Summary
Working in a sphere of retail has always been a questionable endeavor in terms of employee engagement in the work process and inner motivation. Thus, there is a common tendency today to assume that working in retail is mostly encouraged by financial rewards and the necessity to find a job, with the absolute minority of applicants having the actual aptitude for sales. For this reason, many employers nowadays pay specific attention to job candidates to prevent a negative pattern of human resource turnover, which leads to considerable financial losses and disruption in the workflow.
One of the vivid examples of how a company can manage the retail department work patterns is the managerial strategy at the Container Store enterprise. Due to the enterprise’s peculiar manufacture choices, its major responsibility is placed on the sales managers who would be able to present the product most beneficially, displaying professionalism and involvement. For this reason, the employers secure stable profit and job satisfaction within the workplace, given the worker is, indeed, a great specialist in the field, removing “good” employees from the list. The staff team of the company implies long-term cooperation with the enterprise, limiting the turnover rate to the absolute minimum with the help of various interview stages before hiring a retailer. Among other peculiarities of employment, information transparency and extensive training programs should be as well outlined.
Answers
To begin with, the question of the “turnover – resource efficiency” paradigm should be analyzed. According to the case study, the company described has incredibly low turnover rates, providing it with various beneficial opportunities. To begin with, the process of human resource supply forecasting becomes easier and precise due to stability within the team. Generally speaking, human resource supply stands for the management’s demand to calculate the patterns of employment within the company to make predictions for the company’s efficiency in the long term. Thus, one might outline the regularity, according to which the company’s product demand and human resource supply will have minimal discrepancy when one of the formula constituents provides barely any possibility of resource losses during the process.
Another question tackled in the case study concerns the relevance of information transparency within the team. While some people assume that such information has no specific effect on the employees’ work, others realize the importance of honesty in the 21st-century market. Thus, although some employees do not fully understand the information provided, the psychological factor of trust makes them feel more committed to the workplace. Moreover, such politics within an enterprise encourages management to avoid any unfairness in the workplace. For this reason, the decision to make the information access an integral part of communication is a beneficial way to reduce the worker’s turnover. Once applied to the vast majority of enterprises, the overall tendency of running a successful business will obtain a completely different perspective.
Finally, when speaking of the questions that should be asked during an interview, it is important to emphasize the importance of questionnaire balance, talking to candidates behavioral, situational, and opinion questions. Thus, examples of the questions might be outlined as follows:
- What is good customer service?
- What are your primary expectations of working for the Container Store? What was the reason for applying?
- For how long are you planning to work here if hired?
- A customer with a sophisticated temper disagrees with you every time you try to defend the company’s interests. How would you respond to the situation to handle the conflict?
- Why, in your opinion, do our customers choose the Container Store?
Conclusion
Taking everything into consideration, it might be concluded that the notion of sales and retail are now frequently disregarded within a company. As a result, many enterprises suffer from high employee turnover rates and financial losses. The companies like Container Store serve as role models for others in terms of hiring and communication patterns. The complexity of employee choice proves to be one of the most successful strategies to ensure security and job satisfaction.