I read a post on Engage for Success which got me thinking. Simply by learning staff names and treating employees as individuals, a store manager at Marks & Spencer managed to increase engagement and sales in the store. Could it be that easy to create a successful store?
A few years ago, Stefan Tengblad et al wrote a research report on personnel management in retail. They asked themselves why store employees indicate higher job satisfaction than most occupational groups in Swedish working life. They found very strong and social relationships at the store level.
They wrote that most employees enjoy working with the boss, like their boss as a person and feel general trust. An explanation that Tengblad et al highlighted is that the work in a store is relatively unbureaucratic and that a store manager often helps with daily tasks and that there is time and place for communication and informal conversations while doing their work. Successful store managers are good at giving employees their own responsibility and opportunities to influence everything from the display of goods to their own work schedules.
Is it the case that the store manager at Marks & Spencer has discovered a Swedish or Scandinavian leadership? Or is it enough to be seen and understood by the manager to increase engagement at work? There is no getting away from the fact that leadership has cultural aspects that cannot be ignored. A Swedish store manager in London needs to make certain adjustments, and it is also difficult for an English manager to act in the same way in Sweden as in England. However, we all feel good about being respected and seen as individuals.
We at Quicksearch often talk about the importance of feedback. Many of our questions in the employee survey is about continuous feedback, the ability to listen, availability and more. A leader must be good at many things, but perhaps communication and the ability to listen are one of the most important qualities for a team leader.
A common cause of dissatisfaction is a too instrumental view of communication. An overly rational leader tends to inform only when there is something new to say, but as Tengblad et al showed, the communication and casual conversations between manager and employee are the very glue on which engagement and job satisfaction in retail rest.
Quickseach has the privilege of working with several different companies in the retail industry and we see and can prove that employee engagement correlates with loyal customers. Are you interested in hearing more about this relationship and how you can work with ongoing feedback?
Contact Us then we book a meeting!
