What do you do to attract and keep valuable employees in your store?

Bettie Edwards of The Little House

Bettie Edwards of The Little House
Vashon Island, WA
206.463.9033

“Our location is a little different. We live on an island, so we are a pocket-type of community, and that does affect a little bit the staffing situation. I have been very lucky with my staff, and I am lucky to not have to go through many changes. I told my current manager, ‘If you ever leave me, I am through.’ I also have part-time employees.

One of the things I try my best to do is work around their schedules. You have to be accommodating; that is very important to me. To me, family is number one. For example, my manager has the summer off. Yes, she still does the shows and the managerial paperwork, but for actually being in the store, that’s rare in the summer. My staff is like my right hand, left hand and heart, I have to work with them.

I need to respect them and that helps in a small business, where everyone’s cooperation is important. We also have mothers with children, so we work around those schedules. We stand for the family unit and value them.”

Linda Tabas of The Pink Daisy

Linda Tabas of The Pink Daisy
Langhorne, PA
800.647.5730
ThePinkDaisy.com

“In a store like mine where you have to do everything—pack boxes, unpack, wait on customers—it gets a little difficult, so I have to try particularly hard at finding staff. You have to be accommodating; it really is like your family, so you don’t want any tension there. Even if you are not related like family, you have to keep the people you get along with.

It has been tough. I wouldn’t say it has been easy, but I have found good help, sometimes with teenagers in the summer. I would really say you need to work around their schedules and be accommodating, because that’s everything.”

Lu Lupovich of Southern Exposure

Lu Lupovich of Southern Exposure
Mystic, CT | 860.572.1007
Westbrook, CT | 860.399.4445
ShopSouthernExposure.com

“We own two shops 30 miles apart, and we do our shopping for Native American art ourselves. We go out to the reservations, the trade posts probably four or five times a year to be able to provide fresh stock in our stores, so our help is very important to us.

Many of our employees come from the customers. There have been a couple of exceptions where somebody really liked the store and wanted to be a part of it.

You have to treat your employees fairly. We pay them fairly—you can’t do it by paying your staff minimum wage. Our full-time employees get paid vacation and health benefits. Our staff needs to know a lot about Native American art, and they have to engage the customers and help them. We tell our staff, “It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t know the answer. Let me check with Lu or Les.”

You also have to be sensitive to your staff’s personal priorities. If they don’t have a good personal life, they can’t have a good professional life. Everyone has to be happy. Retail is demanding, so we do our darnedest to keep staff happy. If someone has to attend a graduation, a social engagement, or mothers have to attend a soccer game, bring children to a physical—whatever—we try to accommodate that.”