How to Help Women in Retail Climb the Management Ladder

How to Help Women in Retail Climb the Management Ladder Why Women Have a Natural Advantage in the Retail Industry?

It’s a fact – women are better than men when it comes to multitasking! Why? Simple – the process of evolution of humans was such that it made women better at multitasking.

Men went out hunting or, later, farming while women had to stay at home cooking, cleaning, looking after kids, and attending many other such tasks. Over time, they became expert at multitasking.

Now, retail is a field that requires employees to handle multiple responsibilities at a given point of time. You have to answer customer questions, understand their needs, while also executing your regular store duties.

A retail store will house a large number of products and there are many brands making all of them. You need to know the pros and cons of all. A customer with a discount coupon may need to be guided on how to apply it correctly. Another may be interested in knowing what other products the store has and where they are located.

Then, there will always be the pesky ones who want to know immediately when their requested product is arriving . . . . the list is endless. Only those with a natural flair for multitasking can deal with such staff while being calm, patient, and respectful to the client. Retail Customer Experience, a website, rates multitasking as one of ten essential skills for retail employees. So does the job site Monster.

With all this information, you will guess estimate that women are doing strongly at all levels in retail. But that conclusion is miles away from reality. A study by Catalyst concluded that there are only 3% women CEOs in the retail sector even though more than 50% of the workforce in the same sector is made up of women. Now that’s a glaring inconsistency!

In recent years, women empowerment has really gathered steam. Women are now breaking the glass ceiling in many traditional male bastions. The retail industry is one sector whose sales are driven by women. After all, it is women who make most of the purchases at retail outlets – from groceries and clothes to home decoration, and beyond.

So much so, that most sales and marketing guys in retail refer to their customers as ‘she’, not ‘he’. Therefore, women will be in a better position to understand their customers, something that will prove invaluable when devising marketing strategies. Customer is the king, or queen in this case. And, anything that impresses clients is a sure shot winner.

How to Help Women in Retail Climb the Management Ladder

Now that we have established the need to have more women in top positions, it is time we devise a strategy to help women in retail climb the management ladder. Here are a few tips that retail store owners can implement to help women in retail climb the management ladder seamlessly: 

Develop Leadership Capabilities: Retail store owners must inspire women to take up leadership responsibilities by identifying those women who are natural leaders and putting them in charge of projects. These projects can be minor ones to start with. As and when the involved women gain experience, the scale of these projects can be expanded.

Such experiments can serve as a template for larger projects where women are in charge. Experience is the best teacher and these projects will provide a hands-on experience to women on how to be a captain. They say, nothing succeeds like success. Once women get a grip of handling leadership responsibilities, what is to stop them from rising higher and higher in the retail industry?



Institute Mechanisms for Free and Frank Discussions: Some women employees may find it hard to speak openly during meetings. Apart from encouraging them to speak freely, retail store owners can also put systems in place such as one to one talks with the supervisor based on written feedback submitted earlier by the women employee, small group meetings which expand in scope and number as the participants get more and more confident, and the like.

It is always better to ask stupid questions than to make stupid mistakes. For fear that their suggestion might be ridiculed as stupid many employees, including women employees, do not express their opinions. These mechanisms must take such unwarranted fears out of women employees, or all employees for that matter. After all, such fear can prevent someone from voicing a great idea!

One important thing to remember when establishing and implementing such mechanisms is to have women supervisors during the early phases at least.

Women employees may find it more convenient to discuss issues with other women and will, therefore, express themselves more openly. This will also create a culture of having women in supervisor positions, which represents a higher level.



Encourage Women to Undergo Software / Technical Training and Education: Learning to operate retail software is a great way to help women in retail climb the management ladder. This is because such software fine tune the important processes of:  Customer Management  Inventory Tracking and Order Placing

    

Staff Administration Price Changes Sales Reporting Labour Reporting Marketing Initiatives

Tools such as these are known to improve sales revenues, profit margins, and the overall brand of a business. The capacity to utilize such software will reinforce the natural advantage that women have in retail.

Such software also provide fantastic data analysis. Since most of the customers in retail are women, women employees can combine such data analysis with their own human intelligence to achieve fantastic results in customer management and marketing initiatives.

Again, since most employees in retail are women, they can use the data analysis for better staff administration and labour reporting. Now, that’s a win-win situation if there was any! 

Women Employee Assistance Programs: The existence of avenues that link women employees with outside agencies such as health care or child care can go a long way in inspiring trust in women employees. Often, women employees resign if they have to take care of their infants, or on account of some medical condition.

If the employer can make them confident that their specific concerns will be taken care of, women will continue working and thrive. Continuity is a great career booster because it facilitates improvement. And, there can be women in higher management positions in retail only if they have developed the necessary skill set through continuous working.



Career Enhancement Opportunities: Apart from technical training, retail owners can also institute:  Management Programs: This experience can help women employees develop skills to manage people as also to understand the full range of administrative operations in the retail store. The stint will prove precious for their rise in the retail management hierarchy.  Mentoring System: Such a mechanism will pass on valuable, practical lessons from seniors to juniors. It will, of course, help if the mentors to women employees are also women, as was the case with supervisors encouraging employees to express their opinions.

Finally

Greater number of women at higher management positions in the retail industry is a win-win situation because women have numerous natural advantages in this industry.

Women will also bring to the table fresh perspectives that will boost business.