Personnel

How to Improve Talent Retention This Holiday Season
December 2, 2021 at 4:30 pm

Retail workers are leaving their jobs at a record pace, with 721,000 workers quitting in August alone, maintaining an industry high for employee turnover since April. What’s more, employers in the retail space that were already facing massive labor shortages are now also preparing for increased seasonal hiring — making employee engagement more critical than…

How Retailers Can Benefit From Digitally Empowering Frontline Workers
December 1, 2021 at 4:20 pm

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of frontline workers in many industries — especially retail. These employees currently account for 80 percent of the global workforce. Yet, 60 percent of them are unsatisfied with the technology they've been provided with to do their work. Digital transformation is essential as businesses strategize for a strong "return…

Investing in Associates is Good for Business
November 29, 2021 at 8:37 am

The tide is turning in retail. Despite staff and supply shortages that may burden shoppers and encumber stores during the holiday season, signs of growing optimism for the future abound. While last year the industry underwent a scourge of bankruptcies and closures, mid-year predictions suggest store openings could surpass store closings for the first time…

685,000 People Quit a Retail Job in September, New Labor Department Data Shows
November 17, 2021 at 3:38 pm

Americans quit their jobs at record rates in September, and the retail industry was no exception. The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed 685,000 people quit a retail job in September, at a rate of 4.4 percent. While this number is down from the 730,000 people who quit a retail job in…

Jan. 4 Vaccination Deadline Set for Private Sector Employers; NRF Pushes Back Against Mandate
November 4, 2021 at 4:42 pm

The Biden administration said on Thursday that large companies (those with 100 or more employees) have until Jan. 4 to ensure that their workforces are fully vaccinated under a sweeping new coronavirus health measure that will cover 84 million private sector workers, including an estimated 31 million workers who are currently unvaccinated. The plan was…

Businesses Everywhere Are Reinventing the Future of Work. But Are E-Commerce Marketers Ready?
October 21, 2021 at 3:37 pm

E-commerce marketers have been preparing for the future of work for some time now — and it's not simply because they're digital natives. What do e-commerce marketers know that other pros don’t? I’ll unpack that idea by turning to research Sidecar published earlier this year, the 2021 E-commerce Marketer Survey. A key question we asked…

How Retailers Benefit From Providing Early Wage Access
October 5, 2021 at 10:50 pm

Why should employees wait for payday to gain access to wages already earned? Turns out that plenty of hourly workers at big-box retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy don’t have to if they tap into their earned wage access (EWA) benefits. EWA, particularly during the post-pandemic labor shortage in retail, is an attractive…

Reframing 'The Great Resignation' as an Opportunity for Great Reflection
September 29, 2021 at 5:32 pm

In the wake of the pandemic, workers across every industry — technology, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, etc. — are putting in their two-weeks notice in favor of better pay, increased flexibility and equitable working conditions. Dubbing it “The Great Resignation,” amongst the hardest hit by mass employee exodus is the retail industry. According to the U.S.…

Amazon to Pay Full College Tuition for its Front-Line Employees
September 13, 2021 at 7:52 pm

Amazon.com announced last week that it will pay full tuition — including the cost of books and fees — for its more than 750,000 front-line employees. The retail giant will fund the 2022 initiative by investing $1.2 billion to expand its education and skills training benefits program by 2025. Rather than offering reimbursement after coursework completion, Amazon will…

Pay Isn’t the Only Reason Employees Quit. Start Offering Them What They Really Value
August 31, 2021 at 9:21 pm

For years, the federal government has debated raising the minimum wage to meet the increasing cost of living and offer more financial security to hourly workers, to no avail. Then Amazon.com moved to the center of the conversation in 2018 with the introduction of a minimum wage at $15 an hour. Recently, large retailers like…