Owning a retail business can be challenging, especially when it comes to retaining employees. While the retail industry employs a huge number of workers around the country, it also faces one of the highest turnover rates.

The turnover rate for retail employees currently sits at around 41% every year, with many retailers looking to replace a worker every nine months. High employee turnover is a consistent challenge for businesses as time and resources must be spent on hiring and training new employees. One way for retail business owners to address this challenge is to revamp their HR processes, potentially improving both employee performance and keeping staff around longer.

Here are four suggestions that could put you on the path towards a better HR presence and a more smooth-running business:

Make Informed Hiring Decisions

Who you engage can impact every area of your business, from staff morale to operational efficiency, profitability, and your company’s overall reputation. An efficient and effective employee screening process reduces the risks associated with worker engagement as well as supporting the efforts of your business to attract and retain talent.

One way to ensure that you’re bringing on the right kind of employees is to implement various screening checks so you know exactly who you’re hiring.

How employees interact with customers is important, so it would make sense to prioritise hiring people who you imagine will fit in well with the company culture, who have a positive attitude and who will add something valuable to the company. Hiring competent, friendly employees to represent your brand to customers is also a core component to the successful running of a retail business.

Review The Induction Process

One of the most important elements when bringing on new employees is making sure you have a streamlined induction process. In addition to giving a good first impression and making the new workers feel welcome, this means ensuring that they have received the proper, mandatory induction and workplace health and safety training.

As well as delivering generic induction training, it’s important to reflect on role and job specific tasks, including additional tailored inductions.

For example, retail workers are typically on their feet for most of the day and could also be doing some degree of manual labour. This makes it even more imperative that they have been properly trained to follow the specific procedures outlined by your company.

These processes are beneficial for both parties; you will be teaching them how to respond and stay safe in potentially dangerous situations while also protecting your business from the costs of a workplace injury.