iStock.com/Sundry Photography
October 22, 2024
Should Corporate Employees Be Required To Work Retail Shifts?
Most retail companies don’t seem to require or even encourage corporate employees to spend time inside their stores. Yet, the experience could potentially create a stronger connection with customers and co-workers. Ideally, corporate staff could better understand how decisions positively or negatively affect the day-to-day activities of workers at the store level.
Yet, there is a flip side to the argument. Office employees jumping in to help out at the retail level could disrupt the flow of the retail team or even make costly mistakes. Corporate staff with specialized skills or knowledge may make better use of the company’s time staying in the office.
The Case for Corporate Employees Working Retail Shifts
With the aim of supporting retail staff, Home Depot has implemented a policy requiring corporate employees to spend one day per quarter working at one of its stores. Even senior management and remote workers must meet the obligation.
“We need to stay connected to the core of our business, so we can truly understand the challenges and opportunities our store associates face every day,” said Home Depot’s CEO Ted Decker, per Bloomberg.
The outlet also noted that this is just Home Depot’s latest initiative in its “longstanding practice to ask staff to spend time in stores,” according to a company spokesperson.
While corporate employees get firsthand knowledge of the issues of retail workers, they also gain real-world insight into customer interactions. Office staff get a deeper understanding of customer pain points, needs, and behaviors.
With this in mind, decisions at the corporate level can address on-the-ground realities instead of relying on impersonal data on paper. Marketing, product designs, and operational changes will have more practical implications beneficial to both customers and retail workers.
The Case Against Requiring Retail Shifts for Corporate Employees
Mandatory retail shifts may not always be the most efficient use of corporate employees’ time. Office staff often have highly specific skill sets, such as strategic planning, data analysis, finance, or project management. Meanwhile, retail personnel are focused on face-to-face customer service, sales, and operational efficiency in a quickly moving environment.
Taking a corporate staffer and placing them in the retail store, even for a short time, disrupts the normal flow of their work, pulling them away from tasks more suited to their expertise. This misalignment could lead to resentment, frustration, or lack of motivation, particularly if it interrupts an office employee’s long-term objectives.
Spending the time to learn how to perform retail job duties may not translate into any meaningful, lasting benefit for the company, especially when the new skills aren’t aligned with the primary responsibilities of the employee. Exposure to front-line challenges may provide some value, but mandatory retail shifts may undermine more significant contributions made in their normal, day-to-day roles.
Retail giant Macy’s made it voluntary for corporate employees to work in its retail stores during the 2021 holiday season. While the move was promoted as a way to build camaraderie with co-workers, Macy’s may have just been using the policy to address a labor shortage and not for any altruistic motivations.
Most likely, corporate staff getting down and dirty in their company’s retail stores will have a positive impact. The experience can break down the barriers surrounding the corporate kingdom, thereby promoting collaboration at all levels and potentially encouraging an overall boost in morale.
Discussion Questions
How do you think requiring corporate employees to work retail shifts could impact the overall culture and communication within a company?
How can companies balance the benefits of retail exposure with respect for the specialized skills of corporate staff?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Paula Rosenblum
Co-founder, RSR Research
Carol Spieckerman
President, Spieckerman Retail
Shep Hyken
Chief Amazement Officer, Shepard Presentations, LLC
Recent Discussions
More Discussions
How Can Retailers Crack the Gen Z ‘Riddle’?
Gen Z is becoming an increasingly important consumer demographic, but an elusive one to map. How…Does Bath & Body Works’ Scented Holiday Campaign Pass the Sniff Test?
Bath & Body Works is kicking off a new campaign with scent being at the fore…Which Tech Will Solve In-Store Inventory Woes?
Three major tech lineups are looking to solve retail inventory problems. Which is most suited?
This is up to individual retailers to determine, and whether it should be mandated comes down to employment contracts and agreements. However, it is sensible that all employees in retail understand the business. For physical retailers, that means people spending at least some time on the shop floor. The shop floor is a place of learning and education and speaking to customers and associates can lead to better decision making and resolving issues. But to be successful this needs to be embraced and structured as a proper program and not must some kind of cosmetic exercise to generate good PR.
