Best Companies to Work for Part 2 - Is it Important for You to Work for a Company That Values Your Opinion?

Each year, different organizations such as Canada’s Top 100, The Financial Post’s Top 10 and Fortune Magazine’s Top 100, release their lists of the best companies to work for. Instead of listing who we think are the best companies to obtain work, this article is the second in a three part series that will outline the attributes that make for a great work place, and how you can find the right employment to suit your needs.

The best companies to work for in Canada are the ones that listen to and engage their employees. An employee who truly feels that their opinion is valued is a happy employee. Employees have reported that working for an employer who values their opinion makes a huge difference in their overall job satisfaction. The Blessing White 2011 employee engagement report, which is about workplace satisfaction, revealed some very interesting information in this regard. 

·       Out of 10,914 workers surveyed by Blessing White, only 31% reported that they are engaged. In our industry, the retail industry, we have found many employees who approach us for employment are doing so because they have found themselves feeling like their employers do not see them as skilled professionals. Instead, they are viewed as entry level employees, and their voices are often not heard. It is a big mistake for retailers to make. Entry level retail employees are the foundation of the retail industry and must possess many different skill sets to be successful. Retail employees benefit from working with an employer who shows them respect, values their contribution and considers their voices in company decisions.

·       Despite the economic recession, more employees are looking for opportunities outside of their organization than in 2008, suggesting that 2012 will be a challenging year for retention. In our experience, many professionals in the retail industry are starting to look at less conventional employment arrangements. Working directly for a single retailer does not always give the retail professional as much of a feeling of appreciation than those who work for placement agencies that tout its retail workforce as top level professionals who can make or break an organization’s success.

·       Employees worldwide who know their managers as “people” are more likely to be engaged. We have noticed that retail employees who work with an employer who communicates and makes them feel valued makes for a happier work environment and overall experience.

·       The higher up in the organization you go, the more likely you are to be engaged. This statistic speaks volumes as it relates to the retail industry. In the retail industry, front line employees are the foundation of a retailer’s success. This is one reason why it is so important to work with a retail organization who values their employee’s opinions, especially when statistics show that a higher ratio of lower level employees feel disengaged in the work place.

 
Wouldn’t it be nice to work for a company who considers your voice in their vision? When this happens employees will align themselves to reach a company’s goals. Listening to all employees’ thoughts and opinion ensures that lower ranked staff are not excluded and left without a sense of the company’s direction.

For more information about the best companies to work for or if you are looking for a rewarding retail career with an organization who will hear your voice and value your input, please visit www.storesupport.ca or call Bonnie Yhip at 1 877-421-5081.

Strong Retail Management Begins with Effective Distribution Resource Planning

An ongoing challenge in retail management continues to be effective distribution resource planning. Effective distribution resource planning includes setting inventory control parameters to calculate time-phased inventory requirements. When you allow a retailer to be completely responsible for your brand’s distribution resource planning you may run into instances where your product is not on the shelf or runs out of stock. Inevitably, if your product is not available to sell, it won’t. In the end, the retailer could de-list your product despite the fact that it was the retailer’s poor retail management that caused your product to be unavailable for consumer purchase. 

Distribution resource planning is a science that involves many moving variables at both the beginning and end of a period. These variables include:

·          on-hand inventory 

·          back ordered demand of a product

·          required quantity of a product

·          constrained quantity of a product

·          recommended order quantity

In addition to distribution resource planning, a brand is also largely reliant on the retailer staff’s ability and training to understand the impact to a brand when their product is not on the shelf. If left up to them you could have a product that is in-stock but sitting in the back simply because the retailer’s staff has other priorities. It takes considerable effort to get a retailer to list your product and, even more, to keep it listed.

Good retail management is the key to a brand’s success at retail. Many brands work with merchandising companies to ease the burden of distribution resource planning and to ensure that the retailers are not the reason that their products are not on the shelf. Not only do merchandising companies assist with retail management and distribution resource planning, they also include teams that actually go to the retailer’s location to ensure products are in stock and on the shelf. If for some reason your stock is low before you anticipated that it would be, your assigned team will bring additional stock to the store before the retailer runs out. If your product is in stock and not on the shelf, they will ensure it gets there.

In the end, poor retail management and poor distribution resource planning causes the brand and the retailer to lose out on sales. This impacts customer retention greatly. The challenge for the brand is to manage what is already out of the door.  If you have not taken measures to put controls in place, and the retailer is the reason that the product is not getting adequately stocked or is not on the shelf, the retailer has all of the control. You are at the retailer’s mercy and should the retailer de-list the product, you lose out.

Once the product makes its way in-store, a minimal investment on your behalf will ensure that your product is in stock and on the shelf. This will improve your product sales, which profits both the brand and the retailer. It will be a key reason that the retailer continues to offer your product.

