Keeping your retail employees happy and motivated is critical to operating successful stores. It is, however, not always an easy task. Check out our list of seven easy ideas that you can implement to motivate your frontline and help drive team-wide engagement and satisfaction.
1. Grant Employees Expanded Responsibilities
Every employee aspires to a certain level of power and responsibility within their organization. Give it to them! Encouraging team members to exercise some autonomy will help them feel empowered, and stores will benefit from increased employee productivity and morale.
One simple way to encourage autonomy is to grant your team members instant access to the people, resources, and information they need to do their job well. With Theatro, frontline workers gain the capability to handle any customer task on their own, allowing them to take ownership of their store’s success no matter what the need.
2. Invite Feedback and Implement Change to Motivate Your Frontline
Another way to keep your employees motivated is to encourage and genuinely listen to their feedback. Frontline workers are the eyes and ears of your organization. They interact with your customer base daily and understand what processes do and don’t work on the store floor.
Invite them to share their insights on how to improve store operations. If an idea excites you, work to innovate and implement the new process into the business. You will not only have potentially improved your business; you will have raised the confidence levels of your workers as well.
3. Build a Culture of Recognition
Who doesn’t love a friendly pat on the back? Recognizing your staff’s daily, monthly, and annual accomplishments will inspire your team to work harder and achieve even more. In addition, it demonstrates that you value all they do for the company, and a little recognition can go a long way.
Celebrating your employees for their hard work can be easy. Alert your entire workforce every time an individual or team goal is met. Inspire healthy daily competition between your top sellers by offering rewards and prizes for exceptional performance!
4. Encourage Career Development
Employees want to know they always have someone in their corner. You can show your support by offering them a plan to grow within the company, such as encouraging them to develop their skillsets and giving them real opportunities to train in new roles and responsibilities.
Frontline workers are more likely to stay with the company if they know there are opportunities for upward mobility and if you Motivate Your Frontline. If you create a clear roadmap to promotion for your associates, they will be motivated to do their best work every day.
5. Update Your Team the Second They Need It
Keeping your team in the loop with company news is critical. People need to stay informed to remain engaged and invested with the enterprise. Employees can grow irritable when things like the weekly schedule, new store specials, or critical health and safety updates aren’t provided rapidly or at all.
Bulletin boards won’t cut it anymore. Instead, utilize modern technology to ensure your employees receive urgent updates the second they need them. Ensuring your employees are well-informed will keep the team prepared and content.
6. Provide Instant Access to Expertise
Customer interactions can be intimidating, even for some seasoned employees. There is a feeling of helplessness whenever a customer asks a question a worker is ill-equipped to answer. As a result, they might leave the customer alone to seek help or take them from aisle to aisle hunting for answers. Inevitably, the customer eventually grows a bit frustrated.
As we all know, knowledge is power. Provide your team with the tools needed to expand their expertise so they can remain ready and confident. Theatro’s Ask an Expert function connects your employee to the necessary knowledge to answer any customer inquiry. Now employees can calmly provide aid to anyone in the store, even if it’s their first day!
7. Optimize Systems to Lighten Their Workload
Nobody should have to work harder than they need to complete a job. Imagine how happy your team would be if they knew they could save loads of time and energy on routine tasks they perform every single day.
Work to innovate your workplace and Motivate Your Frontline so that store operations can run as efficiently as possible. For example, consider investing in a communication platform to streamline employee communications, ensuring everyone stays on the same page at all times. Use the power of modern technology to level up your store. By making their daily lives more manageable, you free up employee time and energy to use on other critical store operations.
Connect with Theatro!
Interested in learning more about how your organization can take advantage of these seven tips? Theatro’s mobile communication platform connects frontline employees to the people and information they need, empowering them to deliver exceptional customer experiences and build authentic customer loyalty. Let us show you how Theatro can help you keep your frontline workers happy and productive. Schedule a demo today!