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The clock is ticking on the holiday shopping season! With Thanksgiving falling on the very last Thursday of November this year, traditional retailers face an unusually tight window—just four weeks and four critical weekends—from Black Friday to Christmas Day.
This year’s December 25th holds even greater significance, as it also marks the first night of Hanukkah. The result? A whirlwind month of in-store and online gift shopping, with the National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasting a 2.5%-4% sales increase, bringing U.S. holiday retail sales to an estimated $277 billion. Get ready for a fast-paced, high-stakes season with significant business impact opportunities for those retailers that can meet the moment.
This is also the time of the year that store operations asks the retail store support centers and distribution center teams to minimize extraneous communication, miscellaneous tasks, and special requests directed to the stores and field leaders. The goal is to make sure the field teams can focus on maximizing the season, leveraging the increase of traffic, and keeping associates motivated, engaged, and feeling appreciated for all their hard work during the hectic holiday season.
While the store associates are busy stocking shelves, working longer hours, and offering exceptional and expedient customer service as shopper traffic ramps up during the holiday season, the store support center and DC teams are winding down. With their focus on ensuring the best inventory levels, product assortment, and support to enable the stores to achieve a successful holiday season, most of their priority work starts in the summer and is done by Thanksgiving.
When we launched MOHR Retail’s SSL Store Support Leadership training in 2012, it stemmed from research comparing the leadership dynamics of store support and distribution center teams with that of retail field leaders. We discovered that the core principles, skills, and strategies driving the success of our RSL (Retail Store Leadership) and RML (Retail Multiunit Leadership) programs were equally impactful for leadership teams across support centers and DCs, although there are a few key differences for leaders in these home office and distribution facilities.
Over the past 12 years more and more clients have implemented SSL to help establish a common language, behaviors, and skillset across their leadership ranks and build a more unified, productive culture. They tell us this comprehensive, retail-focused approach is strengthening the leadership culture, building consistency, and helping drive results across the organization. It’s also enhancing succession by creating more opportunities for cross-training and promotions from the field to the DCs and store support centers and vice versa.
We recently revisited our original research with additional conversations and surveys of retailers about what it’s like to lead in a distribution or store support center today. The biggest change we’ve observed is the fact that more corporate office leaders and team members are now working remotely or adhering to hybrid work schedules, even amid an increase in return-to-office mandates in some retail organizations. While we’ve found that distribution center leaders have still largely been required to work on-site five days a week, some retailers have allowed select DC leadership positions to have the flexibility to work from home two to three days a week.
Outside of that shift, the six major themes that emerged from our original field research as the key factors differentiating the role of the store support and DC leaders from that of retail field leadership remain the same. Read on to learn more about the six themes and to download the updated research report.
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