Why Aren't My Employees Motivated or Productive? Retail Employee Training Tips
Sarah from Boutique Hub explains why retail staff lose motivation and what managers can do about it. She argues that owners need to communicate vision clearly, build standardized onboarding, run regular huddles, and train employees on their roles. Investing in consistent training and giving staff a voice prevents costly turnover.
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Hey guys, it's Sarah with the Boutique Hub and I am here today to answer one of the most frequently asked questions that I get about team management and how to keep teams motivated and accountable and actually even showing up at your workplace. Well, as you know, I'm a big believer in team and I feel like if you're going to grow, you're going to need help, right? So what does that mean you're going to need to hire people? Well, there's a number of different things that we do as employees that set ourselves up for fail because you can't just shake hands and say welcome to the team and be done. I talk an awful lot about how owning a business and managing a team of employees is like coaching a basketball team. Even further, I'm pretty sure you are the coach of your business when you own a business and have staff. Right? So think about it. Coaching a basketball team. I don't care if we're talking fourth grade girls basketball or boys basketball or NBA. Right. There's multiple coaches and they practice all the time. They go over fundamentals, they go over game time situations, they role play, they scrimmage and they have games constantly. Right. Well, take that back into your small business and I bet you've trained them a couple times. You probably haven't given them a playbook. Maybe you've given them an employee manual with some guidelines, but you probably haven't looked at it in a long, long time. And I don't know when the last time you had a real team huddle was where you called everybody in and said what's working, what's not and got their opinions on strategies. Right. Or potential problems or headache customers. Well, guys, my tips today are pretty elementary, but when it comes to dealing with people, I think the days are long gone of that. You come in, you show up and you go home and you don't talk. Right. You just pick up your paycheck and leave. Those. Those days are so far gone, that's when the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, when people want to jump ship and go work for somebody else. And I will promise the reason they're doing that is because they don't feel like they're part of the team. They don't feel accountable for anything or that they have any ability to advance or grow. They don't really even know what their role on that current team is. Right. Same way as why NBA players get traded often. Right. They don't like the situation. Right. They don't feel like they Fit in. They don't feel like their voice is being heard. There's a lot of correlations. So what I want to say today is tips for you to manage your team. It comes back on you, it falls back on our shoulders. I know as business owners we wear lots of hats, but when it comes to managing team, we want to train mini mes, we want to train leaders, we want to train people that can take care of our hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory. The customers that we've built and the name and the reputation that we've built. You know, we want them to take care of all those things if we happen to be gone. Maybe we're at market, maybe we're just going to take a vacation or take our children to lunch. Whatever it is, we can't be present 100% of the time. So you went out and you've got yourself a team, but it doesn't stop there. So my tip number one is open the lines of communication. And by that I don't mean you sit there and talk to them. No, I ask you to go out onto the sales floor or into the warehouse and ask them a question. Ask your current team if they know what your vision for your business is. And then close your mouth and just listen. Do they know why you're in business? Do they know who you're supposed to be serving? Right. Do they understand why, what the main goal of your business is? Don't assume they know. I really need you to go ask them and then listen to what they say. How spot on are they? How out in left field are they? I know it can be very scary. But then once you've done that, I urge you to develop an onboarding system. Even if you have employees that have been there five, six, maybe 10 years, go back through and implement an onboarding system. So anyone and everyone that starts today or six months from now is onboarded the same way. And get your veterans, employees, opinions on things, what is working, what is not, what things do we need to improve on? Right? You want to make sure they understand your non negotiables in your business. Everything from when they can take vacation, when is their lunch hour, Right? When will they get paid, how do they treat employees, how do they treat customers? What's the mission behind your business again? Right? All of those things we need to cover. There should be no stone left unturned. Think about one of the jobs you had that you left. Why did you leave? Maybe because you just didn't feel like you fit in. Maybe because you didn't feel comfortable there. Knowledge is power. And our employees want to feel like they're part of something they do. That's this generation. That's the culture. We want to feel like we fit in. We want to feel like we bring something to the table. And if you as a manager or the coach or the business owner, however you want to look at yourself, if you're tucked away in the back room or you're unavailable to them, right, Maybe you don't even really know much about them, you're pretty easy to break up with, you're pretty easy to leave. So again, going back to that business, right, it's the same as a game of basketball. That girl that's a point guard, she needs to know her role to bring the ball up the floor. They all need to know the rules. You can't just run around with the ball without dribbling. They need to know how much time's on the clock, who their opponent is, how to handle game time situations, how to break a press, right? What offense are we going to run? If we're presented with this defense, what offense are we going to run? I know it's funny to think of it that way, but think of your staff in game time situations on their sales floor. A big promotion day, lots of people buzzing around, the store's not in order, merchandise isn't put back to where it's supposed to be. Maybe the front sidewalk didn't get swept off, or maybe snow shoveled off. Who is responsible for that? Maybe there isn't enough change in the till, in the cash register, right? All these kind of things that can pop up and happen if we don't know our role and take care of business, right? If employee A doesn't do their job, employee B probably can't do their job successfully. Everyone brings something to the table and that's on you to communicate that back to them. I know it's a lot and it takes time. And you're saying I just don't have time to do that? Well, my argument or my rebuttal to that is you don't have time to constantly be hiring either. It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to hire someone, train them, only to let them leave. So this isn't rocket science, right? We do have a lot of trainings about this in the Boutique Hub and you're welcome to click the link below for more in detailed trainings on this. But first and foremost, what I wanted you to take home today is make sure you're communicating with your staff, right? Do they know why you're in business? Make sure you have an onboarding system. Make sure that every employee gets brought on in the same manner. There's no assumptions happening within your business anymore, right? Everyone knows where to park. Everyone knows what your customer service non negotiables are. Everyone knows when they can take vacation. Everyone feels at home and at ease and confident in their role, right? Same for whether it's your point of sale system or your social media strategy. Whatever it is, everyone should be trained on that because they don't want to disappoint you. And you have got to let them have that voice. You've got to let them come to you and communicate with you on things that they see able to be improved on or aren't working because you only have one set of eyes. Remember I was talking about the NBA teams and say the NFL teams, even how many coaches are on the sidelines there? And those guys are professional athletes. There's a ton of coaches, right? You want a lot of eyes on your business that can help see things through different lenses. You have those eyes now. You need to give those eyes a voice. So like I said, for more trainings on this, you guys click below. We have a lot of trainings on team management, retention, compensation, motivation, accountability, interview questions, how to hire and even when it's time, how to fire. So thank you very much for joining us today. And we'll be back with answers to more frequently asked questions from the boutique hub.
