FEATURED ARTICLE
Improving Your Retail Store Culture Starts with a Simple Conversation
The following is adapted from RETAIL PRIDE, The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career by Ron Thurston
We all know work culture is important. With the right culture, your team will be engaged and motivated, and with the wrong culture, they’ ll dread coming to work every day. So the question is, how do you build the right culture?
The good news is that you don’ t need those things to be successful! Instead, the best resource you have for improving your work culture is right in front of you: your retail teams! They can tell you precisely what’ s working and what isn’ t, and when you place them at the center of your cultural efforts, you will naturally begin building the kind of culture that will motivate and engage them.
So how do you know if your strategies work in realms that can’ t be easily understood via surveys and metrics? The answer may sound simplistic, but it’ s often overlooked: bring some of the team together and talk about your strategies!
You need to know what engages your team, what makes them want to stay, what might make them want to leave, and what’ s important to them. In that regard, nothing can replace honest conversations in a safe and trusting environment.
Bring People Together and Ask Them
Some of the common questions you can ask are:
Ron Thurston
Best-Selling Author of Retail Pride
What would you tell a friend about your store if they were about to start working here? What would you most like to change about this store / company? Who is a hero around here? Why? What prevents someone from doing well in the store? Do you feel successful every day? If not, why not?
Pay particular attention to what motivates the team and what they care about the most, along with their perceptions of the company’ s strengths and weaknesses. These insights can help you understand both the immediate and long-term steps you may need to shift your company culture from where it is today to where you want it to be— collaborative, supportive, participative, and productive.
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You need to know what engages your team, what makes them want to stay, what might make them want to leave, and what’ s important to them. In that regard, nothing can replace honest conversations in a
” safe and trusting environment.
22 27TH NATIONAL RETAIL CONFERENCE & STORES ASIA EXPO 2021 AUGUST 12-13, 2021