Retail can be a tough industry, particularly around the holiday season, when shops are at their busiest. Staff are a key part of the equation when it comes to sales. If your staff are texting or chatting and ignoring customers, you’re not going to sell everything you could. Besides, your shop won’t look its best if your staff are unhappy and uninspired. Employees play a huge role in how attractive your shop is to customers. If the store displays are dull and the merchandise is untidy, it makes impulse purchases less likely.

Keeping your staff in top form is necessary to keeping your shop in perfect order and your customers coming through the door. Let’s take a look at five ways to keep your staff motivated, no matter their workload. 

1. Everyone Is Different

Staff members are motivated by different tasks. Some people like to be given a challenge. Others prefer support and to receive guidance in their day-to-day tasks.

Unsurprisingly, people also care about different aspects of the job. If you have a staff member who is interested in visual merchandising, give him a section to look after. Giving that person the responsibility of looking after something of interest motivates him, and other team members will notice how much attention you pay to employee interests.

Similarly, the staff member who is responsible for keeping the shop tidy will be much more likely to ask other team members to help, which takes some of the pressure off you. In addition, it creates a little competition, because other members will want to look after something that interests them.

2. Get the Space Right

Your staff members need to enjoy their work environment. A good workspace will also benefit your customers in two ways: They’ll be dealing with happier, friendlier staff; and the overall shop environment will feel different.

Your shop atmosphere is created from many components, but it can be heavily influenced by a few things. The first is that your store displays must look great. Are they neat? Are they positioned well? Are they easy to use? If they’re impractical and unattractive, your staff isn’t going to care about the tidiness of your shop as much as they should. By creating a neat store environment, you also create motivation. If a shop is laid out neatly but clothes are falling off their hangers in a particular place, they will be hard to ignore. However, if all your rails are higgledy-piggledy and your displays are visually overwhelming, the fallen clothes get lost in the noise. 

3. Music

Your music is also a key contributor to your shop’s atmosphere. One of the best ways to ensure that your staff is enjoying the shop music is to let them choose it.

MusicWorks recently found that 71 percent of employees would like to listen to music when at work. In addition, 61 percent of small retailers say their retail staff is more productive when music is played. Music also affects your customers in that it can help get them in the spending mood; 63 percent of small retailers agreed that music encourages their customers to spend longer in their shop. 

4. Offer Staff Development Opportunities

No one wants to feel as though they are stuck in a dead-end job. By offering staff members development opportunities, you can increase their motivation to better themselves and work harder for you. Even if you are a small independent retailer and can’t offer the opportunity for promotion, you can help your staff learn from you. This can mean giving them the opportunity to work on some of their weaknesses, or even to take on responsibility for a key task.

The best way to monitor this is to give your staff regular reviews. Once a year is good; twice a year is better; every three months is better still. Regular feedback and appraisals are an excellent way to keep staff motivated. In addition, it gives you an excellent opportunity to hear feedback from your staff.

Set several goals for your employees, with their help. Some could be short term, and others long term. They should ideally be SMART goals:

• Specific 

• Measurable 

• Achievable 

• Realistic 

• Time-related

5. There’s a Bigger Picture

By letting your staff members know how they contribute to the business overall, you can motivate them and make them feel more valued and respected. This is reinforced by your appraisals.

When you take 15 minutes of your time to sit with your employees to discuss their work and how happy they are, you get the opportunity for feedback. Your staff members will know that you value their opinion, and you may even get some great ideas from them.

If you can encourage your staff members to be more motivated and work toward the bigger picture, your customers will benefit from their enthusiasm. If your staff members are motivated and happy, the atmosphere of your shop will change, which will undoubtedly help increase your sales.