Inculcate Your Staff with Store Values

When all your staff project the values of your business, the consistent message instills in shoppers a strong memory of your store. When those values fit what the shopper seeks, the potential for selling increases dramatically.
     The reality is many candidates for employment with you may not share all your values. In fact, the prospective hire, and even some employees who may have been with you for a while, might not know what your values are.
     Researchers at University of Wyoming-Laramie discovered how as employees identify with a business, their values are open to profound change. There are three levers for this change:

• The employee’s economic well-being depends in part on you. Therefore, you have the attention of the employee when you take opportunities to discuss your values.
• For employees who work in your store more than a few hours each week, their job becomes an avenue for socializing with you, other employees, and shoppers. Social learning researchers like Albert Bandura at Stanford University pointed out the strength of personal interactions and behavioral modeling in forming what we call values.
• The third lever is the personal. When you and your staff encourage the employee to discuss how they handled difficult situations on the job, the employee comes to articulate to themselves a system of values. The result is the consistency across situations you’re aiming for. In their depth-oriented interviews, the Wyoming researchers uncovered examples of ways the values formed at the retail site changed an employee’s life decisions at home and with family.

     Here are two of the many tools available to you to inculcate your staff with store values:

• Screen prospective employees by presenting a few situations and asking the employee how they might handle each. These should be real situations that require the candidate to prioritize among alternatives which reflect values. Be clear with the candidate and in your own mind that there is probably no single best alternative action in each situation. Remember that the person does not yet know your values and that you’ll have opportunities to significantly shape those values.
• Mythologize your store. A myth is a special kind of story. Researchers at Boston College and University of Technology-Sydney say that the themes of a myth appeal to psychological needs across cultures. The best retail store myths help explain the origin of the business and give the store a memorable personality based on values.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Incorporate Family Values into Your Retailing
Mythologize Your Store