By Charlie Sampson, Director of Leadership Development at employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott
There’s nothing like Christmas in retail. Manic, magical, and mince pie-fuelled, it’s a challenging period for employees and team leaders in the industry that makes Christmas happen. Unprecedented demand, coupled with longer hours and new staff, requires a new approach to leadership that understands the extra pressures placed on teams, helps them perform at their best, and prevents burnout. It’s not enough just to ramp up your regular routine, or fight fires as and when they arrive. Here, Charlie Sampson, director of leadership development at scarlettabbott, explains how you can change the game.
Listen and learn
The Christmas period will throw up new challenges each year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t return to lessons learned before. This includes the challenges you faced, the solutions you found, and how you did (or didn’t) manage to implement them. Remember those times you wished you had thought of this solution earlier? Well, now’s your chance.
Your team are your greatest assets here – they have the best view of what happens on the shop floor and useful solutions for recurring problems, so give them a chance to share their insights. This doesn’t just apply to learning from last year, it’s about learning from last night as well. As you move towards the big day, you’ll encounter problems specific to this year, so before you open the doors, or when you’re just closing them, bring people together and ask for feedback.
These conversations are crucial to helping people to buy into what you’re working to achieve as a team. They’re great for bringing agency staff into the fold – by giving new or temporary staff a chance to contribute, you give them a stake in the team’s success far more powerful than any training or instruction.
Show a little love
It’s an extremely busy period, and your team will be going above and beyond for their colleagues and for the business, putting them at greater risk of burnout. Leaders need to recognise this and celebrate those achieving more, but also recognising everyone is performing under enormous pressure. Work these opportunities for praise and recognition into your daily briefings and debriefs, and show that you’re responding to real events during the day, rather than giving a generalised ‘well done’. Again, it’s time to put team members in the driving seat. Give people the chance to nominate colleagues for great work, and reward them with prizes or simply public recognition.
Leaders also need to have their pastoral responsibilities at the front of their mind, and remember that these still apply to temporary or agency staff. It’s impossible to keep an eye on everyone, and here buddying or mentoring systems can help you provide that support through other team members. Christmas is a hard time for many people, and not everyone will ask for your support, but they do need to know where to find it.
Lead by example
It can be easy to get lost in the performance and wellbeing of your team over Christmas, but you should also look after yourself. Consciously or not, you’re setting an example, so you should be aware of how you’re managing and showing up for the team. This means being proactive in managing your workload to ensure you’re not clearly working or playing too hard, and that you have the capacity to be the leader your team needs.
Image courtesy of Pexels. Photo credit: Amina Filkins.
