Supporting Multiple Personalities

By Nicole Leinbach

How To Manage the Many Characters of Store Associates

Have you ever struggled with how to manage multiple employees who have nothing in common?

Do you ever wonder why one employee responds positively to one thing and another responds in the exact opposite way?

Are you often at a loss for words to figure out how to communicate effectively with each unique employee who works for you?

The reality is it can be hard to manage one person let alone multiple people. Factor in the variations that make each individual one-of-a-kind, and it can become even more complicated to take a one-solution approach to manage multiple store associates. Keeping this in mind, there is good news… and bad news… to consider.

The good news? Many attributes of employee management can cross generations and personalities alike, so that is something you have on your side.

The bad news? Not all folks react the same, which means your efforts will always have faults.

The positive upside to all this? There are ways to help support the many personalities stores have when managing associates.

Understanding Personalities Among Employees

Collaboration is essential in any professional environment, and we would be biased — though honest — to say this is especially true in retail. Retail brings together unexpected strangers in environments that aim to welcome them to interact at leisure.

Yet these same strangers may often collide in other circumstances. So, how do retailers overcome the challenges that may come with this?

The first key to managing personalities of all kinds is to recognize being different is OK. In fact, it is great.

But without diving into the details of anyone’s differences, the real key is to identify that working together is critical to respecting the differences of every individual. For example, some people are morning folks, with vibrant, ready-to-go attitudes for a great day, while others prefer to ease into the afternoon or even evening before they tend to shine brighter.

Mailchimp, a marketing platform that aims to connect businesses to consumers through digital marketing efforts, identifies workplaces as having 10 different types of employees. Here they are:

The Analyst: This employee tends to prefer solo projects and aims to find solutions through data and other practical factors.
The Leader: Essential to most work environments, leaders tend to be organized and deliver leadership through both actions and communication to keep teams moving positively in a forward direction.
The Logician: While these employees often lack social cues and need support to work as a team, they excel at analytical thinking, which can benefit many businesses. But it is up to leaders to identify if it is right for their environment.
The Logistician: All about following order, logisticians value team players and often discredit others who do not meet goals set for a company… which can also mean they are likely to encourage others to stay on track with deadlines.
The Campaigner: This employee type is very sociable and friendly, often becoming a key associate for retailers because they connect so easily with others and bring a lot of positive energy to the environment.
The Advocate: Personalities that demonstrate advocates are very loyal, hard-working, and dedicated to long-term goals — both individually as well as in combination with others.
The Debater: Good or bad, having a debater on your team can bring other perspectives to light and help challenge new efforts in various work scenarios.
The Executive: Folks who identify as executives are career-oriented with ambitious goals, and this includes working diligently to climb their professional ladder successfully.
The Entrepreneur: Risk takers at heart, entrepreneurs are always brainstorming new ways to get things done or offer new products or services to enhance business goals.
The Mediator: Often introverted, mediators try solving problems to avoid work chaos and can be a beneficial personality for stores to welcome to their team.