As much as you’d like to, it’s not realistic to supervise your grocery store’s operations around the clock.
That’s why you should be able to count on your employees completely, confident they can keep your business running smoothly and profitably.
In this blog, we’ll explore four strategies for grocery store employee management to help you nurture a reliable, knowledgeable, and customer-oriented team.
1. Prioritize Grocery Store Employee Training
Building a team you can trust starts with intentional training.
Your employees should know how to keep your shelves stocked, checkout lines short, and profits high even when you aren’t around to watch over your store’s operations.
Let’s take a look at some key topics to cover during grocery store employee training:
- Product selection: Whether your grocery store sells a little bit of everything or you focus on natural, organic products, your employees should have in-depth knowledge of your selection.
- Customer service: Your team members are the face of your grocery store, so emphasize the importance of friendly service that goes above and beyond to meet your customers’ needs.
- Inventory management: Your employees will be responsible for ensuring the freshness of every product on your sales floor, so train them on inventory management best practices like proper labeling and first in, first out.
- Point of sale (POS) system: Your team members should know the ins and outs of your grocery store POS system, allowing them to answer customers’ questions, provide speedy checkout service, and perform inventory checks.
- Loyalty program promotion: If your grocery store has a loyalty program, your employees should know how to talk to customers about the rewards structure and sign up new members.
Training your newest employees is essential to set them up for success, but it’s also important to make time for store-wide refresher training to ensure all team members are up to date on your store’s policies and best practices.
2. Optimize Your Scheduling Strategy
Scheduling is a critical aspect of effective grocery store employee management — and it takes more than simply confirming that each shift is covered.
Your grocery store’s sales shift throughout the day, week, month, and year. Sometimes, your aisles are bustling with shopping carts and your checkout lines wrap all the way around the store, while other times see only a few customers here and there.
Your team’s schedule should reflect these sales shifts, with more employees on hand during peak sales hours and fewer during slower periods.
Use your POS system’s sales reports to identify your busiest times, inform your scheduling strategy, and determine when to schedule team members.
3. Simplify Payroll With a Modern Time Clock
Payroll is one of the most time-consuming parts of grocery store employee management. You have to calculate how many hours your team members worked, confirm this information is accurate, and ensure they receive their checks on time.
Fortunately, choosing a POS system with a built-in time clock can streamline the first two steps of your payroll process.
Instead of using paper, spreadsheets, or a separate time tracking system, your employees can easily clock in and out using your grocery store’s POS system. When it’s time to do payroll, all you have to do is consult your POS system’s records to retrieve the information and determine how many hours each employee worked and how much they should be paid.
4. Monitor Your Employees’ POS System Activity
Your POS system constantly collects information to help you manage your grocery store employees, so think of it as a highly observant supervisor.
Here are some things you can learn from your POS system about your team members’ performance:
- Checkout efficiency: Learn how quickly your cashiers work with metrics like transactions per hour and items scanned per minute.
- Discount and refund tracking: Ensure your employees follow store guidelines by monitoring the discounts they apply at checkout and the refunds they process.
- Cash handling: Confirm accurate cash drawer counts and identify any discrepancies.
Along with allowing you to monitor your employees’ activity, your POS system should include security features that let you set permissions for each team member, giving them access to only the tools and reports they need for their role.
Transform Your Grocery Store Employee Management With IT Retail
Grocery store employee management is one of your heftiest responsibilities as a small business owner, but the good news is that you don’t have to handle it alone.
A modern POS system like IT Retail provides you and your team with all the tools you need to work more efficiently, like a built-in time clock, robust reporting and analytics, and speedy checkout features.
See IT Retail in action by scheduling a live demo today.
