Next month, front-line workers at Lowe’s stores will find extra cash in their payroll deposits, thanks to a bonus program from head office. The program was announced during a call by company executives to analysts following the release of Lowe’s second-quarter results.

“In recognition of some of the cost pressures they are facing due to high inflation, we are providing an incremental $55 million in bonuses to our hourly frontline associates this quarter,” said Marvin Ellison, chairman and CEO of Lowe’s Cos., during the call. “These associates have the most important jobs in our company, and we deeply appreciate everything they do to serve our customers to deliver a best-in-class experience.”

Lowe’s Canada has confirmed that eligible Canadian associates will also receive financial recognition.

U.S. workers will get the added benefit of an increased staff discount on certain products in the store for a limited time. The current staff discount of 10 percent will be raised to 20 percent. The larger discount can be applied to “everyday household and cleaning items,” said Joe McFarland, Lowe’s EVP of stores, “which we hope will ease the burden of inflation impacting many of these items.”

The pay lift reflects the corporation’s desire to keep valuable front-line workers happy with their jobs, differentiate itself from other retailers, and create a greater sense of career within the organization. “We will continue to look for meaningful ways to improve our associates’ work-life balance, while providing them with the tools to build a career at Lowe’s,” McFarland added.

The extra money is in addition to other initiatives to make life easier for staff on the store floor. One such initiative is expanded scheduling options for full-time associates. Now, most full-time associates can request a fixed four-day work week, fixed days off, or choose their preferred shift on their terms.

“This is a significant improvement in our associates’ quality of life, and it is another way that we are differentiating ourselves from other retailers,” McFarland added.

One of the important buzzwords of modern HR is “employee engagement.” Engaged employees improve your business. Disengaged employees damage it. Actively disengaged employees can destroy it.

We reached out to Scott Wright, executive director of advanced training programs at the North American Paint & Hardware Association (NHPA) to talk about employee engagement.

Wright cited an “Employee Engagement Data Study” by Gallup in the U.S., taken shortly before the pandemic, which surveyed all industries, not just the home improvement industry. The survey showed that 33 percent of American employees were “engaged” with their jobs; 51 percent were “not engaged.”

But even worse than that, Wright said, the survey showed that 16 percent of employees were “actively disengaged.” According to a Gallup press release, “Actively disengaged employees report miserable work experiences and are generally poorly managed.”

Note here that the blame for their poor attitude lands on their managers. The elements of improving employee engagement include clarity of expectations, opportunities for development, and opinions counting at work. The NHPA has executive training programs for home improvement store managers—including those from Canada—who wish to increase their skills in increasing employee engagement, among many other skills.

(To learn more about NHPA’s management training courses to help managers understand key concepts of leadership and personal development, reach out to Scott at swright@yournhpa.org.)

Donald Cooper is a Toronto-based speaker and business coach. Using his vast experience as a manufacturer (Cooper Canada sports equipment) and an award-winning retailer, Cooper has helped hundreds of companies in over 40 industries around the world to create compelling customer value, clarity of purpose, and long-term profitability.

Whether your business is large or small, or whether you’re a business owner or department or divisional manager, one of your most important jobs is growing your people. In fact, you can’t grow your business without growing your people.

I’m constantly amazed at how few of my clients have ever sat down with each of their key people to ask them where they’d like to be in the business and in their lives in three to five years, and how they’d like to help the company grow.

These important conversations almost never happen—and many of the best people leave. A recent poll of over 2,000 employees in the UK shows that only one in 10 believed they had long-term opportunities for growth with their current employer. They’re just doing a job. They don’t feel they have a career.

Part of this is because most business owners and managers themselves are not thinking three to five years ahead. They’re too busy solving today’s problems. They have no clarity about the future of their business, so they can’t or don’t want to talk about it with their team.

If growing your business by growing your people makes sense to you, consider these three questions:

Question #1: What will your business, your division, or department look like in three to five years? How big will it be? Where will it be? What will it be doing? How will it operate? In what specific ways is it likely to be different from how it looks and operates today? How must it change and how must it be ‘better’?

Question #2: What does your organization need to learn to be a profitable market leader in those three to five years? What knowledge, skills, systems, attitudes, customer insights, processes, innovations, and disciplines must the organization learn in order to be price-competitive, service-competitive, and profitable? What technology must you embrace and master?

