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KNOWING WHAT TO LOOK FOR Independent retail consultant, Liam Kelly shares his insight on what garden retailers should really be looking for when they’re hiring new staff
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y meetings and visits to clients around the country tend to kick up all sorts of questions and enquiries on the many and varied aspects of retail from merchandising to layout issues, and purchasing help to management advice. But the two topics that are always discussed are recruitment and staffing. If I decided to set up a recruitment company for garden centres and other plant-centric retailers I’m sure I could probably retire on the residuals that would accrue from the ‘finder’s fee’ I could add to staff wages as a conscription tax. And it’s not just about finding ‘horticulturists’ – a snooty sounding label I still hate to hear or see being used in garden centres – and throwing them into retail. Selling plants and gardening products, and imparting information, isn’t some easy-peasy task that anyone can master. There are certain qualities that are required - and some that need to be taught - before a plantsperson can be let loose in a garden centre, or any retail environment for that matter. Back in the day, garden centres were really just plant nurseries that were open to the public with precious little retail savviness or know-how, but from the 1980s onwards there were a few of us working in the sector who started to apply shop knowledge, both training-gained and self-taught, to our repertoire so that by the late 1990s and early 2000s many garden centres were seen as proper retailers with everything you would expect from any shop or department store in other sectors of retail. Even back then I often felt that newly minted, collegetrained plantspeople didn’t have the communication ability nor the basic retail knowledge required for a job in a garden centre, and although that has changed somewhat since those times there is still a huge gulf of missing knowledge that
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"I often felt that newly minted, college-trained plantspeople didn’t have the communication ability nor the basic retail knowledge that was required for a job in a garden centre" needs to be taught in order to turn new recruits into retailers. Of course, there are many departments within modern large garden centres that require no plant familiarity; I won’t focus on those here, although the basic traits required are similar. So what do you need to know to work in the plant side of garden centre? Obviously some of the aforementioned knowledge of gardening is important as staff will be advising and helping customers with their plant and garden care choices in addition to maintaining stock. It’s the traits that are needed above and beyond this which can be in short supply. Here are five other areas that need to be focussed on in order to be a great gardening department operative.
This is perhaps the most important attribute needed, as without the ability to pass on information in a friendly, clear and succinct way all of the above mentioned gardening knowledge is pointless. It’s difficult to create in a person who doesn’t at least have a grain of this ability in their persona and teaching it is certainly one of the most difficult tasks in a manager’s – or consultant’s – role in the garden centre.
/ www.horticultureconnected.ie / Spring 2018
