Tech may get all the headlines in the retail revolution going on, but many in the business say that even the best technologies, algorithms and digital systems will mean very little without the right people.
“Retail’s Human Proposition” is what Robert Ramos, Senior Vice President for the retail consulting, forecasting and buying company The Doneger Group, calls it, and in a recent post for The Robin Report he points to six specific steps retailers can take to make this happen.
- Rethinking the Employment Base: Retailers have to look beyond traditional job descriptions, search techniques and employee functions to attract better talent.
- Dialing Up the Human Touch: As technology takes over more functions previously handled by people, those human resources need to be deployed differently, being much more hands-on with shoppers in a more convivial store atmosphere.
- Empowering Employees: To foster more of an entrepreneurial bend to the labor force, workers should be allowed to get more involved in decision making, brainstorming and new business development.
- Put Your Money Where Your Strategy Is: If you’re going to get your employees more involved in all aspects of the business you have to make it worth their while. Find a way to compensate staffs for being more customer-centric.
- Making Doing-Good a Cornerstone of the Business: The current give-back movement is here to stay and it needs to be fully integrated into your business and the people who work for it. Transparency breeds better employees.
- Make it Personal: As organizations get larger and more tech-centric they can’t forget the people behind it all. It’s a simple premise but a tough one to execute.
Ramos says it can be done. “A more focused human lens will bring both digital and physical together. Unfortunately,” however he adds, “we are not even close yet.”