Document Resume Ed 379 489 Ce 068 313 Title

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 379 489 CE 068 313

TITLE Training in the Retail Trade in Ireland. Report for tho FORCE Programme. First Edition. INSTITUTION European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Berlin (Germany). REPORT NO ISBN-92-826-7830-X PUB DATE 94 NOTE 74p.; For reports on other countries, see ED 372 241-243, CE 068 309-314, and CE 068 318. Cover title varies. AVAILABLE FROMUNIPUB, 4661-T Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391 (Catalogue No. HX-83-94-191-EN-C: 8 European Currency Units). PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Case Studies; Corporate Education; *Distributive Education; Educational Improvement; Educational Needs; *Educational Trends; *Education Work Relationship; Employment Patterns; Foreign Countries; *Job Training; Labor Market; Merchandising; Personnel Management; Fostsecondary Education; Private Sector; Recruitment; *Retailing; Sales Occupations; Secondary Education; Tables (Data); *Training Methods; Training Objectives; Trend Analysis IDENTIFIERS *Ireland

ABSTRACT An international team of researchers studied the following aspects of training in Ireland's retail sector: structure and characteristics, institutional and social context, employment and labor, changing conditions and their implications for skill requirements, and training and recruitment. Data were collected from an analysis of social and labor/employment statistics, literature review, and case studies of a family-owned department store, Ireland's natiu.tal electricity generating and distribution company, a retail firm selling food and nonfood items, and a private grocery chain. Each case study included information about the following: company structure/characteristics; business strategy; personnel policies; and training policies, strategies, objectives, structure, and plans. The case studies confirmed that systematic training of staff within Ireland's retail sector is a relatively new development. One of the companies had no training department/training system until 2 years ago even though it employs 320 people. Formal planning of training occurred only at the large companies and was generally the responsibility of a training manager. Training practices and topics varied widely, and only the larger organizations had invested in training facilities. Little in-depth assessment of training costs and benefits had occurred to date; however, more systematic assessment of training appeared likely. (Contains 16 tables/figures and 14 references.) (MN) Fro. ;;;Xti7.4-.A7t: F E FORMATION CONTINUE EN EUROPE European Commission

RETAIL SECTOR

U S DEPARTMENT OFEDUCATION Office of Eaucatroar Researtn andimprovement INFORMATIO; ' EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES CENTERERIC) 9Ahis document hasbeen reproduced as received from the person ororganization originating it Minor changes have been madeto improve reproduction quality

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2 `IMINIMswoorroNerr inombmmImri..L.-. RETAIL SECTOR

TRAINING IN THE RETAILTRADE IN IRELAND REPORT FOR THE FORCE PROGRAMME

drawn up by Service Industries Research Centre University College Dublin Richview, Clonskeagh Dublin 14, Ireland

1992

First edition, Berlin 1994 Published by: CEDEFOP European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Jean Monr.et House, Bundesallee 22, D-10717 Berlin Fax 49-30 + 88 41 22 22 Tel. 49-30 + 88 41 20 Telex 18 41 63 eucen d The Centre was established by Regulation (EEC) No 337/75 of the Council of the European Communities 3 Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1994

ISBN 92-826-7830-X

Articles and texts appearing in this document may be reproduced freely in i'tole or in part providing their source is mentioned.

Printed in Germany 4 FORCE

Formation continue en Europe Commission of the European Communities TASK FORCE Human Resources, Education, Training and Youth Rue de la Loi, 200; B-1049 Bruxelles

THE IDEA FORCE The futi. economic strength and the potential for socialprogress of the European Community depends on a consistent improvement in thecompetence and qualifications of its 132.000.000 labour force. Better continuing vocational training isone of the essential conditions for the success of the Single Market 1993. The European Commission is determined tosupport and give fresh impetus to the efforts whichcom- panies throughout the Community are making to improve continuingtraining. FORCE is the European Community's actionprogramme for the development of continuing vocational training. It is focussed on companies, especiallyon small and medium-sized companies. It involves train- eis and training bodies, employer and union representatives- everyone concerned with improving the competence of the labour force.

