What has changed in retail in the last 20 years

A few days ago we shared a big survey about the perception of time in mass distribution. A way to understand the daily lives of employees, managers, directors who experience day to day business every day. This unprecedented survey of more than 800 employees in the industry raises a number of questions the future of mass distribution professions. How has the vision of sales professions changed over the last 20 years? How can we explain the gap between two generations where the vision of work is against them?

In this article, we look back at the main changes in commercial professions.

Managers promoted for their efficiency, not their managerial talent

In France, and not only in mass distribution, management is seen as a promotion, not a skill. This sentence alone can explain the friction that field workers may encounter.

PUSH promotion of managers it is more due to their organizational skills as managers (or those with a degree) than theirs managerial performance. THE manager today requires solid skills such as listening, kindness, emotional intelligence… If we want to incorporate a new generation into these professions, these skills are essential.

To the skills necessary for managers we can add:

authenticity and integrity, which consists in maintaining one’s vision and staying close to one’s values;
or the spirit of decision or also called “managerial courage”. By this term we must understand the ability to make difficult decisions and take them over.

Top management has strayed too far from the field

One can be ashamed of this aspect, but it also comes from the survey. Employees and managers no longer want to be mere executors of decisions made by hierarchy or headquarters. A lack of listening often comes up in the comments received: “Our leaders need to focus their decisions on employees to last over time,” this integrated brand manager explains here.

“Many decisions are too often conceptual and mainly based on managerial indicators, which is of course defensible, but not always realistic from an organizational point of view,” explains the store manager, “some decisions are not at the stage with human management,” he continues. , evocative resistance to change on the part of their teams which may be exposed to danger.

To illustrate this distance from the field, the survey also shows that irritants to customers are often neglected tasks: “these concerns rarely concern senior management”, except for some managers who have made them a hobby, notably Rami Baitieh’s 5-5-5 at Carrefour.

Having arms is not enough (or not enough anymore)

Big businessmen thought so for a long time the number of available hands improved team productivity. It is bad. Expanding teams does not solve organizational problems.

Recruiting teams already includes their careful selection (and not hiring for the sake of recruiting), integration and training. This period, which must last at least 6 months, is too often neglected. If this step is poorly executed, there is no question of resignation and for the business it is… repeat.

“It’s hard to attract candidates, so when you do, if you don’t make a good impression from the start, there’s a one in two chance you’ll lose them,” sums up Romain Breux here on the mass distribution onboarding podcast.

For this other manager, the observation is very pessimistic: “The jobs situation on a large scale is very complex. First, by multiplying the limitations of personnel, time, and material resources; and secondly, the lack of reliability of delivery and the lack of performance of the software, which does not make sense to help the teams,” he regrets, emphasizing that the tools “have not evolved much in recent years.”

Presentation, the best advertisement for absence

The oldest have no doubt already heard the phrase “you must not count your hours”, in other words, if you want to succeed in large distribution, you had to – we are talking here in the past tense – demonstrate investment, rigor, commitment. You had to “give to society” in hopes of getting something in return.

This presenteeism it has since yielded to its opposite: absenteeism. To insist on working hard to succeed in these professions, absenteeism eventually caught on and became a habit among employees: “absenteeism is very detrimental to managing the tasks that need to be performed today,” says a manager here, noting that the practice “has become more widespread in recent years.”

The culture of results has disappeared

With this departure from the company’s goals, results culture also gone: “I’ve known stores where the culture of results was very strong,” comments a store manager here, the business “engages teams in performance to help them grow and progress on a daily basis,” sums up another colleague.

That has changed a lot.

The attitude to work has changed, and mass distribution is no exception: “it’s a time-consuming profession that doesn’t attract young people because there’s a sense of exploitation,” explains the manager here.

The manager’s job is written in dotted lines

So of course, when we talk about all these big changes going on in mass distribution, some managers they think about the future of their profession: “today the world cannot do without this way of consumption, but it will be very difficult to find willing and reliable people…”, this manager already confirms.

Others will even think that the hierarchical line of “department manager” will disappear in the next 10 years”: “some will remain, yes, but there will be fewer of them. They will just supervise, organize and be done,” regrets this manager.

To go even further, some even noted a strong decadence. : “I think stores are losing employees” while realizing it’s “hard to quantify.”

Integrate technology and offer a new way of working in mass distribution

Still, it’s still difficult to maintain optimism. THE tension in the professions offer a gateway to the arrival of new procedures and new technologies. In particular, we have in mind the advent of artificial intelligence to solve redundant tasks, such as detecting shortages on shelves, automating order acceptance, identifying short deadlines on shelves, facilitating inventory, checking the freshness of fruits and vegetables, detecting errors in prices, etc. . The arrival of these new work methods will nevertheless be irreversible and it will not be possible to restore once established trade professions.

Employee Experience > Customer Experience

THE tomorrow’s business will prioritize employee experience over customer experience. Many directors/managers currently explain that they have all the trouble in the world recruiting candidates. However, few people really ask how to preserve the best elements.

Building loyalty is now more important than recruiting :

Employee loyalty reduces turnover in the company;
Loyalty avoids the need to recruit;
Loyalty helps retain talent.

Some solutions to make life easier for employees

Although easier said than done, there are useful solutions to make life easier for employees. Jumble:

Extend the registration phase (at least 6 months)
Conduct regular internal surveys
Provide greater flexibility in scheduling management
Encourage employee involvement in CSR events
Ensuring quality of life at work (such as preventing OCD)
Improve internal communication
Design a comprehensive skills development plan
Facilitate employees’ access to sports activities
Provide ongoing training
Promote responsible management and adopt a management style tailored to each employee
Provide additional days of maternity/paternity leave
Involve employees in decision-making
Provide breaks to develop company culture