Employees: Key Ingredient For Success

June 30, 2006  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on July 2006 There’s no question that South Florida
boasts one of the most competitive retail
environments in the furniture industry.

While the state and its powerhouse lineup
of retail players continue to grow, the
growth brings with it challenges, including
the pronounced need of hiring and retaining
a top-notch team of sales associates.

For Tamarac, Fla.-based City Furniture, hiring, training and holding onto its retail salesteam has become a top priority. So much so, that the retailer started its Center for Excellence corporate university two years ago to ensure it puts the best people possible in front of its consumers.

Curt Nichols, vice president of human resources for the 21-store operation, said the goal in finding the right people is to be able “to cater to our customers.”

“We hire for attitude, and then teach them our approach and our business model,” Nichols said, adding that each new sales associates attends two weeks of Center for Excellence training before stepping onto the sales floor.

The training consists of classroom instruction, online courses, showroom observation and an indepth look at product.

“It basically gives the new hire everything they must know to hit the floor,” Nichols said. “Then, in the first 90 days, new hires come back in for once-a-week training and get the nice-to-know information. By day 90, they have a strong knowledge of product presentation, service programs and the like. The training really builds the success factor that in turn builds employee retention.”



Missed Opportunities in Training

With a sales team of about 480 people staffing City Furniture’s stores based on customer traffic and sales volume, the retailer takes hiring and training seriously—an approach many in the industry don’t take.

That misstep causes a good deal of missed opportunities in hiring and retaining strong sales associates, according to Carol A. Hacker, president of Carol A. Hacker & Associates in Alpharetta, Ga.

“Every business whether big or small, family-owned or conglomerate with multiple stores, needs to have a strong new hire orientation,” Hacker said. “I see businesses fall down on this all the time. Orientation should be an ongoing process, but typically it tends to be very superficial.”

Hacker said employees who are given a thorough orientation are more likely to remain with the employer for a significant time, and ongoing training ranks high in things that employees want from their employer.

“People want opportunities to learn,” she said. “If you, as an employer, are not offering theses opportunities, why would anyone stay? Just because you bring someone into one position, doesn’t mean that they might not aspire to have another one.”



Smart Hiring First Step

While all available training can turn good employees into great ones, hiring the right people from the start is crucial to success. Often many business, including furniture retailers, wait until they’re in crisis mode before launching the hiring process. By then, it’s too late.

Hacker’s top recommendation may be easier said than done—hire right the first time—but aiming for and meeting that lofty goal requires having the time to thoroughly and completely evaluating candidates.

“Be selective, take your time and don’t hire the first warm body that walks through the door,” she said, adding that the basics of checking references and work history should be at the top of the list of rules when hiring. “By doing so, you may find that people have hopped from job to job to job, and that’s a red flag right there.”

To make the process easier, maintaining a file of resumes and applications is a classic means of staying on top of hiring and ensuring the well is primed when the need for new employees arises.

City Furniture actively recruits employees, and typically Nichols avoids recruiting sales associates from other retail establishments. “A lot of times in those cases, you spend a lot of time retraining them,” he said.



Creative Recruitment

Instead, Nichols has established an incentive program for its existing sales associates for referrals. The program, which offers financial incentives to associates for successful hires, is a homerun for the company. Almost 32 percent of the retailer’s new hires are recommended by sales associates.

In addition to encouraging employees to find new hires, City Furniture, which also competes with Florida’s hospitality industry and the exploding real estate market for employees, has an active college recruitment program. “The college pool gives us a great employee base for promoting sales management,” Nichols said, adding that all of its sales management team has been promoted from within.

Those internal promotions speak directly to another of Hacker’s recommndations that employees are eager for other opportunities within companies.

One of Nichols’ key talking points during those college recruitment fairs is the retailer’s compensation plan, which City promotes as one of the benefits of working for the company. “Our job is to deliver on that promise,” Nichols said, adding that the retailer’s associate turnover is well below the retail average. “I’m fishing in a better pond for employees, and ultimately, I’m getting someone that’s better for my customer.” HFB