As we enter the height of holiday shopping mayhem, most media stories focus on the mob behavior on Black Friday and the sales projections on Cyber Monday. While these and other sensationalist stories detailing the holiday shopping chaos are fun to read, we often pay little attention to the people on the front lines of the madness: the retail employees and managers. Because of this fixation, we have little insight into these players’ attitudes and apprehensions for the most wonderful time of the year.
My team at Bridge by Instructure wanted to dive deeper and understand how managers and employees think, feel, and prepare/train for the holidays. We surveyed 500 retail employees and 500 retail managers across the United States in October 2016 to discover their attitudes as the holidays approach. The results reveal the psyche of front-line retail workers ahead of this shopping season and how training and preparation can affect their attitudes and confidence in facing the seasonal rush.
What we found is that both employees and managers worry about the imminent advent of the holidays, but most managers and employees don’t see eye to eye on certain aspects of the holiday season and the additional training that accompanies it.
Based on the survey findings, here are three ways managers can make sure their training practices resonate with employees and maximize results.
1. Spread holiday cheer. Both managers and employees agree that the holiday season is chaotic and unpredictable, and our survey reveals the top concerns for each group this year, ranked as a kind of anxiety index. When asked what their biggest concern is for the 2016 holiday shopping season, shoplifting/fraud came in at No. 1 for both managers and employees, followed by hiring enough qualified employees. Employees and managers also were very worried about training employees to handle the holiday rush.
But even with these concerns, managers are generally more excited for the jolly shopping season than employees; 41 percent of managers “strongly agree” they feel excitement for the holiday retail season. The anxiety index shows managers should find ways to share their own holiday cheer with employees.
While managers can’t take away all of their employees concerns about shoplifting, fraud, etc., one thing they can do is try to get their employees to share their level of excitement around the holidays. Spreading this holiday cheer could very well be done as part of seasonal training—common fears are discussed and dispelled, and managers and staff perform short activities to excite and inspire employees.
2. Boost confidence through training. The fact that managers are more excited for retail’s busy season underscores a disparity in confidence between the head honchos and their subordinates. This is because there’s a significant disconnect between how prepared managers and employees feel about handling the additional demands of the holiday season. Employees feel significantly less ready to tackle the onslaught of shoppers, while managers feel much more prepared to meet their sales goals.
It turns out that employees report receiving less training than their managers report providing. Employees report spending two to five hours training for the holiday season, while managers report spending six to 10 hours training their employees. What’s more, 70 percent of managers feel their teams are “very prepared” to handle the holiday season, but only 56 percent of employees agree.
There is an unmistakable clash between what managers believe they’re providing and what employees think they’re receiving in terms of training and help. When whittled down, the data shows what’s most important despite dissimilar perspectives: Employees aren’t as confident as they could be coming into this holiday season, and they need to be trained sufficiently to boost that morale. This problem can be easily remedied by providing training programs that offer short, engaging courses, videos, and quizzes delivered through mobile-friendly learning management system (LMS) technology that both resonate with and empower employees.
3. But don’t overtrain. Retail employees need better seasonal training so they’re ready to hit seasonal sales quotas, handle increased inventory, and meet customer and company expectations. Our survey discovered that quality in this training matters more than quantity, and that too much training could even result in diminishing returns.
Based on our findings, we found no significant benefit in additional seasonal training beyond six to 10 hours. When managers spend 20 or more hours on holiday training, 63 percent feel “very confident” that their team will reach the sales goals; however, when they spend just six to 10 hours, 73 percent feel “very confident” in reaching their goals. We couldn’t help but see there’s an optimal training time, or a “sweet spot” if you will, where employees grasp all the essential information and are able to apply it to their holiday responsibilities. Retail company owners should tap into this sweet spot and create their training within that timeframe—short and simple wins the race.
Since retail shops are hiring more seasonal help than they used to, it’s more important now than ever to evaluate their training processes and programs to conquer the holiday spree and deliver the most effective training. Managers and employees share concerns about the seasonal rush, and employees are nervous that they haven’t been given enough information and skills to handle the sales floor. Simple, quality training that provides short and engaging courses through mobile-friendly LMS technologies—paired with encouragement from managers—could solve most of those concerns and help the front-line people feel ready to tackle Black Friday and beyond.
Matt Bingham is the VP of Product at Bridge, a learning management system (LMS) for businesses. For more information, visit getbridge.com.