For more information about retail management and distribution resource planning please contact Store Support at 905 847 6513 or visit www.storesupport.ca

Best Companies to Work for Part 1 - Is it Important for You to Work for a Company That Cares About Your Quality of Life?

Each year, different organizations such as Canada’s Top 100, The Financial Post’s Top 10 and Fortune Magazine’s Top 100, release their lists of the best companies to work for. Instead of listing who we think are the best companies to work for, this article is the first in a three part series that will outline the attributes that make for a great work place, and how you can find the right employment to suit your needs.

The best companies to work for may not always be the best company for you to work at. Each individual’s personal circumstances are different. Your age, the size of your family, how many children you have, whether or not you are a single parent, your level of education, where you live, your transportation options and your personal financial situation are all going to be deciding factors when determining what is the right kind of job and company for you.

One of the most important attributes of a good employer is that they care about your overall quality of life. If you have a family, flexibility will provide you with balance between work and family to ensure a long term and happy employer/employee relationship. For some families flexibility is even more important than compensation.

Inflexible employers who offer strict shifts, pre-timed and monitored breaks and are nitpicky about sick days can be a challenging fit for mothers who have young children. P.A. days, sick days because of increased incidences of illness (children bring home all kinds of sicknesses) and staying home with sick children as well as holiday and summer child care planning can make maintaining employment difficult for mothers as well as fathers who are single parents.

The best companies to work for are often the ones that offer flexibility.

Those who require flexibility in their employment may find the flexibility they need with a placement agency. Placement agencies are not employment agencies in the sense that they do not place their employee in one particular company, where the terms of employment are determined by the employer, which can result in the inflexibility mentioned in this article, above. .

When you work for a placement agency you are an employee of the placement agency and will be trained in a role, then placed in several different companies. At retail, for example, one week you could be working at Fortinos and the next weekend at Walmart. You are able to tell the placement agency your availability and then they will call you for shifts as it works within your schedule. Because placement agencies will usually have a large workforce, if you are called for a shift that you cannot work, you don’t have to worry that you will have an unhappy employer on the other end of the phone.. They can simply contact another employee to fill the shift.

We only live one life and quality of that life is important. Happiness and family should always be a top priority and a definite way to ensure that you enjoy the right work / life balance is to work for an organization that matches to your personal needs.

For more information about the best companies to work for as well as working for a company that cares about your quality of life, or, if you would like to find out about placement agency opportunities please visit www.storesupport.ca or call Bonnie Yhip at 1 877-421-5081.

Merchandising Companies Save Brands Big When it Comes to Retail Merchandising

Brands spend a considerable amount of effort to get their products to retailers and to achieve competitive placement. Once the combination of financial investment and time spent pitching the brand results in a retailer listing the brand in-store, the next step is to keep the product in the right spot. This can be particularly challenging for smaller brands as products sales are just one of the deciding factors as to whether or not a retailer continues to list their product.

Many brands assume that once a retailer agrees to sell their product the job is done and that the employees of the retailer will ensure that their product is stocked and on the shelf for people to buy. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Obviously, the cost to a brand when its product is not on the shelf is substantial.

Whether you are a small brand or larger more established brand, it makes absolute sense to continue investing in the success of your brand once in-store. Undertrained merchandising personnel costs brands big where retail merchandising is concerned. These personnel are often the reason that products are delayed in making it onto the shelf and they are often responsible for numerous instances of products going out of stock. Faulty retail merchandising is something that can be avoided and is worthy of a brand’s consideration.

Compliant retail merchandising begins with competent merchandisers and customized solutions. In Toronto, merchandising companies have been saving brands a lot of money in this regard. Because merchandising companies specialize in retail merchandising, they are able to offer skilled resources that many retailers simply do not have. Their involvement reduces the retailer’s impact regarding the success or failure of a product at retail.

Compliance can begin before the product hits the shelf. Merchandising companies offer staff that are skilled and have received retail merchandising training to ensure they understand the impact to your brand if your product goes out of stock or is not on the shelf. The in-store representatives of merchandising companies act as your ambassador and their presence ensures that your inventory is full and current.

The experience of working with a merchandising company is invaluable to a brand. Merchandising companies are able to work with brands to plan for situations that often happen at retail and that retail staff may not have considered. The exercise of working with professional merchandising companies allows brands to learn about challenges they may face while avoiding the impact of the potential issues because they have professional guidance available to them as well as the resources to ensure that their products are always on the shelf.

It is ideal to research merchandising companies and hire one before your brand is in-store. This will help avoid loss of revenue. If your brand is already in-store, you can have a merchandising company perform an audit, which will let you know what needs to be done to better maintain your distribution and ensure that your product is there for purchasers to see and buy. This will not only boost sales but also improve your end customer’s perception of the accessibility of your brand.

For more information about how you can improve your brand’s retail merchandising please contact Store Support at 905 847 6513 or visit www.storesupport.ca