Make no mistake; company culture propels employee engagement. But most CEOs and HR leaders in the retail industry still struggle to grasp what employees really need to engage fully. Why?
A staggering 67% of sales employees feel disengaged. This is quite unfortunate in an industry that is already grappling with other challenges, including:
- High employee turnover
- Ever-evolving customer expectations
- Maintaining brand consistency
- Managing internal communication
- High stakes of digital disruption
Fortunately, culture and employee engagement is no longer a reserve for top executives only to discuss. According to a study by Deloitte, over 85% of respondents acknowledged that the subject is important. And 66% of HR personnel interviewed reported that they're now updating their engagement strategies.
So if your company culture doesn't drive engagement, you may be giving your competition an edge because businesses with culturally engaged employees enjoy:
- Increased productivity
- Enhanced motivation and intent
- Great customer loyalty
- Increase in revenue
- Few accidents, sick days and absenteeism
- High employee retention
- Innovative products and services
- Cost efficiency
The good news is that it's not too late for you to cultivate culture to promote employee engagement. Wondering how? Read on.
Start Engaging Your Employees Early
Allow your culture to shine from the time you open doors to new employees. For instance, whenever you post a position, highlight your brand and help potential candidates get your culture. And don't stop there.
During the entire interview process, review your style of communication, values, and vision. Make them excited to join your company and offer sufficient information on their new role and colleagues.
Grow With Your Employees
As your company grows, employees in various stores experience increasing separation from the headquarters where top executives sit. Internal communication begins to disintegrate due to challenges with scaling.
Poor communication often results in staffing issues, such as under-staffing. And if you don't address them on time, you jeopardize your unique culture. Growing retailers are now adopting software-based systems to offer employees direct lines of communication across all levels. This ensures you grow with your employees.
Involve Your Employees In Culture Initiatives
Traditionally, company culture was only reserved for founders and top executives. But in this period of heightened corporate transparency, highly mobile workforce and cutthroat competition for top-tier talent, you can't take that risk. Why?
Your employees, customers, and potential workers are watching. Companies that involve their employees in the creation and implementation of culture initiatives are beating their peers. They're more likely to outshine their competition in attracting and retaining top talent.
So involve your staff in culture initiatives. It makes them part of the team that creates a culture that expresses their working environment. You can easily achieve this by requesting feedback from your employees on:
- Suitable ways to share cultural education content
- Most effective content format
- Best messages that resonate with their work experience and those that don't
Offer Unified Training
Studies show that employees are more likely to stay with companies that offer positive onboarding experiences and training. The best training strategies are integrated into your digital workplace because today's retail employees no longer have the luxury of sitting in a classroom or office full of brochures.
But unfortunately, about 44% of retailers continue using paper-based training, and most of them lack unified training systems across their branches. Some stores even allow managers to develop their own training plans. These strategies are expensive, time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to inconsistencies.
The best way to offer a unified training is to use mobile learning software. In fact, growing retailers currently use these systems to make their operations smooth. Apart from hosting training material for your employees, such systems also offer communication channels that link every employee and all departments in your company.
Invest In A Mobile Learning System (MLS)
For any initiative to succeed in cultivating a unified culture of employee engagement, it requires a centralized platform. And a mobile learning system is the best option because:
- MLS ensures there is a consistent messaging across all stores since the content is centralized.
- Allows employees to access and consume digital content wherever they may be in various locations.
- Supports immersive media such as videos, audio and interactive scavenger which is more engaging and interactive.
- Allows for monitoring content penetration, performance and track metrics to measure the effectiveness of your cultural content.
Company culture determines engagement. By focusing on improving engagement through culture, you can boost employee retention, performance, motivation, and productivity. With the right mobile learning system, you can make this dream a reality. Want to learn more? Download the report: Digital & Mobile Transformation in the Retail Industry - Research by Harvard College Consulting Group.
