INDUSTRY TIPS: Recruiting for Retail Careers - RetailWire

Bernice Hurst at RetailWire gives some insight into how retailers can recruit the right people for retail careers.

_______________________

Recruiting for Retail Careers

By Bernice Hurst, Contributing Editor, RetailWire

It would be easy to churn out relevant clichés -- you have to speculate to accumulate, should invest in people, put your money where your mouth is -- to select just a few. But where education, experience and skills are concerned, retailers are recognizing a need for vocational and academic qualifications to co-exist and support one another.

Two of the UK's biggest grocers, Sainsbury's and Asda, have recently announced new "landmark schemes to train apprentices and sell the food retail industry as a career choice," according to London's The Times. The Sainsbury's initiative includes opening Britain's first bakery college, intended to accelerate and standardize the training for its 412 in-store bakeries.

Before his announcement, Sainsbury's Chief Executive, Justin King, told the The Times that he doesn't think government gives enough attention to the food industry's training needs. "There's been a view," he said, "and it's almost our fault for allowing it to exist. that food manufacturing and food science jobs are inferior to heavy industry and engineering. Food manufacturing is a massive contributor to wealth."

Asda's approach is to "offer 15,000 work experience places to 14- to 16-year-olds and a further 15,000 apprenticeships to existing staff."

Tesco, whose executives have repeatedly bemoaned poor standards of education and attitude problems amongst young people, uses its recruitment website to explain that "as part of Every Little Helps, our commitment to our people is that we will give them the opportunity to get on so that they are able to get the training they need to do their job and to develop their careers at Tesco."

Where retailers need to be cautious, however, is in designing their own qualifications. A new accreditation for work experience from McDonald's, reported in The Daily Telegraph, has drawn criticism, partly based on whether or not other organizations will find it acceptable and transferable. This should not present a problem for those who attend Sainsbury's baking college and emerge with a skill that can clearly accompany them to a new employer should they decide to move at some point in the future.

SOURCE: RetailWire