All retail businesses are expected to follow the laws that have been established by the Australian Government. These are usually documented for staff members in the Company Policy and Procedure Manual. They are Position Descriptions, the Code of Conduct or similar types of documents. The retailer’s responsibility is to ensure staff members understand the company rules and display correct behaviour.
To learn how to steer your success as a team leader, the ARA Retail Institute runs workshops on leadership and team culture.
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Understand requirements and responsibilities
As a retailer, you are expected to have a good understanding of your own areas of accountability and responsibility. It is common practice for organisations to outline these in their company Code of Conduct and via individual position descriptions.
A Code of Conduct outlines the rules of behaviour for the employees of the organisation in the performance of their duties. It provides guidance to staff to assist them in making personal and ethical decisions.
Position descriptions document the duties and responsibilities of a job. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)s are attached to the position description and provide measures that help the organisation to achieve their goals.
Staff should check your individual position description to ensure that your goals are aligned with the KPI’s.
Other areas that staff may need to build an understanding include:
- The company’s mission, vision and business plans
- The company’s goals and objectives
- What methods they prefer to use for communication
- How you should interact with other team members and management
Rosters
Retail stores can have a range of trading hours depending on the nature of their business and their location. For example, retail stores located in a country area will often have shorter trading hours than similar stores in a city location. One thing that they all have in common is the fact that they need staff to operate the business.
Staff rosters help them to achieve this. They enable the supervisor to know who is working on a particular shift and who is not. Therefore the workload can be distributed fairly.
Rosters enable individual employees to better plan and manage their personal/social life as well as their work time. It enables them to plan for their holidays and `time off’/RDOs in advance.
- Posted on the notice board within the workplace
- Given to each staff member personally
- Included in their pay envelope
- Emailed to team members.
Absence from work
The retail environment is often run at its most productive staffing level. This means that when rosters are drawn up the correct amount of staff have been allocated for the shopping demand. It is therefore essential that staff act responsibly when considering and requiring adjustments to rosters. One way to avoid confusion is to check your roster well in advance.
From time to time, situations or circumstances may arise that will affect your availability. These situations may be:
- When you are sick
- When something comes up
- When you have a prior engagement or commitment
Staff must be aware that a retail business operates in a way that does not allow for a great deal of flexibility in staff rostering. Therefore, retailers need to drill the importance for their team to endeavour to stick to their rostered shifts and hours, and always give as much notice as possible whenever changes need to be made.
About the ARA Retail Institute
The ARA Retail Institute is Australia’s leading retail training provider for both accredited and non-accredited learning programs. For more information, please visit www.retailinstitute.org.au
