Organised trade, worker turnover towards record 40%

In three years the turnover (staff turnover) in organised retail is set to exceed, on average, a rate of 40%. A forecast that generates not a little concern in the large chains, especially due to the advancing misalignment of labour supply and demand that, by now, spares no sector. Hence the focus on "increasingly strong organisational issues and the strengthening of human resources departments, where today there is a ratio of 15 employees per thousand employees, i.e. 1.5%, a fivefold increase compared to a few years ago when it was 0.3%. With a strong vertical specialisation and people dedicated to recruiting, training, and placement," says Davide Pellegrini, an economist at the University of Parma who, together with Francesco Massara, who teaches marketing at IULM, carried out research for Confimprese and Largo Consumo in which work in organised retail is described. This is the most significant subset of commerce, where, according to Istat data, there are over 3 million workers.

The research, entitled Retail people track, was carried out in two phases: the first, edited by Iulm, involved 3,260 workers, trying to understand age, contract type, salary. The second, carried out by the University of Parma, measured the organisational effectiveness and efficiency of the retail head quarters. The most critical aspect is that of turnover, which 'requires a paradigm shift in the management of people: if until a few years ago human resources were considered important but not strategic due to the abundance of people on the market, this is no longer the case, for multiple reasons ranging from demographics to work-life balance. And this means more attention in their management also to aspects of well-being and engagement,' says Massara.

Among workers there is a clear predominance of women, with women accounting for 68%. The workforce is predominantly young: 82.39% of the workers are under 45 years old and 53.40% under 35 years old. From an employment point of view, 63.19% of the respondents are employed as sales assistants, 20.28% manage tills and 15.98% are store managers. A permanent contract is held by 60.52% of the employees. Experience in the sector varies widely: only 21.20% of the respondents have more than 10 years of experience in retail. Most workers, over 90%, have a net salary of between EUR 500 and EUR 2,000 per month. "A wide range due above all to the incidence of part time in the sector," observes Massara. "In particular, however, if we consider those who have a permanent contract then the range is between one thousand and two thousand, and if we consider full time only it goes from 1,500 to 2 thousand euro. It is worth noting that 7.48 per cent of the sample is made up of 'new Italians', a figure that shows the cultural diversity that is emerging in the workforce and that will be increasingly necessary to cope with the mismatch between labour supply and demand.

By means of a veritable barometer of the sales force, the researchers assessed the well-being and stress of workers, as well as their engagement (commitment and involvement), which also shows a gender specificity: women show greater motivation than men and the third gender. Most affected by working conditions are younger workers, while there is a clear improvement among those over 46 years of age or more than 11 years of experience in the sector. In the South, retail work attracts more interest, perhaps due to a combination of environmental, economic, social and cultural factors, such as unemployment and the cost of living. The highest levels of engagement and the lowest levels of stress are found among store managers, while those working at the checkout or as sales assistants feel the pressure of work the most. Also with regard to engagement, permanent workers show a higher level than temporary workers. Another factor that clearly emerges is that work experience leads to a reduction in stress and an increase in engagement, especially after 10 years of experience. When it comes to stress, it also emerges that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and stress: engagement and well-being are optimal between EUR 1,500 and 2,000, but decrease above this threshold. Stress factors include queue management at the checkout, extended opening hours, shop size, congestion in the shop, and handling customer complaints.

Among the emerging trends, triggered by the turnover and the costs involved, Pellegrini indicates 'attention to training and collaborations with the Its in order to cope with the shortage of specialised profiles, mobility between the shop and the head office creating career prospects, climate analyses that in the past were not done but which are now a feature of all chains, the simplification of activities, and greater hour flexibility. Of course, in Italy we are far from the experiments on the short week in retail that is being experimented in some Belgian chains and in some Northern European realities, but there is a significant improvement on working hours and, for example, also on the possibility of split shifts, considering that in this sector people also work on Saturdays and Sundays'.