I guess we’re supposed to answer “yes” to this – at least that was the popular response the other times it was asked – but I’m not so enthusiastic; we all know the cliche: out-of-touch C-suiter spends a day on the floor and has an epiphany as to what it’s really like; s/he returns upstairs, gives a heroic speech and everone sells happily ever after. But does that really happen..or ,even, could it happen? Is some exec really likely to slip in anonymously to the sales floor? Is it other than patronizing to assume someone can just jump in and do a job? If the answer to either of these is “no”, then was much gained? (and, of course, even today many execs have sales experience)
I sometimes wonder if images of managers with no sales experience come from consultants with no management experience.
Gotta disagree here.The key is to have them spend the day when the store is busy, not as some weird pre-planned excursion. Guarantee you that those suit jackets will be off within an hour.
Your comment about how hard it might be for an exec to learn the work is interesting…since all our data tells us retailers spend hardly any time training their in-store associates and managers.
I hated working in stores…I really did. But I learned to feel their pain, and I learned more about how much we ask them to do….endlessly. Ditto with working in a distribution center, by the way. It is retail’s loss that so few executives truly understand the business from end-to-end now. It contributes to siloed, bad decision-making. The truth is, I even used to go buying with my father when I was a kid and the garment center was still in NYC.
So sadly enough, I’m all for it! The retail enterprise should be thoroughly understood by the executives who run it. Otherwise, they waste too much of associates’ time.
I’m with you, Paula. You can’t call yourself a retailer if you have never worked on the floor.
Anecdotal input from director-and-above employees within major retailers who have voluntarily signed up for store-level stints confirms that yes, they should be mandatory. One recently told me “Design thinking requires empathy.” Whether unloading a truck, sorting in the back room, checking inventory, or something else, the intricacies of execution should be experienced in real time by those who are making decisions that impact store operators and the entire enterprise. This is especially true as myriad ML capabilities are being unleashed, tested, and refined.
Those who’ve jumped in tell me they wish they had done it sooner and plan on making it a regular practice.
Store Operations Council members are pretty clear about this; HQ staff learn a lot by working in stores, and gain insights they can’t get anywhere else.
I find this to be an extremely important policy. When I was at Target, we spent a week working in stores as part of our first 12 weeks of training, and it was extremely helpful in understanding the work to which we were contributing. I think doing so quarterly or semiannually would have been really grounding and a great reminder of what the end result of our work is. Too many corporate employees, including upper leadership, are disconnected from the experiences their brands provide and the hard work it takes to be an associate in stores.
I totally agree, Melissa! This summer I was a volunteer at the U.S. Open golf tournament and staffed a cashiers station for four shifts. It was not-stop ringing up transactions. You learn what things cause friction for employees and customers and the exprience is priceless. I would gladly work a few shifts each year at one of our Verizon stores.
Yessss!
I love the idea of corporate employees—and specifically leadership—spending time on the front line. There is no better way to understand customers than to be on the front line, interacting with them and learning firsthand what they want, expect, like, don’t like, and more.
In my first book, Moments of Magic, I wrote about a program where Anheuser-Busch leadership spent time with salespeople selling to bars, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. At the time, they were expected to spend one day/quarter to learn what was really happening in the field.
In my most recent book, I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again, I wrote about Bill Gates of Microsoft, who spent time in the customer service department handling support calls. Why? To get real and unfiltered feedback from the customer.
In short, executives spending time on the frontline is a good idea.
No two retail companies are exactly the same, and since all are in the private sector, I don’t subscribe to any one size fits all type of policy, and therefore, I’ll comment in the most general way possible.
I always enjoyed watching the television program, “Undercover Boss,” where CEO’s have a hard time doing the jobs on-site in their companies. But we saw only the episodes where the experiment was worthwhile, and not the ones never aired because the exercise wasn’t as worthwhile.
