STORE ADVICE

It’s about accountability

Harj Dhasee plans out his staffing rotas at The Village Store in Mickleton, Gloucestershire, to ensure every member of staff works one bank holiday over the course of the year, so no one ends up working too much on public holidays and “everyone gets a fair share” of time off.

While he and his managers can usually find part-timers to cover unplanned absences, he recommends talking to staff when they’re back to find out if anything needs to be done.

“It’s about accountability,” he says. “If they’re off sick, there’s nothing you can really do about it, and it can cause issues for the team. If they’re constantly calling in sick, then you need to set up a ‘back to work’ interview so you can talk it through, find out if there’s a problem and then go from there.

“If you’re really concerned, you can put them on a performance improvement plan.”

Upskill your team

Dan Brown, from Lothian Stores in Musselburgh, East Lothian, struggled with absences during the pandemic and got caught in a downward spiral where he was relying on a smaller pool of people to cover, which brought morale down, added pressure and resulted in further absences. He’s turned it around by upskilling his team as much as possible.

“The more the team knows, the less likely we are to have to rely on one or two people who know all the systems,” he says. “Now if we’re missing a key person, there is always someone else who can pick it up. We’ve really tried to emphasise training right from the start.

“We have someone off with a broken foot at the moment, but we have people ready and excited to jump into key operating positions because of their training. That longerterm investment means some of our younger people are now supervisors.” l