Personnel

Retailers are facing a major conundrum: consumers are flocking back to brick-and-mortar retail while the struggle to adequately staff stores has never been greater. High turnover in retail isn’t new. According to McKinsey & Company, annual employee turnover among frontline retail workers has been at least 60 percent for a long time. But record inflation…

The question of employee engagement has never been more pressing. Coming out of the pandemic, there has been a shift in employee expectations about both pay and working conditions. With potential economic headwinds — e.g., debt becoming more expensive because of Federal Reserve policy — it’s becoming more important to maintain stability wherever possible, and no…

The Home Depot on Tuesday said it will spend an additional $1 billion to give its hourly employees a raise, as retailers and restaurants compete for workers, reports CNBC. The home improvement retailer announced the wage investment as it reported fourth-quarter earnings. It didn't disclose the new average wage for employees, but said every market’s starting wage is…

Amazon.com is instructing corporate staffers to spend at least three days a week in the office, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo last week. The decision marks a shift from Amazon’s previous policy, which left it up to individual managers to decide how often their employees would be required to work in the office. Jassy said he and…

After the past few difficult years it seemed the tough times might be coming to an end, yet I believe too many are beginning 2023 with more trepidation than hope. They have fears of a recession and see headlines filled with news of various organizations laying people off. While there are businesses that are struggling…

The “quit rate” in retail and hospitality now outpaces the national rate by 70 percent. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that hiring seasonal employees is a challenge retailers face every year. After the holidays pass, retailers are also tasked with the challenge of not only understanding how to improve internal processes, but also…

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the expectations of frontline retail workers, and they’re more willing than ever to leave companies that are still clinging to outdated corporate cultures. Consulting firm Korn Ferry recently surveyed more than 100 major retailers in the U.S. and found that turnover in the industry, long notoriously high, was up significantly…

Wayfair plans to announce on Friday its second major round of layoffs in less than six months, as the online retailer continues to deal with falling sales and supply chain tangles. The expected cuts follow a 5 percent layoff by Wayfair in August. The earlier round of cuts was part of a $500 million cost-saving plan, but Wayfair executives…

A new law in New York will require companies that operate distribution centers to be more transparent about their work requirements, aiming to protect warehouse workers from possibly unlawful quotas. Gov. Kathy Hochul last week signed the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, which is modeled after a similar, first-in-the-nation law signed in California last year. The New York…

The retail industry is facing a labor shortage, and companies are thinking creatively about how to solve staffing challenges. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are more unfilled jobs than unemployed retail workers and many employees left the retail and hospitality industries for good during the pandemic. The natural seasonality of retail adds…