Retail Staff Management: Tips, Skills & Responsibilities for Managers

As part of the retail management team, it’s your job to hire, train, and motivate store employees. This guide shares how to do it effectively.

Every retail store owner knows the value of their workforce. Good employees sell more products, engage with customers in a genuine way, and act as brand ambassadors in the store and outside in their daily lives. But some retailers struggle with how to motivate employees and keep them that way.

As part of the retail management team, it’s your job to hire, train, and motivate store employees. This guide shares how to do it, complete with the retail skills and responsibilities that fall onto your plate as a retail store manager.

The importance of retail team management

Team management is an important aspect of retail operations because it has the ability to:

• Boost operational efficiency. Effective retail management is all about maximizing resources—no matter how little you might have. Scheduling staff work schedules, for example, boosts operational efficiency by having your most valuable employees on-shift during busy shopping periods.
• Increase employee retention. Staff turnover is a costly problem to contend with: studies estimate that it costs the equivalent of six to nine months of their annual salary to replace an employee. Effective team management recognizes and rewards employees for their hard work, which could impact how likely they are to stick around.
• Offer seamless customer experiences. Your retail team are the people who interact with customers. Regular training and coaching helps them represent your brand in its best light and offer outstanding customer service that drives shoppers back.

How to manage a retail team

Hire the right employees

The first step in building an effective, motivated retail workforce is to hire the right people. This starts with retail recruiting—more specifically, finding employees to fill gaps you’ve identified that offer the skills you’re looking for.

Throughout the recruitment process, ask yourself questions like:

• What skills gaps do we have in the current team?
• Do you need full-time, part-time, or temporary staff to fill those positions?
• What benefits or perks can you offer to attract top talent?
• Which interview questions will help you shortlist applicants? 

You don’t have to go through this process yourself. Some recruitment agencies specialize in helping retailers fill positions—but you’ll still need to know who you’re hiring (and what for) before initiating the hiring process.

Invest in retail scheduling software

Retail scheduling can be a logistical hassle that confuses employees and wastes resources. Investing in a retail employee scheduling app, like EasyTeam or Sling, lets you complete the following tasks from your point-of-sale (POS) system:

• Budget labor costs
• Track employee availability
• Build retail rotas 
• Check for scheduling conflicts
• Let employees clock in and out 

The beauty of these POS apps is that they pull data from your POS system and other integrations. For example, Dor’s foot traffic data and Shopify’s sales reports might show that Friday evening is the busiest time of the week. This insight lets you plan around your peak times—perhaps scheduling a retail store manager and two associates every Friday to cover demand.

“Having one system to manage our inventory and staff is a huge benefit for our brand,” says Doug Waldbueser, co-founder of The Inspiration Company. “Shopify POS is very simple to use and streamlines our store experience for staff and shoppers.”

Commit to regular retail staff training

Retail job descriptions and interviews help you recruit team members who have the skills that you’re looking for. But it’s unlikely that you’ll find employees who have a complete skill set right off the bat. 

Retail employees often need training on:

• Your company culture and values
• Who your customers are and what they need help with 
• Inventory management techniques (i.e. cycle counting or receiving inventory processes)
• Specifications of products you sell 
• Health and safety precautions 
• How to operate your POS system and any compatible hardware, such as the cash register or card reader

Remember to bake time for retail staff training into your rotas. Employees shouldn’t need to come in on their days off to get up to speed. Instead, incorporate it into their working schedules and dedicate time for training during quieter store hours.

📌 Pro tip: Shopify’s POS system is incredibly easy to use. Staff management features mean that new employees can’t make major changes to your POS system without the appropriate permission level. This gives them the flexibility to play around and get to grips with the new interface without interfering with discounts, payments, customer, or order data.

Configure user permissions inside Shopify POS.

Conduct regular performance reviews

Once you’ve implemented the strategies to motivate your retail employees, schedule regular check-ins to track their satisfaction and progress. Employees motivated to do better need to know what is expected of them and where they stand. 

Regular performance reviews in the form of one-on-one meetings with management are a great way to hear what your employees like about your incentive programs, what they think is working, and what they’d improve. 

Encourage retail store managers to meet with each direct report once a month for a formal meeting, and be available for more impromptu discussions throughout the week to address any issues that arise. These meetings are the perfect time for your management team to outline what is expected of the employees, discuss strengths and areas of opportunity, and gather feedback.

Recognize and reward employee performance

A classic way to motivate employees in a retail environment is through incentives and rewards. Rewards can be small, like buying top weekly performers lunch, or providing gift cards for popular coffee shops to those who go above and beyond with customers. 

You can also award prizes based on individual goals that employees set with their manager through self evaluations and performance reviews. 

