All managers and leaders strive to create a comfortable working environment, where employees are motivated to perform their tasks efficiently. But not everyone succeeds.
Only a fifth of employees believe they are motivated to improve their performance. Twenty-one percent of people polled said that their leader failed to create an atmosphere of trust and open attitudes. And as a result, these people are first to leave the company.
As evidenced in practice, merchandising experiences high staff turnover, which means that there are aspects that need to be improved. One of the tools for retaining employees is a motivation programme.
Retail automation experts from the IT company, IBA Group, explore how to establish a clear and consistent motivation programme for merchandisers.
Three Pillars Of The Motivation Programme
A motivation programme should be established with an understanding of what is important for people at work. For example, one person is willing to achieve and exceed the targets to receive a bonus, while another wishes career advancement.
Based on IBA Group's experience, many merchandisers look for stability: confidence in the company, getting a steady income every month, or week.
Before creating a motivation programme, it is essential to talk to employees and conduct surveys to understand what motivates them.
Before writing a motivation programme, the company must ensure that it is able to guarantee stability, make processes transparent, and outline KPIs that are clear and achievable.
Stability
Steady income is the most basic motivation for a merchandiser to perform. After all, everyone is making plans: buy a house, change a car, pay for child's education, go on vacation, and more.
In the first place, merchandisers primarily leave a company due to instability. If the company is able to guarantee consistent payments without delay, half of the motivation programme is in place.
Transparency Of Processes
To ensure a comfortable working process, a merchandiser should clearly understand his or her tasks: what needs to be done during the outlet audit, what reports are required, and the deadlines for completing the tasks.
If the merchandiser understands all these points, then the motivation to perform will be high, as the merchandiser will be able to clearly plan the required actions.
In addition, an important aspect is bonus award. The employee needs to know the conditions for receiving or losing a bonus. If a merchandiser is often de-bonused for reasons unknown to him, you should not expect solid performance from such an employee. To avoid this, KPIs need to be introduced.
Meaningful KPIs
Different articles say that goals and objectives should be established according to the SMART principle: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time related. This is true for KPIs as well.
To increase the efficiency of merchandisers, you need to set clear, realistic, measurable performance indicators. This means KPIs must be achievable. For example, if you establish a KPI to 'visit 100 outlets in a day', the employee will not be able to achieve it under any circumstances.
Merchandisers should also be able to influence KPIs. This means that the achievement of one or another indicator should depend directly on the merchandiser. For example, the number of visits to retail outlets or the percentage of compliance with planograms.
Ways To Improve The Performance Of Merchandisers Using Goods Checker
The aim of the manager is to tell the merchandiser about tasks to be completed, clearly set a list of responsibilities and get across the idea of the merchandiser’s work being important for the company.
Using the Goods Checker application as an example, IBA Group demonstrates how companies can enhance the merchandiser's performance and help him/her meet KPIs.
First of all, the introduction of the application itself increases the motivation to perform well. After all, now the operations are supervised by the software, and not by a person. So, there is no human error. The software programme is very difficult to deceive by uploading old photos as a report.
Our customers have noted that with Goods Checker, the percentage of compliance with planograms has increased noteworthily. For example, one of the customers noted that this indicator has reached 90%, compared to a previous 60%.
Outlet Audit Process With Goods Checker
The merchandiser comes to the store and takes a photo of the desired shelf using the application. After that, the Goods Checker processes the photo and shows the markup: correctly placed goods are marked in green, and those that are wrongly placed are marked in red. The application also shows the lack of goods on the shelf.
With this marked-up photo, the merchandiser can fix the layout. If it is impossible for reasons beyond merchandiser’s control, the employee specifies this reason in the application – for example, the goods are out of stock.
After that, the marked up photo is automatically sent to the server, where the manager can view it.
Ultimately, Goods Checker automates the process and prevents omissions and human errors. This means that the merchandiser's job has become easier and faster.
Additionally, the merchandiser has no doubt that the job has been done efficiently and he/she is eligible for a bonus.
With Goods Checker, managers will benefit from analytics. For example, the number of outlets visited, the percentage of planogram compliance, the percentage of high-quality photos, dynamics over the period, the number of photos by month, etc.
Based on these indicators, Goods Checker ranks employees. This is an excellent tool to analyse KPIs and determine the bonus for the merchandiser.
Motivated Employees Are The Key To Success
People need social approval. Therefore, most of them want to do their job well. It is important for them to be proud of what they do and where they work, to have good relationships with colleagues, and to feel that they are making a meaningful contribution.
The task of the employer is to maintain this desire and enhance it. There are many tools to do this, for example, cash bonuses, social benefits or career prospects.
It is essential to assess the performance and revise KPIs and motivation programmes to adjust them. At present, this can be automated.
Automation speeds up processes, eliminates errors and helps to obtain relevant and reliable data for managerial decision-making.
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