Why Retail Stores Will Keep Struggling

Spring is here, which means annual reviews are rolling out across the retail landscape.?2021 was a banner year?in most cases. Will employees reap the rewards?

Probably not.

Store leaders have to slog through countless team reviews, contributing hours of work so that upper management teams can dole out annual raises.

First things first — do everyone a favor and have their increases ready when you sit down with them. If you don’t, it means you’re disorganized or don’t care. Either way, it’s a bad look.

This is what people want, by the way — they want to know what their raise will be. Feedback is excellent and all, but if you’ve worked somewhere longer than three years or so, the review process beings to feel like Groundhog’s Day — every year, the same old thing.

The only point to sitting down in a tiny, windowless office for an hour to discuss your performance is the raise part.

So, what can brick and mortar teams look forward to? Not much.

The company has new stores to open! Here’s one dollar.

A decade ago, when a retail company had a good year, they celebrated by scouring the country to see where they could open more stores. Some financial success may have trickled down into their store teams but probably not.

What untapped markets could be an opportunity to rake in more cash? Surely consumers in the Midwest would like this product since people on the West Coast bought it.

Expand now and ask questions later — worldwide domination. Let’s go!

Those raises that everyone is waiting for — they all get 3%. Across the board, everyone gets the same amount unless an employee is particularly great; they may reach 3.5%.

However, if an employee gets a promotion within the last year, their raise gets cut down — pro-rated or skipped entirely.

The annual raise gets thrown in the trash can because they are doing a fantastic job and got a promotion. A promotion with a raise attached means that this kick-ass employee doesn’t get an annual raise on top of that.

Way to make people want to stay!

This old way of thinking isn’t going to sustain companies over the next ten years. Younger consumers desire a different type of corporation and the customer-facing hourly workforce deserves to be paid way more.

I mean, WAY MORE.

I’ll break it down for you.

You make how much?

According to?Salary.com?— the median salary for a Retail Store Manager is $64,599. This number swings wildly because it takes into account tiny boutiques as well as big-box retailers.

Let’s make it easy and call it 65K. That breaks down to $33.33 an hour. A 3% raise would equal $66,950 and break down to $34.33/hour. A dollar more an hour is an okay raise in the retail world. But you have to be at 65K level, and most leaders are not.

The support leaders who do the majority of work get paid a lot less.

The minimum wage in California is $15/hr. Assistant managers are lucky if they make $17/hr. I mean — lucky! A 3% raise could mean a dollar raise, but only if the employee has been in their position for an entire year. If they haven’t, their raise gets pro-rated.

Only been here six months? You get $0.50.

A $0.50 to $1.00 an hour raise doesn’t feel awesome when you are a career professional, and you’ve guided your team through a global pandemic.?These leaders have kept up with CDC, company, and customer demands for a very long time.

Got tenure? Too bad.

Leaders with tenure will forever get the short end of the stick.

Say, someone got hired eight years ago, and they were making 45k/year. That person gets 3% raises forever, no matter how great they are.

A new manager gets hired at the average going rate, which is already way more than the tenured person. The tenured employee that knows every little detail about the company and has dedicated all her time there will never catch up.

Never.

Retail companies reply with “3% is a standard raise. No, you can’t have more. We have to stick to the budget.” How about you invite some brick-and-mortar leaders to help you revamp it? They have ideas, I assure you.

Every option should be on the table right now.

• Stop opening new stores and pay everyone that currently works for you more.
• Pay people with tenure more every year.?Make them want to stay. You’re going to need these people more than you know.
• Offer real career advancement with salary transparency.

Most of my retail career was spent wondering how to move up and having no idea what the salary range of the following position was. That’s an issue for everyone.

Retail is easy — anyone can do it

The biggest problem is that retail professionals are not looked at as professionals. Retail is seen as an inferior job — an easy hourly position in most cases.

“Low skill” — that term is infuriating.

The worst part is that the companies that employ these leaders seem to perpetuate this very thing. They say that team leaders are their biggest asset, but these people get the least amount of money company-wide.

Retail leaders can manage a million different tasks, personalities, and policies without losing track of any of it. That was just the agenda for Monday; wait until Tuesday when visual updates happen, and everything in the store moves.

If established companies don’t act quickly, they may not have anyone left to run their stores for them.

What now?

Gen Z isn’t about to do it. They see what’s going on and know that they could probably make more money with their laptop, an iPhone, and a couple of friends.

The status quo will crush companies that are hell-bent on preserving it.

Store leaders will throw their keys in the safe and move on to another career willing to offer them more for their stellar skill set.

Inflation is about 7%?right now, gas and food prices are rising, and rent is going up.?The only intelligent choice for companies — if they want to keep their stores fully staffed with talented career professionals — is to pay them more.

Sure, they can keep kicking this can down the road and hope that people will continue to work for fifty cents more per hour, but this is only hurting the overall business.

Companies may think they are saving money by handing out these horrible raises, but?when they’re stuck with two hundred stores to staff, and all the qualified candidates have fled to other occupations, they may regret their decision today.

Frontline workers, and that means retail, are essential. It’s long overdue that they are paid for this widely accepted fact.?Companies better step up, or this spring evaluation round may be their last.

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This was originally published in An Injustice on Medium. Follow me there for more personal essays.

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