Question #3:  Who are your top performers? Who on your team has the attitude, ability, or potential to help move the business forward? Given what the organization must learn, the talent you’ll need and the potential of your current team, where are there obvious gaps that you’ll need to fill by growing your people or recruiting from outside the business?

Next, ask them what knowledge, skills, training, education, and experience they think they’ll need to perform that new job or position excellently.

Don’t expect them to have immediate answers to these three questions. Most people won’t—and that’s OK. Invite them to take a few days to think about and research the possibilities and book a specific time when they’ll get back to you with their thoughts. If they don’t keep that appointment, you know everything you need to know about their commitment to move ahead.

Once you’ve agreed on a career path for each person, create a specific growth plan for them, including the training and experience they’ll get.

I know this sounds like more work than just solving day-to-day problems and complaining that you can’t find good staff anymore. But this is what real management and leadership is all about.

By HR and health & safety consultancy Peninsula Canada

While salary does matter, the working environment in a company is also a major reason why people stay or leave. A workplace where employees are treated fairly and with respect will attract workers who enjoy their work and value their employer. Here are some ways to create a positive working atmosphere.

Encourage a work-life balance. Be realistic about the workload and deadlines that you set for your staff. They should not be neglecting their health or personal life due to work. Overworked employees are at a greater risk of burning out, being stressed and being less productive. They are also more likely to view their work and workplace negatively.

Train managers on soft skills. People don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. This often-quoted saying is true. Bad supervisors create low morale and can demotivate the best of workers. At times it is not even a temperament issue but rather one of not having acquired the necessary people management skills. You will benefit when you train your managers in crisis management, stress and conflict management, and on how to be effective leaders.

Provide opportunities for growth. Opportunities for career advancement, or the lack of it, are also a reason why employees may look to switch jobs or feel demotivated. Through workshops, training, or flexible work hours (to make part-time studies possible), you can help your staff improve and update their skills.

Recognize and reward good work. Make your employees feel appreciated by acknowledging their hard work. Mentor them through constructive feedback and give them ownership of their projects. Organizing work socials and holding contests around holidays with rewards, such as gift cards, is another way to keep employees motivated at work.

Peninsula is an HR and Health and Safety consulting firm serving over 80,000 small businesses worldwide, including dealers in home improvement. Clients are supported with ongoing updates to their workplace documentation and policies as legislation changes. Additionally, clients benefit from 24/7 employer HR advice and are protected by legal insurance.

As vice president of operations for two stores in eastern Ontario, Rebecca Gravelle wears many hats. She runs the counter even as she oversees the direction of the Castle-bannered stores in the Ottawa valley towns of Renfrew and Burnstown. And that includes managing human resources. (Rebecca is also the 2018 Outstanding Retailer of the Year Award winner in the category of Young Retailer—Your accolade-proffering Editor.)

Gravelle’s story is likely all too familiar to many dealers. She shares that story in the latest episode of the Hardlines Podcast Series, “What’s in Store.” (That episode will go live tomorrow. Click here to sign up for the Hardlines Podcast Series and be alerted when the episode goes live. —Your ever-helpful Editor, again!)

When her mom, Laurie Wichers-Schreur, and her mom’s partner, Bruce Gannon, took over the Renfrew store in 2016, Gravelle was just finishing her master’s degree in industrial relations. Wichers-Schreur thought working in the store might be a good way for Gravelle to help out as the store got rebooted.

“Six years later, we’re still here, we’re still rocking. We have another store, and there’s lots going on,” Gravelle says. “It’s definitely fun trying to fit everything into a day.” That includes the full portfolio of HR duties, which can range from setting job descriptions and hiring to determining pay scales.

Between the two stores, Gravelle has about 30 people working for her now, and growing that team is something she’s very proud of. That goes especially for the Burnstown store, about 15 minutes down the road from the Renfrew location, as it had been closed for a few years when her family took it over.

“The previous owner wasn’t operating it anymore,” Gravelle said. “It was an empty store. So that was a totally new venture as well, taking on a store that was actually closed. We took about six or eight months and did a whole renovation on that location over the winter of 2017 through spring 2018. It opened in May of 2018.”

The stores serve slightly different markets—Burnstown has a large cottager clientele—with different customers. Like many stores in this sector, both businesses were very busy during COVID.