WHAT DOES FORCE OFFER? FORCE promotes workir,g partnerships in continuingtraining between companies, training bodies, public authorities and social partners. These will include: supporting continuing training innovation through a European transnationalnet- work, an exchange programme, transnational and transfrontierpilot projects and projects concerned with the evolution of qualifications; assuring closerpolicy co-operation between Member States by evolving a common statisticalmeans of analysing what is being done in terms of continuing training, through regular analysis of relevant contractual policy andcollective agreements, and through enquiries into sectoral needs; supporting the establishment of regionalconsortia and transnational continuing training partnerships which specialise in transferring exemplarygood practice to economically weak regions.

JOINING You can take part in the FORCE network and apply for financialassistance to join its innovation and transfer exchanges and projects ifyou are: a large, medi. 3m-sized or small company, a training body workingwith industry or commerce, an employer or trade union body,a training or human resource expert or manager. Through FORCE you can help improve continuingtraining in your company, sector or local labour market. At the same time you can help to contributeto the improvement and availability of continuing trainingand thus to shaping the European Community. CEDEFOP

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training Jean Monnet House, Bundesallee 22, D-10717 Berlin

Institutional status

CEDEFOP is an autonomous body, independent of the departments of theCommission of the European Communities, but its task and activities are closely integrated with those ofthe Commission, to whicl, the Centre contributes its technical and scientificexpertise.

Working guidelines for the Centreare laid down by its Management Board, whose membersrepres- ent the EC Commission (3), trade unions ( i 2) employers' organizations(12) and governments (12). The Management Board decideson the Work Programme, draws up and approves budgets and adopts the Annual Report.

The members of the Management Board.are appointed by the organizations they represent and remain in, office for two years. The chairmanship of the Board changes eachyear.

Institutional tasks Information: In the field of vocational training, information isone of the Centre's vital tasks. Its documentation service and a constantly updated bibliographical databasereceive information from a network of national correspondents, and the information is then made availableto .a very wide audience, in part via highly sophisticated computerized channels. Its carefully plannedpublishing policy also ensures that the Centre's voice is heard on major issues in the field of vocationaltraining. It produces its own regular publications (»Vocational Training«, »CEDEFOP flash« and»CEDEFOP flash special«) and occasional publications such as research reports, monographs and manuals. Research: CEDEFOP, as c. centre for the promotion and coordination of researchwithin the Community, provides support in ne form of information, expertise and encouragement for theplanning and implementation of vocational training initiatives in Member States. Inso doing it serves as a focus for innovation. Consultation: CEDEFOP, as an organization supporting the Commission, hasthe task of promoting a concerted approach to vocational training problems. It takesevery opportunity to promote and encourage training. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was carried out in the framework of the We would also like to thank the employers'organiza- European Retail Trade Sector Study, within the ECtions and trade unions, and their representatives, FORCE programme, and conducted by a Central who contributed to the research by making sugges- Team made up mainly of member centres of "E URO-tions for case studies, attending meetings and com- NET Work & Education", under the responsibility of menting on the draft report. the CIREM Foundation in Barcelona. Those involved were: The Central team was composed of Olivier Bertrand (CEREQ, Paris), Oriol Homs (CIREM, Barcelona),Mr. Jim Keo:11), National FORCE Co-ordinator, Wilfried Kruse (S.F.S. Dortmund), Marisa Mendez-Dublin Vigo ( CIREM, Barcelona) and Harry van den TillaartFORCE National Coordinating Committee for the (ITS, Nijmegen), in close collaboration with Tina Bert-Retail Sector, Dublin zeletou from CEDEFOP, Berlin. Members of the Retail/Wholesale Training Commit- tee of FAS, Dublin The project team would like to thank the companies Mr. Henry Murdock, Mr. Ian Hyland, Ms. Breda who gave access for research, and whose staff Kennedy, FAS, Dublin. provided the information and help which enabledWe wish to pay tribute to the work undertaken by us to write the case studies. We very much appre-Tom Martin who wrote the sectoral and conclusions ciate the time and effort which were invested soreports and two case studies, and to Candy Murphy generously. who compiled two of the case studies.