Engaging your employees doesn’t have to always involve cash or financial rewards. Create short-term games that employees can take part in, like the first one to sell a new product gets to leave early, or whoever puts the most inventory away in a week gets to pick the background music on Sunday.

Perhaps skip the incentives altogether if you find they create an uneasy sense of competition. Employee recognition through an “Employee of the Month” program can reward staff members who surpass expectations, have exceptional attitudes, or exceed performance goals. 

📌 Pro tip: Identify top performing sales associates with Shopify POS reports. See the average order value, gross sales, and any returned items filtered by the user account who processed each transaction. 

See a breakdown of sales by employee within Shopify POS.

Offer commission to sales associates

Loftier rewards like salary increases and bonuses are a great way to motivate employees to stay for the long run and strive to meet quarterly sales goals. You can provide commission that awards sales associates with a percentage of the revenue they’ve generated. 

Popular retail commission structures include:

• Fixed commission, like 2% of all sales paid at month-end.
• Variable commission, which rewards higher targets with more commission. For example, you might offer 1% on sales up to $500, 2% on sales up to $1,000, and so on.
• Residual commission, where commission applies for the lifetime of the customer they’ve referred. It’s most common with subscriptions: reps might earn 1% of the monthly transaction amount for as long as the subscription remains active.

Retail commissions don’t just encourage retention (since staff can earn more money without leaving to find another job)—they can also increase sales. Apps like Marsello and Frequently Bought Together help store staff recommend related products that increase basket size and improve the retail experience.

📌 Pro tip: Payroll and HR apps like Gusto integrate with Shopify POS to automatically calculate commission based on each rep’s selling activity and add any extra income to their payslips.

Document retail processes

People want autonomy over how they work. That’s difficult to offer when you’re managing employees. Day to day operations must remain consistent to keep the business running as efficiently as possible. 

Documenting common retail operations offers a balance between the two. Employees can reference guidelines and checklists when they’re completing a certain task—without having store managers looking over their shoulder and micromanaging. 

Write down the repetitive tasks that your team encounters on a daily basis and draw up documentation to act as a framework for how to do it. For example:

• Opening and closing procedures
• Processing returns and exchanges
• Handling customer complaints 
• Creating purchase orders 
• Inventory audit checklists

Maintain open lines of communication

As much as you can try to standardize roles, at the end of the day, you’re working with people. Things crop up unexpectedly.

What happens if an employee needs to call in sick? Can’t work a scheduled shift? Is rifting with another team member? Open lines of communication between store managers and retail employees can prevent these unexpected events from disrupting your store operations.

Bear in mind that this goes both ways. Loop your retail employees in on any big decisions. Moving to a new location or implementing a new POS system? That’s something they need to know in advance.

Skills and responsibilities of a retail staff manager

It’s your retail team manager’s responsibility to keep the business running smoothly. You’ll typically find the following tasks in their job descriptions:

• Oversee retail operations management
• Recruit and onboard new employees
• Manage labor budgets
• Ensure compliance and safety 
• Train retail employees 
• Set sales targets 
• Monitor and improve team performance

Above all, keeping things fun and engaging is the job of retail team management. It’s important for all supervisors to embody the attitude that you want your employees to mimic. 

Important retail management skills you’ll need to complete these tasks include:

• Strong communication skills
• Time management
• Decision-making and problem solving 
• Customer service skills
• Organizational skills 

Manage your retail team from your POS system

Discovering how to motivate your employees and what works best will be different for each retail business. You’ll find that different things work for different individual employees, but the strategies outlined here are a great jumping-off point to manage your retail team and optimize productivity within your company.

Shopify comes with a bunch of world-class features to help you manage your retail employees from the POS system you already know and love. 

From payroll and staff scheduling integrations to customizable user permissions, it’s easy to see why some of the world’s biggest retailers rely on Shopify POS to power their retail operations.

Retail employee management FAQ

What is retail team management?

Retail team management describes how you’ll hire, train, and retain retail employees. It involves activities like scheduling rotas, setting sales goals, training staff, and conducting performance reviews.

How to manage staff in a retail shop?

• Hire the right people
• Invest in a workforce scheduling tool
• Commit to regular training
• Conduct performance reviews
• Offer commission to incentivize sales
• Recognize and reward strong performance
• Maintain open lines of communication
• Document retail processes

How to be a great retail manager?

Outstanding retail managers possess skills like:

• Empathy
• Active listening
• Multi-tasking
• Time management
• Problem-solving skills
• Leadership abilities

How to lead a team in retail?

• Use staff scheduling software
• Lead by example
• Offer staff training
• Set realistic targets
• Be open and honest
• Accept employee feedback
• Document processes