How to Make Your Retail Business More Attractive to Prospective Employees

Contributed by Susan Payton.

Almost as important as being attractive to potential customers is having appeal to prospective employees. After all, the better caliber employees you attract to your retail business, the longer they’ll stay with you and the more they’ll help your brand grow.

So how can you make sure yours is the retail business that talented prospects will flock to?

Start with Competitive Wages

You can have gourmet coffee in the breakroom and a foosball table to create a fun environment, but if you’re not paying your staff enough, you won’t attract the quality of employees that you want.

Do your research to find out what other retail brands are paying sales clerks and sales managers. You’ll want to match any brands that are similar to yours. For example, if you run a women’s clothing company, you’d want to look at comparables for other women’s retail, not hardware stores or mail supply shops.

Beyond your starting hourly wage, what else can you offer that will appeal to job applicants? Perhaps you offer commission on sales made, the opportunity to advance to a higher (and higher-paid) position in a few months, or referral bonuses.

Make Sure Your Job Description is Appealing and Clear

Whatever your company is like to work for, an applicant won’t know that until after she’s been interviewed or hired. So ensure that your job description is not only clear but also attractive.

How do you do that? Use language that reflects who you are as a company, and accurately describe what it’s like to work there. What are the day-to-day tasks this person will be responsible for? What skills are used in the role? What should this person be: outgoing? Organized? A people person?

It’s imperative that you accurately describe the role, or else you risk hiring someone who then feels duped when she discovers that her new job is a far cry from what you led her to believe it would entail. Be honest about the workload. Be open about the number of hours this position will require. You’re going to save time, energy, and money if everything about this role is laid out up front, so you don’t risk that new hire quitting before the ink has even dried on her hiring paperwork.

Look at Your Store Through Their Eyes

Your store layout is important, not just because shoppers need to easily navigate through your products. Your staff needs to feel comfortable there as well.

This is a good opportunity for you to walk into your store and pretend you are both a customer and an employee. While the customer will want easily-navigable aisles, the employee will want high visibility at the cash wrap.The employee will want access to technologies at the cashier’s stand to make her work easier.

If your checkout counter is crowded and out of date in terms of cash register technology, will an applicant be attracted to the idea of working for you? If not, consider making small changes to improve the flow of your store.

Offer Irresistible Perks

The fact is, you’re competing with whatever the other retailers in your area are offering employees. You may not even know what that is, so you’ve got to do your best to ensure that what you provide your staff is amazing.

Most stores offer discounts on purchases made by employees. Could you go one step further and up that discount the longer they’ve worked with you? Perhaps new employees get 10% off, but those who have been with you a year get 25% off?

You could also offer perks like:

• Once-a-quarter employee dinners
• Internal sales competitions with great prizes
• Extra vacation days for those who exceed goals

Consider Your Business Culture

How your retail store operates will have a huge bearing on its appeal to potential staff. If yours is a business culture that is stuffy and uptight, you might have trouble attracting Millennials to work for you.

On the other hand, having a fun atmosphere that encourages employees to work together to solve problems may attract people to apply to work for you. If you don’t know what your work culture is, ask yourself what you want it to be and how you can foster that sort of environment with your team.

Remember: just as you are trying to find the best fit for the open retail position you have, so too is that potential candidate looking for the perfect company to add to her resume. By making an effort to be that ideal company, you automatically step up your game as an employer and attract a higher caliber of job candidates.

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, a content marketing firm based in San Diego. She’s written several business books, and frequently blogs about small business and marketing. She writes for multiple sites including Forbes, Fit Small Business, AllBusiness, and Tweak Your Biz. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.