7 CONTENTS

PART 1 - SECTORAL CONTEXT Page DESCRIPTION OF THE RETAIL SECTOR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 1. Definition and limits of sector 13

2. Structure and characteristics of retailing .13 3. The institutional and social context 15 4. Employment and labour 18 5. Changing conditions and their implications for skill

requirements and training 21 6. Training and recruitment 22 7. Issues 24 Annex 26 Census of service retail business categories 27

PART 2 - CASE STUDIES 1.CLERYS & COMPANY (1941) LTD

1.1 General description of the firm 31

1.1.1 Facts about Clery's 31 1.1.2 Business strategy and management style 32 1.1.3 Structure of firm 32 '1.1.4 Human resources 32 1.1.4.1 Employment 32 1.1.4.2 Employment statistics 32 1.1.4.3 Part-time employment 33 1.1.4.4Gender 33 1.1.4.5 Recruitment 33 1.1.4.6 Summary of employee profile 33 1.2 Training policy 33 1.2.1 Training strategy 33 1.2.1.1 Aims of company 33 1.2.1.2 Future training priorities 33 1.2.2 Training structure 33 1.2 2.1 Responsibility for CVE 33 1.2.2.2 Identification of training needs and evaluation of training 33 1.2.2.3Training budget 34 1.2.3 Impact of new technology 34 1.2.4 Participation of social partners 34 1.2.5 Description of major programmes 34 1.2.5.1 Induction training 34 1.2.5.2 Continuing training general staff 34 1.2.5.3 Continuing training managers 34 1.2.5.4 Example 35 1.3 Evaluation 35 1.3.1 By the firm 35 1.3.2 By employees and their representatives 35 1.3.3 By the author 35 1.4 Conclusion Listing of main training programmes

2.ESB (Electricity Supply Board)

2.1 General description of the firm 39 2.1.1 Major facts about ESB 2.1.2 Business strategy 39 2.1.3 Structure of the firm .40 2.1.4 Human resources 40 2.1.4.1 Employment 40 2.1.4.2 Employment statistics '40 2.1.4.3Gender 14 2.1.4.4Part-time employment 40 2.1.4.5 Recruitment ,40

2.2 Training policy 41 , 2.2.1 Training strategy 41 2.2.2 Training structure 42 2.2.3 Impact of new technologies 43 2.2.4 Participation of social partners 2.2.5 Description of major programmes 43 2.3 Closer look at a particular outlet 46 2.4 Evaluation 47

2.4.1 By ESB 47 2.4.2 By employees and their representatives 47 2.4.3 By the author 47 2.5 Transferability 47 2.6 Conclusions 48

3. MARKS &SPENCERS (IRELAND) LTD.

3.1 General description of the firm 49 3.1.1 Major fads about the firm 49 3.1.2 Business strategy 49 3.1.3 Structure of the firm 49 3.1.4 Human resources 49 3.1.4.1 Employment 49 3.1.4.2 Gender 49 3.1.4.3 Part-time employment 49 3.1.4.4Unionization 50 3.1.4.5Staff turnover 50 3.1.4.6Wages 50 3.1.4.7 Recruitment _50 3.2. Training policy 51 3.2.1 Training strategy 51 3.2.1.1 Training objectives 51

3.2.1.2Training plans -;51 3.2.1.3Future training priorities 61

The Service Industries Research Centre would like to express its appreciation to the management and staff of ESB, particularly those ire the appliance shops, for their assistance in the preparation of this case study. 3.2.2 Training structure 3.2.2.1 Training department structure 51 3.2.2.2 Role of training manager

3.2.2.3 Identification of training needs :=:52 3.2.2.4Training budget 52. 3.2.3 New technology 52 3.2.4 Participation of social partners 52 3.2.5 Description of major programmes 52 3.2.5.1 Training plans 3.3 Closer look at a particular store: The cork branch of Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd. 53 3.3.1 General information 53 3.3.2 Human resources 54- 3.3.3 Training strategy 54 3.3.4 Training structure 54 3.3.5 Impact of new technology 54 3.3.6 Participation of social partners 54 3.3.7 Description of major programmes in Cork 3.4 Evaluation 56 3.4.1 By the firm and employees 56 3.4.2 By the author 3.5 Transferability 56 3.6 Conclusions . 57

