Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/390025
22 S C T / O c t O b e r 2 0 1 4 there's no loyalty and why their people quit." In August Starbucks said it would reas- sess the way it schedules its 130,000 baristas to help make the workweek more stable and consistent for them; management will now post work hours at least one week in advance and also curb the dreaded practice of "clopening" — which has workers close up shop at night only to return a few hours later and reopen. Darden Restaurants announced in 2012 that it would try out the use of more part-timers; the backlash prompted Darden to reverse course and pledge not to cut full-time work- ers or reduce their hours. A report in MoneyWatch last year about Juicy Couture's plans to replace full-time workers with part-timers created a similar PR headache for that company. "The challenge you get with so many part-timers is [that] your culture is being determined by people who have very little loyalty to you," said Phibbs. True, a worker's product knowl- edge may no longer be as crucial in mainstream retail as be- fore, now that many consumers do their own product research online, but those all-important "soft skills" of communication, empathy and "emotional intelligence" tend to get lost when part-timers replace full-timers, he says. And yet a proliferation of part-timers need not always por- tend a poor customer-service climate, some say. In consumer electronics, for one, it might even be desirable to have younger, part-time workers on staff, observes Green, because they tend to be the most knowledgeable on the subject. Lifestyle grocery retailers such as Sprouts Farmers Market and Trader Joe's get high customer-service marks despite a moderately high turn- over rate because they have strong training programs and a health-oriented culture that attracts conscientious part- time employees, says Green. "If you build a corporate cul- ture that encourages people to want to stay, it's helpful," he said. And specialty and luxury retailers value their workers' expertise, so they are much more likely to retain valued people by offering them full-time posts, says Green. As for the loyalty issue, the thousands of employees of the Market Basket chain who went on strike to bring back a popu- lar, fair-trade CEO who had been fired "is testimony of just how loyal employees can be when treated well," Green said. "The younger generation has come to expect poor treatment, but when they're treated well, they are just blown away." The next generation of consumers and workers "will care even more about corporate culture." Workers who are treated respectfully and paid fairly are more productive and innovative, says Zeynep Ton, an adjunct associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Com- panies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs & Boost Profits. And investing generously in employees is possible without the need to raise prices on the consumer, Ton says, citing Costco, Spain's Mercadona and Trader Joe's among those that have been able to do it. To be sure, the recession did have a substantial effect on full-time retail staffing, but other pressures are affecting staff decisions today as well, according to Zachary Taylor, a spokesman for the Retail Industry Leaders Association. "Historically, retailers looked at their employees in terms of being either salaried or hourly," Taylor said. "However, the Affordable Care Act has changed the lexicon to instead view workers as either part-time or full-time." The law's employer mandate, coupled with its definition of a full-time worker as anyone working more than 30 hours a week, has hurt the ability of retailers to bal- ance the provision of good service with the costs of providing it, says Taylor. Still, however far-reaching some of the changes sociopolitical and economic forces have brought, the business fundamentals have stayed the same, and they remain simple: serving shoppers and keeping them coming to stores and shopping centers. "Certainly, customer service suffers for [the dispro- portionate use] of part-timers," said Birdie. "And a lack of service in stores results in loss of shoppers to the entire center." S C T "The challenge you get with so many part-timers is that your culture is being determined by people who have very little loyalty to you." p h o t o : s n y f e r o k w a l m a r t i s m o v i n g m a n y o f i t s p a r t - t i m e s t a f f e r s t o f u l l - t i m e s t a t u s .