The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to offer a mixed bag for retailers. For some retailers, store closures and a decrease in foot traffic meant no business, others have had bumper business result driven by impulse / revenge buying, online purchases or even long delayed maintenance and renovation projects. A true mixed bag.
Staff management has been at the top of mind for all retail businesses as they deal with the ramifications of the pandemic lockdowns. For the HR professionals working at E.L Blue, the pandemic and the the JobKeeper subsidy have resulted in some interesting situations.
For most businesses the JobKeeper subsidy has allowed them to retain staff during times of reduced revenues. E.L Blue’s retail clients have been able to keep their doors open by adjusting work hours to align with the jobkeeper subsidy, opening locations selectively and using shops as e-commerce fulfilment centres. To execute any of these initiatives, close contact with the staff teams has been essential and all changes were discussed and agreed by the workforce before being implemented.
The flat rate amount that was associated with JobKeeper created an interesting dilemma for the E.L Blue human resource managers. Not surprisingly, some part-time staff were willing to only work their usual fixed weekly contract hours while receiving the much higher payment under JobKeeper. This created some interesting challenges when planning rosters and work schedules. The inequity of the JobKeeper allowance has also caused some tension because some casual staff were eligible for JobKeeper and others were not. Maintaining an effective and open communication channel between management, the human resource function and the retail teams has been critical to work through the various stages and options available.
The E.L Blue HR team has been looking ahead to some of the issues that will require attention as the retail environment establishes itself in the “new normal”. Health and Safety is the primary concern raised, with the need to ensure that all locations are compliant with government directives and staff are adequately trained and diligent. Assessing the risk to individual employees is critical, especially if travel and specific work location are deemed risky to a specific individual. The E.L Blue HR team is already considering issues that might be associated with the transition back to lower incomes for the staff who have become accustomed to the JobKeeper pay levels. In the longer term, many strategic Human Resource and performance management programs have fallen by the wayside during the pandemic, and will need to re-introduced and re-calibrated as the ‘new normal’ emerges.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down was a terrible shock and created substantial turmoil for the HR management teams. The Human Resource management requirements associated with the economic restart are going to prove to be increasingly demanding with requirements to not only get staff back to work safely, happily and engaged, but also to reactivate more longer term HR management programs and initiatives.
E.L Blue has seen that the retail entities that have tightly aligned business and HR management strategies are negotiating the pandemic and are better positioned to make the most of the recovery phase.