4.SUPERQUINN 4.1. General description of the firm 59 4.1.1 Major facts about Superquinn 59 4.1.2 Business strategy 59 4.1.3 Structure of the firm 60 4.1.4 Human resources 60 4.2 Training policy 61 4.2.1 Training strategy 61

4.2.2 Training structure '61 4.2.3 Impact of new technologies 62 4.2.4 Participation of social partners 63 4.2.5 Description of major programmes 63 4.3 Closer look at a particular store 66 4.4 Evaluation 67 4.4.1 By the management 67 4.4.2 By the employees and their representatives 67 4.4.3 By the author 67 4.5 Transferability 68 4.6 Conclusion 68

.10 PART 3 - TRENDS CONCLUSIONS REPORT

1. Selection of case studies 69

1.1 Planning and conception of training 69 1.2 Type of personnel concerned with training 69 1.3 Contents, methods and organization 70 1.4 Cost, financing and evolution 71

APPENDIX: INTERVIEWS 73 PART 1:

DESCRIPTION OF THE RETAIL SECTOR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT ***Mk*** ttfitttlittit ftftft******* 01#0404 fritiritffitittffirt titittittiPtitt 1. Definition and limits of sector

2. Structure and characteristics of retailing

3. The institutional and social context

4. Employment and labour

5. Changing conditions and their implications for skill requirements and training

6. Training and recruitment

7. Issues DESCRIPTION OF THE RETAIL SECTOR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

1. Definition and limits of sector The early decade:, of Irish independence were char- The retail trade is defined by the Irish national acterized by low economic growth and high emigra- agency for statistics Office (CSO), as the resale (i.e. tion. sale without transformation) of new and used goods to the general public for personal or house- The first-self service grocery shop ias opened in hold consumption or utilization. The goods can Dublin in 1949 but closed a year later.The main rea- either be so;d in the same condition or after under- son for the kick of consumer acceptance for self going the kind of processing, sorting, grading, pack- service was that products then did not come in packing, repacking, etc., normal to retailing. ets. Butter was the only product which was packed in consumer portionseverything else come in large The Central Statistics Office definition of the retail sacks. Products had to be repacked in small brown trade includes public houses, petrol filling stations, bags, labelled and placed on the shelf. car sales outlets and repair and service garages. Milk roundsmen operating on their own account are The company which tried the self-service concept in included; these have increased in importance in 1949 tried again in Dublin in 1957 and this time suc- urban areas because of the restructuring of milk de- ceeded. An important factor was that economic livery operations. Excluded are open air and cover- conditions within Ireland began to improve around ed markets, mobile shops, itinerant traders, news- the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the boys, auction sales rooms, self-employed retail 1960s. The second self-service grocery shop in Ire- agents and the direct retail sales of firms mainly land was established in Dundalk by the founder of engaged in some other business activity i.e. manu-Superquinn one of the companies profiled in the facturing. case studies. The CSO uses a classification system which distin- guishes 37 retail business sectors. This national clas- The self service concept quickly established itself sification system can be equated with the General and spread to other retail sectors besides grocery. It Classification of Economic Activities with the Euro-was followed in turn by the development of multiple pean Economic Communities (NACE). In this reportgroups and by a rationalization of the number of statistics for the retail trade in Ireland are presented retail outlets. A number of UK multiple groups have using the CSO national classification system and entered the Irish grocery market since the 1960s but detailed description of the CSO national classifica- only one which took over an existing Irish super- tion system is provided in Apr. 1. market chain has been successful.

