HR in Retail Industry
Retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and is evolving rapidly due to the continuously changing market economy, digital competition, new product launches and demanding customers. With an extremely competitive scenario of market growth, workforce has become one of the key factors in the growth of any retail organization.
So, why is HR critical in Retail?
- Service oriented and people driven industry
- Constantly evolving and competitive growing environment
- Large manpower employed
- Skill set requirement varies based on the market type, it involves both skilled and unskilled manpower
HR Challenges faced by the Retail industry:
Due to the global economic changes, Retailers face competition with the new entrants from other countries in the domestic market and hence strengthening their talent portfolio is critical for success. Consequently, along with business leaders, the HR strategist role requires to forecast the industry trends to identify future business needs and build the right talent pool.
Key HR challenges in Retail include:
(a) High turnover:
Retail industry faces a talent crisis especially at middle and senior management level. Though entry level resources are available, retaining the talented manpower for the long run becomes a challenge.
The management needs to know the reasons of attrition and take corrective actions accordingly.
(b) Lack of skilled workforce:
An important challenge in Retail industry is getting professionally educated workforce. As there are very few courses that offer a professional degree in Retail industry, getting skilled staff is a challenge.
Organizations need to identify training needs and accordingly plan for training and development programs to enhance the skill set.
(c) Diversity:
Diversity in workforce is crucial as it helps a retailer connect with its market that leads to better ideas and results. Hence, HR needs to promote team building programs and initiatives to connect people to avoid conflicts, promote teamwork and collaboration among resources.
(d) Seasonal Demand:
Retailers experience seasonal demand fluctuations and hence hire temporary staff during this period which do not have appropriate skills to serve customers. So, forecasting the resource demands and planning for training the existing resources or hiring strategy becomes critical.
(e) Employee engagement and communication
The Retail industry is distributed across sectors and locations. It is very important for management to engage and motivate the resources in distant locations and make them connected with the organizational goals and objectives. It is important for leadership to connect and engage with employees at regular intervals.
HR: Cornerstone for business growth
Human Resource Management means managing the employees of an organization. There are two aspects to it, one is revenue generation by providing efficient service and second is the cost associated to manage human resources - the primary concern for leadership is to strike a balance between the two.
Putting down a well thought strategy, predicting and forecasting the future trends and taking the right decisions.
• Correct in-depth analysis of HR data at regular interval.
• Evaluation of various aspects of HR in varied situation
• Quick view and Spot on decision making
The next part will discuss the software solution that can empower Retail Industry - HR Strategists to take effective decisions for their businesses.