How retailers can ease store associate stress as holiday season arrives

As the holiday shopping season arrives full force and Thanksgiving is just weeks away, retail store workers, from managers to frontline helpers and cashiers, are bracing for the…

As the holiday shopping season arrives full force and Thanksgiving is just weeks away, retail store workers, from managers to frontline helpers and cashiers, are bracing for the most stressful sales period of the year. The word stressful, however, doesn't quite do true justice when it comes to a retail associate's workday. The challenges range from unhappiness with work scheduling and feeling overworked to the increasing number of volatile and threatening incidents, and a growing feeling of being unsafe during the workday.

Consider this statistic: Two in 5 (41%) retail workers are considering leaving their jobs in the next 12 months. The reasons range from a lack of formal training to staff shortages, which are driving disconnection and burnout. Almost half (45%) of retail employees have experienced verbal abuse or threatening behavior from customers or members of the public at work and 16% report customer behavior has worsened over the last five years. Over half of retail workers, 53%, have been asked to carry out a task without the relevant training.

This isn't just leading to some simple mistakes as 28% report that inadequate training has contributed to a mistake that could have caused physical harm to a customer, and 22% said it has put their own or a colleague's safety at risk. One quarter of retail workers report being impacted by staff shortages every day, with 44% reporting being impacted several times a week or more, and 40% believe these staff shortages are putting the public at risk.

The findings, revealed in a OnePoll report conducted on behalf of Kahoot! 360 and based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. frontline workers, point to challenges that could undermine a retailer's ability to grow sales and store traffic while retaining employees and building brand loyalty. What retailers need to do While boosting store security and establishing clear incident reporting processes are good first steps, retailers need to do more.

In the best case scenario, retailers should be preparing for the holiday sales season months before the crowds start to flow in, according to Sean D'Arcy, chief solutions officer at Kahoot! 360. That way the full-time and part-time staff are already in training and involved in communication with the seasonal staff being incorporated when hired in the month or season.