The disadvantage of using CSO data for the retail Multiple groups since the transition to self-service sector is that a census of the retail sector is onlydominate the grocery, clothing and household undertaken every ten years and frequently there ishardware sections. Within the grocery trade the a considerable time lag between undertaking themultiples account for 60 per cent of grocery census and the publication of results.The CSO infor- expenditure and within the Dublin region account mation on the retail sector used in this report was for 80 per cent of grocery expenditure. mainly obtained from the 1988 Census of Services the one previous to that was 1977 - which was onlyThe threat of the multiples has been a major factor published in July 1991. Surveys of the retail sector in the re-organization of the symbol storeslargely by the market research company, A.C. Nielsen of prompted by the grocery wholesale companies Ireland, while not as comprehensive as the CSO who are now competing on the basis of longer censu: are undertaken more frequently and pub- opening hours and proximity to consumers. The lished more promptly. The Nielsen information is symbol stores e.g. retail outlets affialiated to a provided in this report as an indicator of trends franchise such as Spar, Mace, Centro, etc., have within the retail sector and it should not be used for succeeded in winning market share back from the its absolute value. There are definitional differences multiples. Other contributing factors have been the between the CSO and Nielsen surveys. prohibition on below cost selling, stronger and more centralized group purchasing and investments In this report the Service Industries Research Centre made in equipment and premises. The independ- has omitted statistics relating the retail sale of motor ents' market share of the grocery trade declined vehicles and motorcycles and the repair of personal during the 1970s and 1980s though recently the and household goods. decline has levelled off.

All monetary values are given in Irish Pounds (IRL) In other sectors of the retail industry one of the unless otherwise specified; at the time of writing IRL major developments has been the arrival of UK 1 =1.3 ECU. owned retail outlets particularly in the hardware, clothing and music sectors.Their presence in the Irish 2. Structure and characteristics of market has intensified the level of competition and retailing has lead to a number of Irish-owned outlets rationalizing their operations. A particular feature of the Brief historical background hardware sec.or has been the development of The retailing structure which evolved with inde- large, out-of-town superstores by UK operators. pendence from England in 1922 w,dominated by small family owned and managea ,ounter service Structure of retailing shops. A number of retail concerns were owned According to the 1988 Census of Services published by UK companies but these were few in number. by the Central Statistics Office, the Irish retail indus- 13

13 try had an estimated aggregate turnover in 1987 of sively in rural areas an example of which is grocers IRL 5.7 billion (excluding Value Added Tax) of with public house. which the food drink and tobacco sub-sector alone accounted for IRL 3.7 billion. The dominance of the Dublin metropolitan region can be seen in the percentage of gross margins The food, drink and tobacco sub-sector dominates earned by the industry in Ireland as a whole. In the the retail industry in Ireland in terms of number of food, drink and tobacco sector the Dublin metro- outlets, turnover, gross margin, persons engaged politan region with only 16 per cent of national out- and selling space. A small number of categories, lets accounted for 34 per cent of total gross margins however, within the food, drink and tobacco generated nationally. In the grocery sub-sector, the subsector account for a greater proportion of these Dublin metropolitan region accounted for 14 per statistics. The supermarket category accounts forcent of total national retail outlets but generated 32 22 per cent of total retail turnover and 16 per cent per cent of -the country's gross margin. of the total number of persons engaged though interms of numbers of retailoutletsitonly Trade sources indicate that within the grocery sub- to-ms 1.5 per cent of total retail outlets. The cate-sector pressure of competition has reduced margins gory public house, is also a major one accounting to 16-18 per cent compared to 50 per cent in the for a high percentage of total number of re-public house sub-sector and 300 per cent for tail outlets, numbers of persons engaged and turn-clothing boutiques. Competition within the Dublin over. grocery market is very intensive given that the city is over-provided with retail outlets. It should be noted that in Table 2.1 the number of persons engaged includes owners, family membersThe retail sector in Ireland is characterized by a large and employees. It is important to note that a number number of family-owned and staffed retail outlets of the companies in the supermarket category such and a small number of very large companies with as Dunnes Stores and Quinnsworth (through its multiple outlets. This is especially so in the food, drink Penneys/ Primark chain) are also involved in the and tobacco sector but is found in other sectors of the clothing and footwear category and in recent years retail industry. The size of firms in the retail sector is have obtained a major share of this - ategory as examined in more detail in Section 4 below. well. Surveys of the retail sector by the market research The Dublin metropolitan region accounts for the company, A.C. Nielsen, give an overall indication of greater share of both numbers of outlets and total the trends in numbers of retail outlets for certain turnover for the state. One-fifth of all retail outlets retail sub-sectors for the period 1966 - 1988.These and two-fifths ofretail turnover inIrelandis are shown in Table 2.2 below and it should be noted accounted for in this region. A number of food, drink that Nielsen does not cover clothing or department and tobacco categories are found almost exclu- stores.

