Bruce wrote:
wrote:
Why are british retail staff so bad? Because you cant fire them for
being bad. Simple as that.
On the contrary, their employers *can* fire them.
But they don't get fired, because no-one who is available to replace
them would be any better.
If that were true, all store staff would be hopeless. But theyre not,
some are perfectly ok, some are downright good. (I tend to gravitate
toward those shops.) And it seems to be true at all quality levels of
retail stores from cheapie to fancy.
Managers often share the defeatist attitude that no-one else will be
any better, and the result is tolerance of ongoing incompetence & work
at a snail's pace. And since most minimum wagers have no motivation to
ever do better, they just cba to do anything more than they really
must. Its a bad cycle, those who repeatedly **** customers off and
waste time need to be sacked. Let them look for jobs in an industry
sector where its less of an issue. Retail does require some people
skills, at all levels, and one of those is to not talk out of your
rear to the customer and waste half their day by not having a clue
what youre doing.
We know why it happens of course, it takes management time to sort out
bad staff and give them all the info they ought to have in order to
provide competent service. Thats usually seen as an unnecessary cost,
but in reality its quite the opposite. Watch any incompetent staff
member and you'll pull your hair out over the amount of time (& thus
money) they waste through not knowing what theyre doing. It really is
better to give them a clue and weed out the time wasters, of which yes
there are many. Make the business's position on this clear at job
interview time and many of the worst wasters will be put off and go
off to competitors.
And its not hard, just pair the staff up, making one responsible for
coaching the other. Anyone who knows the basics of their job can do
that sort of coaching, just being there to answer a persons's
questions when needed. It saves more time than it consumes, and you
get happy cutomers.
You always need a last stand backup, and in this case it has to be
firing. If staff keep acting against the interests of the business,
good bye. The purpose of staff is to help a business flourish, to act
for the business instead of just for themselvse, and for that they get
paid.
NT