STORE ADVICE Dealing with staff absences

The RN team finds out how retailers deal with being short-staffed in planned and unplanned circumstances

Everyone has to have some time away from work now and again, whether it’s for a holiday, a special occasion or an illness – even people working in shops run by family members.

Whether you have a large team of employees or a core group of family members putting in shifts, running a shop halts for no one Retailers always need to ensure there is a smiling face behind the till regardless of absences. Planned absences should be easy to deal with, if enough notice is provided.

“It’s quite straightforward dealing with holiday requests,” says Harj Dhasee, from The Village Store in Mickleton, Gloucestershire. “The requests come over and we check that they’re not clashing.”

When it comes to absence because of sickness, it’s important that retailers tread the line between ensuring the well-being of the store and the welfare of their staff.

While you don’t want to let staff make a habit of calling in sick, you won’t enjoy great staff retention with an unsympathetic and suspicious attitude to illness and emergencies. It’s important to strike a balance to build trust.

“We’re not strict with sickness – we don’t ask for doctor’s notes –because we have a lot of youngsters doing flexible work,” says Nirav Modhvadiya, from Desford Shop & Post Office in Leicestershire.

For retailers looking to ensure staff are happy, or even keen, to cover shifts, an overtime payment can get that response a bit faster.

“We’ll pay people extra for working overtime or if they’re coming in with one hour’s notice. I can afford that and it gives them that incentive,” says Bay Bashir, from Go Local Extra Belle Vue Convenience in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire.

D an Brown, from Lothian Stores in Musselburgh, East Lothian, has been stung by staff absences before. He tries to overstaff when he can –despite the financial impact – so if someone is off, he still has cover.

To see what other stores are doing, go to betterretailing.com/advice

BAY BASHIR

Be open with staff

If a staff member can’t come into work because they’re sick or have an emergency, that’s one thing. If they can’t come into work and you’re not made aware of it until they don’t show up, that’s another thing entirely.

“You have to be an open book and let them come to you, whatever’s on their mind,” says Bay Bashir, from Go Local Extra Belle Vue Convenience in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire. “If you aren’t open, people won’t talk to you.

“We have 30 staff and they can all come to me, I don’t judge anyone. I’ve got the keys to every store, my phone is always on and I always answer it if I can. So, if I get a call from someone saying they can’t come in, I can always go and do it myself.”

Bashir’s wife has made things easier by being the approachable figure for female members of staff who might not want to talk to him about an emergency absence.

Build up your part-timers

To ensure he can cover staff absences, Nirav Modhvadiya has created a large staffing pool, but kept them all parttime at his Desford Shop & Post Office in Leicestershire.

This means he’s never relying on any single person too much. No one in his 15-strong team works more than 40 hours a week, and this means he always has options to cover any absences.

“Not every business can do it – we’re in quite a big village, with a population of 6,000 – but I worked out that it was the best option for both sides,” he says.

“We can get them more holidays, which means they’re happier, and that means we can keep them for longer. If they weren’t getting that amount of time off, they might go elsewhere.”

With many staff members still living with their parents, he can also always call them if too many sick days are being called in.