Is Your Retail Workforce a Revolving Door?
From the loading dock to the warehouse floor to the retail store, your workforce is a critical link in your supply chain. It can also have a powerful impact on customer service, efficiency and your bottom line, especially when you have to ramp up or down to keep up with demand. Hire too many workers and you run the risk of unnecessary costs. Hire too few and you could face delays, downtime or overtime.
Meanwhile, another issue compounds the problem: employee turnover. It’s a persistent problem that plagues all-too-many retail operations. Recruiting, hiring and training new employees can be costly and time-consuming. Fortunately, with a Lean Labor Management strategy, you can open the door to a more flexible, productive and motivated workforce and close the door on employee turnover.
Companies that implement Lean Labor Management typically see measurable improvements: ongoing savings, an improved ability to attract and retain quality workers, and better use of capacity, to name a few. So, how do you put Lean Labor Management to work for your retail supply chain?
Five Tips for Putting Lean Labor Management Practices to Work
Consider these five tips to get more from your workforce investment by focusing on your people.
1. Cultivate a Lean Culture
Whatever business you’re in, the direct route to delivering long-term customer value and outstanding business performance is a Lean culture. Rooted in lean manufacturing, Lean labor management improves efficiency by standardizing tasks, processes and the use of technology/materials handling systems. It also harnesses the power of any organization’s most valuable resource: its people.
So what does a lean organization look like? It creates value by eliminating waste. If a process doesn’t add value for a customer, it’s eliminated. Lean motivates staff to continuously improve and solve problems with tools like Kaizen, value-stream mapping, and root-cause analysis. Standardized work processes map the right practices to improve performance and train and cross-train employees. Visual tools like boards and TV screens engage employees to lower costs, improve quality and reduce lead times. More important, a lean operation has rewards in place to keep the mojo flowing. By “going Lean”, retailers can set performance goals and reward employees for exceeding them – both essential to retaining staff.
2. Empower your people by engaging them at every level
The concept of People Involvement is at the heart of Lean Labor Management. In fact, it’s the most important of the five Lean Guiding Principles. In a Lean environment, employees work together as one team and are encouraged to root out waste, eliminate problems and make improvements. Lean employees persist when confronted with difficulties, are proactive, take personal initiative, understand what’s important and take appropriate action and are deeply engaged with the organization.
So how do you “deeply engage” employees to foster loyalty and prevent turnover? You empower them by creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. You let them know they’re valuable assets whose ideas are vital to the company’s success. You communicate company goals and strategies, train and cross-train and provide the tools and encouragement workers need to be effective in their jobs.
3. Set up a positive feedback loop
One of the best ways to prevent great employees from walking out the door and motivating all employees to give their best? Rewards. In a lean organization, employees are recognized and rewarded for making suggestions that add value. Supervisors make sure their teams understand how their work contributes to the company’s success. Visual cues and job aids encourage employees to “get it right the first time” and when they do, they’re rewarded for their efforts.
Effective rewards programs deliver ongoing value and performance improvements, whether the reward is a simple “thank you” for a great suggestion, an incentive-based pay program or material rewards like cash incentives and gift cards. By rewarding employees in any of these ways, you don’t just reinforce positive behavior – you provide a role model for under-performing employees to follow.
When negative feedback is unavoidable, it’s best to frame it as coaching. Instead of singling out an employee in front of peers, present the situation and feedback as an opportunity for the team to improve.
4. Optimize your workforce
Creating an employee-centered culture is essential to preventing employee turnover. So are incentives and rewards. In addition to motivating, empowering and retaining staff, optimizing your workforce helps optimize the customer experience. A Lean Labor Management strategy can help you:
- Staff the right number and types of employees by leveraging effective, expert workforce planning
- Train and develop employees to add value to every step and process
- Build a flexible labor pool with cross-trained employees and temporary resources
5. Get labor practices in line and lower asset costs
If you’re responsible for workforce planning, one of the toughest challenges you face is balancing the need for more manpower with pressure to reduce costs. Take steps to lower costs by:
- Rightsizing your workforce to improve utilization of material handling equipment and technology
- Reducing capital investments in equipment and employee supplies (goggles, safety vests, etc.)
- Reducing product handling costs and damage by identifying and eliminating ineffective processes
Could a few strategic changes in your approach to labor management – including people involvement – help you prevent employee turnover and optimize your workforce? Learn more about how you can benefit from a Lean Labor Management Strategy by reading our White Paper: Lean Guiding Principles White Paper Series: People Involvement.
