Stores with the least engaged employees have twice the rate of shelf out of stocks and three times higher rates of stock loss due to theft, damage and error. If European Grocery retailers could improve employee engagement in the bottom quartile of stores they could save up to 380 million euros a year, it is claimed, and boost profits by an estimated 1.6 per cent. Losses through shrinkage, waste, cash loss and out of stocks account for an estimated 3.12pc of retail turnover, which in Europe equates to over 24 billion euros a year just for the grocery channel.
This new, freely available research from the ECR Europe Shrinkage and On Shelf Availability team highlights that effective communication, making staff feel valued and promoting teamwork are all important factors to ensure that employees are highly engaged, while ensuring manageable workloads, providing development opportunities and taking ideas seriously are also vital to building a well-motivated team.
The store manager’s role is also key to driving this motivation. Professor Adrian Beck, Academic Advisor to the ECR Europe Shrinkage & On-Shelf Availability Team, who led the study, says: “Employees play a critical role in ensuring retail losses are kept at a manageable level. The store manager is the lightning rod through which a company’s organisational culture is communicated to staff and therefore essential to improving – and maintaining – staff engagement.”
And Luc Cooman, Director of Risk management for Carrefour adds: “This breakthrough research confirms our experience with the impact of employee engagement on product availability in-store and shrinkage. Employee engagement has been the cornerstone of our shrinkage and availability improvement plan and the results have clearly shown that happy employees positively impact on sales and the reduction of losses.”
Visit http://www.ecronshelfavailabilityseminar.eu/about-the-research.
Beck is among the speakers at an ECR workshop, based on the research, exploring how improving staff engagement can make a direct, positive impact on stock losses and on-shelf availability. It’s running on Tuesday, November 4, 2014, at Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N 2AB.
