DMSRetail

Retail Managers have heard a lot of crazy things…

• 90% of my staff just walked out!
• Employees are stealing!
• My Assistant Manager left the country!
• A customer locked himself in the washroom!

None of the above events are unheard of. None of them are out of the realm of possibility, right?

In fact, most of them have probably happened and some poor, unsuspecting Manager has been on the receiving end of the frantic call and said

“You can’t be serious.”

But, of course, the Store Manager was serious and someone had to cope with the fallout, clean up…whatever. Yikes!!

The Multi-Unit Manager’s job is not without it’s challenges. Some of them manageable or even preventable…and some of them aren’t.

Managing remotely is one of the biggest challenges facing us because our stores are spread out and we cannot always get to them as often as we would like.

There are Multi-Unit Managers who are promoted from Store Management and there are others who come into the job some other way.

Which is best? Well, that depends on many things.

Today, let’s look at the person who was promoted after managing a store.

Chances are pretty good that the person was a really, really good Store Manager. Most companies are not in the habit of promoting people who don’t do a good job.

We promote our fabulous Store Manager…the one who always (or at least the majority of the time) does the numbers…makes the targets…has great KPI’s, can always be counted on for well thought out opinions about policies and procedures, etc.

His store always looks fantastic – the staff are well put together, professional top performers and so on and so on.

It needs to be understood that the fabulous Store Manager we’re talking about did not achieve any of the above by working 35 or even 40 hour weeks.

He just didn’t.

If you’re in retail, and we assume you are, you’re probably smiling right now because you know very well he didn’t.

Retail stores are busy places and, of course, that’s what we want.

Busy places that are open to the public for the majority of every day, have a lot of things going on…lots happening all the time.

Between selling, servicing customers, getting merchandise onto the floor, cleaning, receiving, reporting, recruiting, hiring and training and tons of other things, there’s not a lot of time to relax, reflect and correct.

There’s not a lot of time for the Manager to simply manage…to delegate and coach and follow up. There’s no time to sort through the inbox…no office door to close and ‘get some work done’.

The ‘work’ is in the store and on the floor. That’s where it happens.

Of course, the Manager is required to do some delegating and coaching because that’s just part of the job.

But the job is much too big for that to be enough.

Unless the Store Manager has the luxury of extra personnel due to, perhaps, flagship status, insanely high volume or something like that, then he is working more like 50+ hours per week.

That’s not even counting the really busy weeks in peak season or the times when new merchandise or seasonal layouts happen, etc.

The point of all of this is to make one thing perfectly clear. That is, a fabulous Store Manager does not necessarily make a fabulous Multi-Unit Manager. Of course, he might…it’s just not something we should take for granted.

In fact, that Manager may not even make a good Multi-Unit Manager.
And, here’s why…

He is not there. He’s missing because he has other places to be.

He’s managing remotely.

There is a world of difference between

1) managing a store team that is working alongside of you for 50+ hours a week, getting everything done under your watchful eye

AND

2) managing a group of store teams scattered around geographically

Multi-Unit Managers are just one of the groups who would benefit from attending a retail management workshop.