Managers of big retail stores have an opportunity to boost profits by maintaining or increasing staffing levels even when sales are slipping.
A version of this article appeared in the March 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review.
The Hidden Risk in Cutting Retail Payroll
Managers of big retail stores have an opportunity to boost profits by maintaining or increasing staffing levels even when sales are slipping. That idea will probably sound strange to store managers, who tend to cut staff hours if there’s a dip in sales. Such cuts make perfect sense to the companies’ executives, given that big […]
Summary.
Reprint: F0803E
When retailers’ sales slip, the biggest opportunity to boost profits comes from improving execution. To do that, research shows, managers may actually need to
increase staff.