Besides managing the Renfrew store day-to-day, Gravelle has a full list of HR-related duties. “I’ve made all of our job descriptions and pay scales for all of our positions, our employee handbook, and all of our policies and procedures on an overarching scale, overseeing pay and benefits. We have full health care benefits and RRSP programs for staff as well.”

Wearing the extra hats means Gravelle has had to work “a bit harder,” she admits, but she keeps a structured schedule, establishing weekly priorities to ensure she devotes adequate time and energy to HR.

“You know, sometimes if all our positions are filled and all is going well, then HR doesn’t take up quite as much of my time. But then there are certain weeks where that’s pretty much all I’m doing—working with staff on solving HR-related issues. So each week is different, which is why I love it.”

One day she’s working out hiring forecasts for the coming season, the next she is working with an individual staff member to help them deal with a challenge of their own.

“I have to sit down each week and say, ‘Okay, what am I focusing on this week? And what what are my priorities?’ So it’s certainly, like I said, a learning curve, but it all kind of depends on what’s happening that week, really.”

(Our full conversation with the award-winning Rebecca Gravelle is the subject of the latest episode of “What’s in Store.” Get notified when the podcast goes live tomorrow by clicking here!)

Bricks-and-mortar retailing won’t go away any time soon—if a retailer is using technology in a way that can tie their store in with its online capabilities. The retail space has to be a door into the digital offerings that a retailer can provide. Otherwise, bricks and mortar will suffer.

At the DX3 Conference held virtually earlier this spring, a trio of panelists offered their insights into the future of bricks-and-mortar retailing. Marshall Kay of RFID Sherpa noted that people coming into stores want more options. They want to be able to return products easily and they want to know which products are available in stock, whether they are physically in the store or online and quickly shippable.

The appeal of online interaction within the store will only keep growing. Wes Wolch, senior vice president of marketing at fashion retailer Holt Renfrew, observed that Generation X and Baby Boomers have been what he calls “digital tourists” for many years. “It’s about the relationship between online and bricks and mortar.” He echoed Kay’s observation about the importance of offering in-store returns for products that were ordered online, and the choice to pick up an order in the store or have it delivered.

This month we talk with Zaida Fazlic, director, people and culture at Taiga Building Products, the national building materials wholesaler. This is the latest instalment in our occasional series with her on the topic of leadership.

As HR lead for Taiga Building Products, Zaida Fazlic is passionate about the role of leadership. And while passion gets used pretty freely these days to describe anyone’s current interest or job function, for Fazlic, HR really is her passion. And she speaks with enthusiasm and clarity about what makes an effective leader.

This month, we talked to Fazlic about an HR term that is gaining currency: Vulnerable Leadership. This means “being open about your own struggles and not hiding the fact that you’re human and that you have issues, too,” Fazlic says.

“Sharing with your team how you’re overcoming [your challenges] just makes you more relatable,” Fazlic adds. This makes it easier for others on your team to share their own struggles.

We all have to put aside our own problems when we come to the workplace. But sometimes those struggles are too close to the surface and need to be managed. “You bring in your anxieties, you bring in your pain,” Fazlic says. “It shows up. That can affect our leadership style in the moment. So when you say vulnerable leadership, that’s what it means to me—acknowledging that you are human and that you share all the emotions that everybody else has.”

Whether positive or negative, you’ll bring those aspects of yourself to work. But as a leader, you should not be afraid to show that, Fazlic says. “It’s okay to be yourself and not give up too much of yourself when you come into work.”

As a leader—or in any role, for that matter—having a clear mind, being able to bring one’s whole self to work, is important for getting through a day successfully. If you’re struggling, it’s difficult to give your best effort to the job.

Fazlic says she’s recently enhanced the mental health benefits available to staff at Taiga. That meant increasing the amount available in their employee packages that can be used for mental health, including an employee assistance plan that allows an employee to call up a counsellor and talk about anything that may be concerning them. And one doesn’t have to have a serious diagnosis of say, bipolar disorder, to use the service, she adds. It is available for any kind of problem that may be dragging a person down.

A leader needs to know how to ask how someone is doing and look beyond polite answers like “I’m fine, thanks,” to understand if there’s anything more troubling at play with a staff member. It’s important, she says, to be empathetic, or at least try and see the situation from the other person’s perspective—all without prying.

Zaida Fazlic will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Hardlines Conference! The conference is being held Oct. 18 and 19 at the fabulous Queen’s Landing Hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Click here for more info!

