Birla Group says, “To balance learning and growth opportunities we offer job rotation, brand rotation, or category rotation to the employees. We equip the store managers with tools of people engagement to manage and motivate the front staff. There are reward mechanisms besides compensation to keep them on the go.”

Conclusion

There is no standard rule implementing which a retail enterprise can boost its employees’ motivation. Assess your employees’ psyche to formulate policies that befit your business set-up and include them as core business policies.