Using mobile-first technology to change the HR landscape in the retail sector

Retail companies are dominated by non-desk workers who will often have little to no access to a desktop computer within their daily work life. This makes verbal communication between other members of the team their only source of information, which can cause a lot of issues for employee productivity and time management. Retail workers need to be kept up to date with employee absences and shift swaps as well as changes to internal policies and processes.

The HR challenge faced by retail companies

The retail sector presents a very particular challenge in the HR space; workers often work different shifts, across a wide variety of hours either full or part-time, and across multiple locations. This can make internal communication difficult without the right systems in place - made more difficult when you don’t have a chance to sit down at a desk.

It can be easy for your workplace to fall under the ‘toxic environment’ category when internal communications break down and as a result employee churn rate becomes much higher.

In order to ensure that employees are not feeling under-valued or stressed, HR organizations and departments need to become more inclusive to non-desk workers in order to enhance the employee experience and boost their own perceived value within the company.

Below are three common issues that HR in retail often comes across and the solutions that the Applaud platform delivers.

Casual workers

The retail sector is made up of a wide variety of employees with various different work schedules; they can be casual workers, full or part time, be flexible workers and so on. As a result, this presents a difficult challenge in terms of incorporating these employees onto various systems. This can be made even worse when peak sales seasons hit and the need for more employees becomes apparent.

Internal Communications

Because of the nature of retail work, email is not a good solution as a resource for communicating with other members of staff. Many workers will not have work emails installed on their phone and therefore access to important internal messaging, upcoming events and news will be restricted.

Multiple retail locations

Bigger retail companies will often have challenges in distribution of internal communications amongst various retail locations. Multi-location shops are decentralized from their HQs, meaning face to face meetings become difficult to organize, causing stress and dissatisfaction amongst managers and employees in their locations. Strong internal communication is key to combating this.

Are HR knowledge bases the solution?

With Applaud’s comprehensive search capabilities, employees are able to find the exact information, data or knowledge they need whenever and wherever they need it.

This can include information such as

• Processes and document sharing
• Company news
• Internal communications
• Payroll
• Absences
• Leave calendars
• Personal and professional performance reviews
• And other core HR services

Applaud’s platform is designed to be accessed by employees through employee self-service portals and enabled by 24/7 digital assistants. These assistants can resolve 80% of the queries they face on a daily basis.

As a result, employees are now less stressed and have access to everything they need to do their jobs effectively in one place. Being able to share documents among team members can significantly improve communication issues about core HR services and ultimately lead to happier, more productive employees.

Mobile HR Service Delivery

The Applaud platform has a truly mobile-first design. This enhances the employee experience, actively encouraging workers to use the mobile app and become more engaged with the wider business. This inclusive approach means employees will feel more involved and more likely to deliver enthusiastic sales pitches and memorable customer service.

This single platform with a consumer-grade user interface will give employees access to all of the company’s existing core HR back end services (i.e.  including payroll, absence and leave, performance and more).

Discover more about Applaud’s mobile app.

How Applaud’s HR platform is revolutionising retail

Driving employee engagement is at the heart of Applaud’s platform. It’s mobile-friendly and inclusive, so no employee needs to feel like they’re not part of the company by missing out on crucial information. Their self-perceived value skyrockets because they’re able to access training and development information, have access to other employee’s shift patterns and leave and absence information and other core company information.

The employee churn rate can be a constant challenge in the retail industry. However, becoming more employee centric and focusing on empowering employees, with access to company information on a self-service platform, can help boost employee retention rates.

With so many benefits, to both the employee lifecycle and business, the Applaud platform can change your retail business’ outlook to a much brighter one for the future.

To find out how Applaud could help your organization engage better with its employees, book a demo.