By HR and health & safety consultancy Peninsula Canada

Summer conditions can quickly become dangerous for outdoor workers. Excessive exposure to the sun can increase the risk of skin cancer. Heat exhaustion can occur. Dehydration in hot conditions is always a risk. Luckily, all of these conditions can be prevented. Below are tips on the proper preventive measures to ensure outside worker safety in summer conditions.

Check the weather. The best way to prepare for hot and sunny days is to simply check the weather. Being aware of the sun’s UV radiation can help prepare workers for the day by taking more steps to stay safe under the sun.

Make sure there is shade. Whether workers are out in the sun all day or for a couple of hours, having an area in the shade will help to avoid unnecessary UV exposure. Encourage workers to take breaks and sit under shade often to help them cool off. Limit their time spent working directly under the sun.

Eye protection. It is important to remember that UV radiation is harmful to the eyes, too. Provide workers with safety glasses, sunglasses, or prescription eyeglasses with UV-protective lenses to reduce the risk of possible eye damage.

Personal Protective Equipment. PPE is an essential component of keeping workers protected. Encourage workers to wear loose, protective clothing and hats that cover as much skin as possible. That includes the face, ears, and neck.

Is a policy needed for outdoor workers? If most employees work outdoors, then sun exposure prevention can be integrated in a “heat stress/working in warm environments policy.” This policy can include a range of simple protective measures and important information such as providing training for workers about UV radiation, which is only one of the factors that could lead to heat stress.

Peninsula is an HR and Health and Safety consulting firm serving over 80,000 small businesses worldwide, including dealers in home improvement. Clients are supported with ongoing updates to their workplace documentation and policies as legislation changes. Additionally, clients benefit from 24/7 employer HR advice and are protected by legal insurance.

A well-defined and focused brand can not only present value to consumers, it can help guide staff as well. At the latest “Store” convention held by the Retail Council of Canada, Susan O’Brien, chief brand and customer officer for Canadian Tire Corp., talked about how far-reaching the effects of a good brand strategy can be.

“Even staff can take pride that’s fostered when they’re involved in your brand,” she told the audience of retail representatives from across the country.

Through COVID, Canadian Tire faced challenges along with the rest of the retail community, but its high profile among Canadians made it more vulnerable to criticism. For example, when its website crashed in the early days of the lockdowns, the news made the newspapers. But despite store closures and efforts to keep its people safe, Canadian Tire found money for COVID response and for investing in local communities.

As for the inward-facing benefits, a strong brand message makes what your company stands for clearer to potential new hires. “Sixty-seven percent of employees expect their company to have a higher purpose,” O’Brien said, citing the results of the “Edelman Trust Barometer.”

“Embracing our brand purpose will transform our entire organization.”

On Nov. 22, 2021, O’Brien and Canadian Tire CEO Greg Hicks presented the new branding to the entire staff: “We are here to make life in Canada better.” The statement requires melding a company’s purpose with the need to make money and grow sales, but together these ideas make a company better, said O’Brien.

“Being there for Canadians isn’t just part of our brand. It is our brand,” she stressed.

A range of themes was explored at the latest “Store” convention held recently in Toronto by the Retail Council of Canada. Some of them covered the human side of the business. One in particular dealt directly with the taboos of mental health, and how to overcome those taboos in the workplace.

Henry’s Cameras is a well-known photography retailer based in Toronto, considered the go-to for any serious photographer. Gillian Henry is the CEO of this family-owned business. She shared the very personal story of her battle with mental illness, which started with a breakdown during her first year at university. It was eventually diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

She urged companies to be willing to talk about mental health. That’s the best way to create awareness and acceptance, she said. Too many people are concerned that talking about their own difficulties will stigmatize them and cause them to lose their job. A company instead must be set up, not just to support staff with mental health challenges, but to demonstrate and communicate that. Henry stressed the importance of creating a safe space for everyone and setting a tone that allows people to open up about their situations.

“You have to show that it’s okay not to be okay.”

Henry offered some tips for getting started:

• Don’t assume anything about your people or their conditions.
• Focus on self-care, which can include a range of concepts from encouraging good diet to building in times for personal reflection.
• Don’t be afraid to keep delivering the message. “Over-communicating what you have for support is number one—and an easy one.”

She talked about the notion of vulnerable leadership. “It’s hard to do, but really, really important.”