I don’t think it is necessary for corporate personnel to actually roll up their sleeves and do the job of a checker, stocker, butcher, etc. However, I believe that corporate personnel, some positions more than others, need to be in the stores, often. Most importantly they need to spend time with store managers, and other personnel, asking good questions, and actively listening.
If they do play a role inside the store, I think what works best is to perform a merchandiser role, and while doing so, observe, and chat with, real customers, as well as employees. Walk the store with a manager.
For the companies where corporate personnel do get involved inside the stores, I think it’s important to get on a plane and experience different stores around the country, or region, depending on the chain’s size. Db
I subscribe to the concept that you can’t ask and monitor people to do to a job you haven’t done. When I started working for Kmart in its heyday, the man who eventually became the president of the highly-successful Apparel Division (Bill Saum), had started as a stock boy in Kmart. Nobody in the company could B.S. him. He had already seen almost all!
100% yes, but for more than a day here or there. Having new hires do operational assignments, whether for a month or a quarter, will give them the knowledge base they need to be more impactful in their corporate roles.
While at Walmart, I spent a year training as a store and district manager, in between corporate assignments, and it improved my understanding of retail exponentially.
As a retail executive I had all new hires spend two weeks in stores and 3 days in a DC as part of their onboarding. The time was a great investment. Home Depot’s approach is a great way to keep their team members in touch with what happens when the customer meets the retail reality as well as gives them an understanding of how frustrating life can be as an end user. Additionally, these moments often come back with some “Ah Ha” moments that can be improved and add efficiency.
I’m a big advocate of spending time ‘on the floor’ or ‘in the business’, but it can’t be for one hour or one day. Sure, a corporate employee will get some benefit from the day tour, but it will fall short on many accounts. To maximize learning and get a real understanding of the different dynamics of a business, a 2-8 week program will deliver incredible insights, making the corporate associate much more valuable when she returns to her office position. If a company doesn’t have a policy like this, I’d advise young associates to request time ‘in the business’. It will pay huge dividends short and long-term
Absolutely. And it all doesn’t have to be on the floor. Stockroom work, pre-opening work and post close work including mopping the selling floor, emptying the trash, cleaning bathrooms and changing visual presentations should be part of the plan. All while dressing professionally.
The best and most successful corporate retail staff have worked in stores. It should be a requirement that all functions across the retail end to end should work in the stores and often. This is a no brainer.
Working with customers, selling and styling products, cashing out shoppers and working with visual merchants gives the corporate team real-time insight into what is truly happening on the shop floor. These insights inform product design, merchandising, planning and marketing. Data on a spreadsheet can only tell you part of the story.
I worked on the shop floor as a sales associate, at a buyer’s assistant, and while I was the head of buying at a global brand. I also spent days in the DC to better understand how warehouse teams were receiving and packing goods so I could make better decisions on how I placed my orders. It made me a better merchant.
My answer is yes, absolutely. Frequently. And not just to stand around and observe, but to perform the day to day tasks frontline associates and supervisors perform.
Working the floor was mandatory when I worked in the corporate buying office of a department store. We grumbled about it but it made us better buyers. MUCH better buyers.
The short answer is yes. The who (everyone), why (myriad reasons) and how often (twice a year minimum) takes a little more time. Having worked in information systems and technology my entire career in retail, I came to develop a phrase which I have repeated to my teams and colleagues that ‘only by working in the stores some amount of time annually, we, in IS&T, would learn to do things for ‘them’ instead of doing things to ‘them’ with our high-and-mighty ‘creations’ because we had little or no idea of the real world.’ I can go on but you get the point.
I’ve worked for companies that had a work in store during holidays policy. HQ team members were required to work on Saturdays in stores for the 4 weeks prior to Christmas. Needless to say this wasn’t popular, either with the HQ team or the store teams, who had to figure out what to do with a bunch of opinionated execs with no real skills at stocking or running registers. The stores finally made the policy go away.
That said, there is value for HQ teams to spend time in stores. There really isn’t any other way for them to understand the day-to-day issues that store teams deal with. It’s a good idea, just not, as my friend Paula points out, during the busiest season when experience is needed to insure things go smoothly during the most critical weeks of the year.
