Having spent the last week visiting clients in 4 different states, while nobody is saying it’s easy, there are many who are still enjoying success and managing to hold margin and often it centres around the retail basics and the people who execute them. As one CEO said, “some of the retailers that are suffering have lost relevance with their customer, leaving price as the only lever to bring people into the store”.
To date, we have assisted over 200 retail, consumer and fashion industry clients to identify and recruit the right staff. Officially launching next month, I am very pleased to announce Trak HR Consulting which will focus on developing your team and maximising their performance, as well as reducing staff turnover – often an organisation’s largest hidden drag on the bottom line. Ex Woolworths CEO Michael Luscombe believes the most sustainable advantage a retail business can have is to “attract, grow and retain the best people.”
Belinda McPhee who heads up our consulting team has enormous credibility in this area. Having studied Commerce, Communications and Strategic Human Resource Management, Belinda has had the unique opportunity to spend nearly 3 decades as a HR practitioner within leading retail organisations. Working with Executive teams across different retail formats, she brings practical hands-on experience from Supermarket, Department Store, Pharmacy, Telecommunication, Entertainment and Vertical Apparel sectors. Her focus is to ensure your “people practises” actually enhance and harness the efforts of your team and maximise company profitability – critical in today’s economic climate. Equally important is to ensure your exposure to workplace litigation is reduced particularly in terms of compliance changes and the introduction of the Fair Work Act.
Belinda McPhee who heads up our consulting team has enormous credibility in this area. Having studied Commerce, Communications and Strategic Human Resource Management, Belinda has had the unique opportunity to spend nearly 3 decades as a HR practitioner within leading retail organisations. Working with Executive teams across different retail formats, she brings practical hands-on experience from Supermarket, Department Store, Pharmacy, Telecommunication, Entertainment and Vertical Apparel sectors. Her focus is to ensure your “people practises” actually enhance and harness the efforts of your team and maximise company profitability – critical in today’s economic climate. Equally important is to ensure your exposure to workplace litigation is reduced particularly in terms of compliance changes and the introduction of the Fair Work Act.
Our relationship with our sister company Scarlett Recruitment has evolved and as a Director of Scarlett, I am partnering with Gai Scarlett to develop strategies to further advance this successful business as well as providing support for executive level recruitment. In case you are not familiar, Scarlett Recruitment focuses on executive, design, production, supply chain and wholesale roles within the fashion industry in both Melbourne and Sydney.A strategic alliance with a UK fashion/retail recruitment specialist firm has given us a number of strong candidates between the $100k to $300k levels across a number of industries. The high Aussie dollar (and financial hardship in the UK) makes it an attractive proposition to tap into some very talented retail executives - especially buyers, merchandise planners and fashion designers.
Our recruitment team has expanded in Sydney with a number of new consultants. Monique Hope (ex David Jones) and Megan O’Sullivan (ex David Jones and Bang & Olufsen) will work on store operations roles such as Multi-Site and big-box Store Managers. Mon will focus on fashion/cosmetics and Megan on franchise DDS/Grocery. Gill McCormick (ex Metcash) specialises in buying and merchandise planning roles at all levels on a national basis.
Finally it is satisfying to see our client portfolio continue to diversify and add in a number of international newcomers. We are proud to say that we are the preferred supplier of the world’s number one retailer – Apple. Of equal importance is that we now recruit for over 60% of Australia’s top 100 retail and fashion organisations. Recent assignments handled cover all major Australian cities, as overseas locations in the UK, Middle East and several Asian countries. Remuneration packages have ranged from $55,000 to $700,000, whilst the type of roles have included Buying/Merchandising, Accounting & Finance, Loss Prevention, Property, Human Resources, Wholesale, Supply Chain, Marketing, Business Development, Franchise Operations, General Management, and of course Store focussed positions including Store, Area, State and National roles.
Cheers
Garry
