BY NICOLE LEINBACH HOFFMAN
There are lots of steps involved in hiring new employees. Whether part time or full time, there are many things to consider. The first? Finding them, of course.
Referrals, job listings, in-store signage, local networking groups … these are all great ways to help identify your next associate. But let’s face it, it is not always easy to find them — even with the best intent.
And if it is easy, that can sometimes raise a red flag. This is particularly true for part-time support since they often come with availability conflicts and schedule challenges.
All this said, the reality is once the right candidate is found, your job is not over. Hiring and training them takes time — and money.
Your investment in your part-time hires is just that, an investment, and needs to be thoughtfully supported to help make them the best they can be for your store. This is even more important considering they will interact with your customers, which means they will be representing your business and either help or hurt your store sales.
Keeping this in mind, consider how you train your part-time associates to also boost your in-store care, customer service, and overall store sales.
Train Employees To Be With You Long Term
Part time does not always have to mean temporary. As you aim to hire part-time associates, consider whether who you are hiring can support you long term. Your investment in training them will go further if you know they can also support you further in your own business goals.
Once you have decided to hire a part-time associate, you need to ensure they are adequately trained to best represent your store and meet your standards for customer care. This means training them on everything from greeting customers to exiting customers and everything in between.
The more integrated they are in understanding your store’s goals and the big picture needs of your business, the more invested they should be in wanting to see your store succeed. The catch? This means hiring the right employee who not only wants to do well but also wants to see your store do well.
Life inevitably takes turns for the good and the bad, so losing someone after hiring them — when hoping to have gained a long-term employee — is bound to happen occasionally. If you hire someone and lose them quickly, your investment has certainly been lost.
Do not let that sour your efforts to try again to gain an associate who can be with you long term. It may mean shifting to better understand your future employee’s goals and aiming to find someone who wants to be working more long term — particularly if you are both clear upfront about the part-time hours and responsibilities the job offers.
At the end of each day, your goal is to do your best for your store and customers. Your associates reflect that. So, investing in hiring someone to support long-term store goals versus part-time needs is ideal — even for part-time hires
Part-Time Employee Retention
- Give Praise: Whether verbally, through a written message, or in a public setting, praising employees gives them confidence and dedication to your business.
- Earn Respect: Expecting respect is one thing. Earning it is another. Lead by example and strive to honestly gain respect from your team, as well as from your vendors, customers, and professional contacts.
- Provide Training: Not only does proper training affect stronger productivity — it also keeps employees from feeling useless, lost, or frustrated in their performances. Remember to do training throughout the year as necessary, in addition to new hire training.
- Set Policies: Day-to-day store responsibilities impact an employee’s performance, but do not underestimate the value of policies and procedures, such as requesting time off, overtime pay, and dress code. Set policies and stick to them.
- Communicate: Plain and simple, speak up. Employees cannot read your mind, do not know what you expect, and cannot react how you want them to unless you tell them. When open, supportive, direct communication becomes a habit, employees hear it as helpful versus hurtful, and that should be your goal.
Teach Employees the Value of Repeat Customers
Some repeat customers return to the same store because they love the products. Others return because they love the people.
This can have a massive influence on your store sales. So, it is critical to hire and train part-time associates who are well-liked, respected, support your store with strong work ethics, and deliver quality customer support.
As part of employee training, be sure it is clear to your associates what your customer support standards are. One way to do this is by educating them about why customer loyalty matters.
For starters, this means making sure they know the most engaged and loyal customers spend more than the average customer, bringing more revenue and profitability to your store. In fact, according to AccessDevelopment.com, loyal customers spend 90% more frequently and 60% more per transaction. Long term, this is wildly impactful for your business success, so make sure you communicate this when training part-time associates.
Create Guidelines for Part-Time Associates
From time off requests and supporting merchandising and displays to managing inventory, there is no shortage of responsibilities for part-time associates. Among the most important is how they interact with customers, so create a clear policy about these expectations to ensure there is no confusion, no misunderstanding, and no missed opportunities.
Among the key factors in training part-time hires are communication standards, and this also means creating a destination where they can review these standards repeatedly. An employee handbook is always a good idea and be sure it is refreshed to specifically support part-time associates versus full-time hires since their roles often vary.
In addition, make it a priority for staff to routinely review the handbook, and provide training for your team when possible. Reviewing the handbook is a good place to start when training new hires and then aim to provide training updates throughout the year. This should include clear customer support standards like:
- How to greet customers when they walk into the store.
- Preferred customer service interactions, including ways to highlight inventory, share store promotional details, communicate the store’s return policy, deal with challenging scenarios, and more.
- Ways to increase the average units per transaction sold through customer care.
- How to thank customers for purchases and collect customer data to maintain store connectivity to them.
- How to exit customers after a transaction or if they did not buy anything.
Your goal is to avoid uncertainty about how a part-time associate should communicate with customers. While their personalities will shine during customer engagement, it is important to be clear about how they should manage customer care.
Finally, having an open dialogue between management and your team is of great value to businesses. Part time or full time, this should be nurtured so as time passes, employees find it is easy to share anything that arises. From schedule challenges and customer conflicts to team bonding and more, strong communication benefits your business and customer care alike.
Nicole Leinbach Hoffman is the founder of RetailMinded.com, a well-respected retail industry resource that has been recognized worldwide for its leading business insight since 2007. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, the UK’s Telegraph, CNN, the Today show, and countless other industry resources. Additionally, she has supported American Express’s Small Business Saturday as a spokesperson and is the author of the book Retail 101: The Guide to Managing and Marketing Your Retail Business, published by McGraw-Hill. With a core concentration on small businesses and independent retailers, she welcomes you to connect via Instagram at @ RetailMindedWorld and Twitter via @RetailMinded.