Absolutely corporate employees should work in stores. I used to mandate this for my team when I was in senior leadership at retailers, and I tied it to their bonuses–Work in one of our stores 1x/quarter for a full shift. Some of the best ideas from my team came from their days in the store. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, especially the workers who ultimately are responsible for your paycheck.
Working one day per quarter is not a high bar, but the experience needs to be meaningful for the corporate executive and actually helpful to the store. Regular store visits where executives can speak to store management and associates, and even tour stockrooms, might be more impactful than “make-work” exercises. (This should be happening a lot more than quarterly, too.) As a former merchant, it’s most meaningful for buyers and DMM’s to see the real-world consequences of their decision-making and assortment planning.
The most successful companies I have worked with all embraced time in the field. This included stores, warehouses and call centers. This exposed leadership to firsthand feedback on how their initiatives were received by employees and customers. It’s one thing to read a report or a call center transcript. It’s far more revealing to hear directly from customers and employees. Those interactions can lead to positive changes. The ones with the purse strings and tool kits need to appreciate the realities of the day-to-day. A lack of HQ staff field time can lead to some pretty odd practices.
The short answer is “yes”. Working in a corporate role in retailing means that your role supports colleagues in physical stores or another part of the organization. (i.e., distribution centers, online fulfillment centers, customer call centers, etc.). Understanding the challenges that these employees face, potentially as a result of decisions you make, is of the highest value to a retail organization. Interfacing with consumers and seeing how they engage with a product, a display, signage, and more is also of great value.
As a buyer, I learned from such assignments about how my product packaging, shipping container, and direction on store layouts (plan-o-grams) were being executed at the store level and any challenges or benefits that arose from my decisions. I got to hear from consumers what they liked/disliked about the products I bought, the brands I carried, and what they thought about our shopping experience versus our competitors.
I think the only question from this story is about the “when” of such assignments. Sending out corporate employees during the holidays or during other high-traffic seasons was not ideal in my view, as store employees needed to be focused on serving customers and not on answering questions from me. My view on this softens somewhat if the corporate employee is well versed and self-sufficient in the role they are taking on.
Overall, I view this as a “best practice” of incredible value to retailers.
Having corporate employees work retail shifts could be very valuable. It gives decision-makers a firsthand look at what’s happening at the store level and helps them understand the real pain points for customers and associates. That kind of insight can lead to better decisions that truly support teams on the front lines.
I say get out of the office and from behind the desk. Having an accurate picture of what happens in stores crafts better strategies, confirms assumptions or strips away biases, and paints a picture well beyond a spreadsheet.
Retail leaders need to see in-person how the customer experiences things, what processes store employees go through, and what levers look to be move the numbers. Plus, getting to meet and/or help customers is not only rewarding, it provides a treasure trove of information and experiences you can’t get in the office or conference room.
Requiring corporate employees to work retail shifts can inject empathy into the overall culture. Corporate staff may no longer feel arm’s length from the customer. They may also discover new ways to support frontline colleagues in their decisions and retail processes.
To be a customer obsessed organization, you need to spend time with your customers. For me it is less about corporate staff having more empathy for other employees, and more about understanding why front line employee frustrations impact the customer experience, and therefore revenue. If you have empathy for the customer, you’ll fix the staff experience so you can deliver a better customer experience. Everyone from the CEO down should have to spend at least a day a year on the floor. The return on investment from better corporate decision making every other day of the year should more than make up for any downside.
This should be standard procedure at ALL retail chains. End of discussion.
Come on guys, haven’t you ever watched Undercover Boss? Heartwarming stories and better companies are always the result.
As the article states, having corporate employees walk in retail associates’ shoes allows them to see firsthand the challenges stores are experiencing and capture direct customer feedback on the products and processes they’re responsible for sourcing and implementing. Brick-and-mortar locations can’t closely follow the customer journey like digital channels, limiting the data to identify where friction or disengagement exists.
It also gives corporate employees an appreciation for the role sales associates play in closing sales and delivering the in-store experience mapped out by the corporate team.