GLOBAL FEATURE
Who is doing it well :
Uniqlo Japanese apparel brand Uniqlo ’ s success in the hyper-competitive fast-fashion industry is often attributed to its strong company culture built around quality products , technological innovation and customer service . These values are instilled in its store staff , who recite what is known as “ The Behaviours ” – six standard phrases to use when interacting with customers – before starting work each day .
While every retailer has employee rules and guidelines , Uniqlo ’ s approach to training and developing staff is described as being on another level .
Each new employee is reportedly trained for three months , well above the industry norm , and they are assessed on every customer touchpoint , from how they fold clothes to how they return credit cards to customers . Store managers are trained at Uniqlo University in Tokyo to ensure consistent standards are upheld across the company ’ s 2500 stores and 130,000 employees worldwide .
At the same time , all employees regardless of their role are encouraged to cultivate the mindset of an executive through Zen ' in keiei , a Japanese term that roughly translates to : every person participates in decision-making .
“ To support the self-realisation of each employee , we encourage employees to set their own career goals and work with their supervisors to create and implement individual development plans ,” Uniqlo ’ s parent company Fast Retailing states on its website .
The parent company also has a self-reporting system that allows employees to report their career aspirations to the company ’ s human resources department and offers talented employees in each location global growth opportunities . One of the ways it does this is through the ‘ Career Challenge Program ’, an in-house open recruitment system that operates in each market and is being expanded to the group and global level .
By clearly specifying the positions that are needed on a group and global basis , and by establishing a global open recruitment system that allows employees to apply for positions that transcend brands , countries , and departments , we are expanding opportunities for employees to carve out their own careers on the global stage ,” Fast Retailing stated .
Costco As of this year , Costco is the fifthbiggest retailer in the world , with 879 stores and more than 300,000 employees worldwide , but when it comes to appointing warehouse managers , it almost exclusively promotes from within . It sees this is key to maintaining its culture .
“ We would never dream of hiring a manager for one of our Costcos from outside the company ,” Costco co-founder James Sinegal said in an interview with The Motley Fool , a long-term investing website . “ It has to be somebody who has worked
We would never dream of hiring a manager for one of our Costcos from outside the company . their way up in our system .”
Speaking to a class of MBA students at MIT ’ s Sloan School of Management , Sinegal explained that developing warehouse managers takes time and learning by doing . It ’ s not something that can be taught in a two-week training program , so from its early days , Costco ’ s growth has been determined by the availability of strong managers .
“ Any time its leaders looked at a new market , the first question they asked was , ‘ Who do we have to manage these places ? What ’ s our talent pipeline ?’” Zeynep Ton , a professor of the practice at MIT ’ s Sloan School of Management , wrote in an article for the Harvard Business Review .
Costco is acutely aware of the need to attract and retain the next generation of team members to continue filling this pipeline in the future , and it is looking at ways to improve its orientation process with that in mind .
“ If we ’ re not retaining those in their 20s and 30s , and keeping them as longer-term employees , then who is going to share the culture with the next generation ?” Costco chief diversity officer Alison Francis told Inside Retail . ►
August 2024 www . insideretail . asia 19