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To serve online or mobile shoppers, some retailers build bigger distribution centers or add more regional hubs. Others beef up their delivery fleets. In all these cases, the companies likely need to hire new workers to work the new jobs. At Target, the demand to facilitate online shopping is just as pressing, but it is taking a different approach, such that it is trying to retrain and reassign its existing in-store employees to perform more functions related to getting products into online shoppers’ hands.

In particular, a reorganization of responsibilities within stores means that staffers now are assigned to, and largely responsible for, specific departments, such as beauty, toys, or electronics. Whatever needs to be done in their department, the store employees are responsible for doing.

In the past, staffers instead were assigned according to their job function. An employee thus might have been assigned solely to ensuring sufficient stock on shelves, throughout the store. Today though, workers in the toy department all are responsible for keeping track of inventory levels and replenishing as needed, as well as helping customers, keeping aisles clean, and even picking products to fill an order that a customer placed online but wants to pick up in the store later in the day.

For Target, the revised staffing approach promises several benefits. It can avoid large layoffs of in-store staff, even if more customers continue to make the move to online shopping, as all trends suggest. At the same time, it can avoid the costs of hiring vast numbers of new employees (even if it may have had to devote of those savings to its retraining initiatives). Nor does it have the same needs for a separate night staff, which previously would have come in after stores closed to conduct cleaning and restocking jobs. Those tasks tend to be harder when stores are crowded, but as fewer customers visit stores—or only visit for a moment, to check in with the customer service counter to pick up their order—those limitations are less of a concern, so the work can get done even while the store is open for business.

Furthermore, by assigning tasks such as restocking and picking to employees who already are working in the store, it uses its available labor resources more efficiently. In the past, during slow periods, employees might have had little to do, whereas today, they can always be filling the next online order or checking inventory. Because the staffers are already on hand, they also can complete those orders more promptly, which makes busy customers happy.

Some staffers appear to love the change, noting that the increased responsibility makes them more invested in ensuring that their departments create and provide an enjoyable shopping experience for customers. But others have resisted, feeling overwhelmed by the increase in the number and variety of tasks expected of them. To address such concerns, Target has committed to raising all wages to at least the $15 per hour threshold and, as noted, provided substantial retraining resources for all employees.

Discussion Questions:

1. How and why is Target changing the role of store employees?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these changes?

Source: Sarah Nassauer, The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2019.