Table 2.1 - Structure of Irish retail sector in 1988

Gross No. of Selling No. of Turnover margin persons space Sub-sector outlets excl. VAT excl. VAT engaged sq. feet

IRL IRL 00 Food, drink and tobacco 18239 3 658 064 741 605 72254 159 802

Of which: Supermarkets 433 1 492 968 228 285 17726 39 751 Other grocery 5176 600 937 99 583 13353 28 650 Public houses 6478 715 737 233 006 22961 60 593 Tobacco, sweets

and newspapers 1689 220 992 41 346 5158 7 797

Clothing and footwear 3202 652 448 18341? 12792 35 366

All other non-food 6434 1 407 950 391 953 26509 69 503

Of which:

Chemists 1039 204 92? 56 853 4207 6 118 Hardware 840 191 989 45 043 3503 14 327

Electrical 608 156 605 41 250 1978 5 058 Department stores 12 195 155 64 725 3507 7696

Total 27875 5 718 462 1 316 977 111555 77 078 14 Source: 1988 Census of Services, Volume 1, Central Statistics Office

4i Table 2.2 - Trends in number of outlets for selected shop types, 19661988

Shop type 1966 1977 1983 1988

Grocers 12 681 9 042 7 736 6 575 Grocers with off-licence 364 377 541 596 Grocers with public house 3 923 1 933 936 677 Tobacco, sweets & newspapers 4 003 2 428 2 357 2 822 Public houses 5 973 7 231 7653 7 888 Chemists 1 343 1 199 1 132 1 269 Butchers 2 060 1 759 1 947 1 954 Footwear 486 585 691 671 Hardware 1 162 1 242 1 780 2 072 Electrical 843 913 1 228 1 242

Total 30 778 24 950 24 054 23 812

Source: Retail Census 1988, Nielsen Marketing Research

The fall off in numbers of retail outlets over the pe- basic minimum employment rights to part-time riod 1966 -1988 in Ireland can be seen from Table employees and particularly impacts on the retail 2.2 and in particular the sharp decline in numbers of sector because of the large numbers of part-time grocery outlets. A number of retail categories such workers engaged in retailing. as electrical and hardware retail outlets have, how- The main laws which affect the retail sector are as ever, seen increases and they reflect changes in the follows: pattern of consumer expenditure. The increase in the public house category is contrasted with the Shops (Conditions of Employment) Acts 1938 and very heavy decline in numbers in the grocers with / 942:These acts regulate and control the conditions public house category which, as mentioned above, of employment of workers in wholesale and retail is exclusively a rural phenomenon. shops, warehouses, hotds (Dublincityonly), licensed premises and refreshment houses (restau- Nielsen data shows that while the numbers of gro- rant, cafes or tea shops). The acts cover such areas cery outlets has declined the numbers of catering as restrictions on the employment of young people, outlets has increased from 1 822 in 1966 to 3 622 in work hours, intervals for meals, holidays, and health 1988 indicating a move towards eating out among and comfort of employees. consumers.The declining numbers of retail outlets in Ireland trend long term strategicimplications Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Act 1977: including staff numbers, training, opening hours This act relates to the employment of youngpersons and range of products and services offered. under the age of 18 and it contains provisions about the minimum age for entry into employment, sets 3. The institutional and social context limits to the working hours of young people,provides for rest intervals and prohibits night work. It Background information also requires employers to keep records of theages The general system of industrial relations in Ireland and working times of employees under 18 years of is a voluntary one. This means that the terms and age. The Act prohibits the employment of children conditions of employment of the majority of under the age of 15 though a child over 14 may be employees are determined by the process of collec- permitted to do light work during school holidays. tive bargaining between an employer or employers' association and one or more trade unions, withoutWorker Protection (Regular Part-time Employees) the intervention of the State. This process deter- Act 7997 : The object of this act is to extend toregu- mines standard matters such as wages and hours of lar part-time employees the rights to minimum work and, in addition, some collective bargains lay notice, holidays, maternity leave, redress for unfair down procedural rules .vhich govern the conduct of dismissal, worker participation (where appropriate) industrial relations. Thus, collective bargaining and and redundancy and insolvency protection. The act not the law is the primary source of regulation in has particular consequences for the retail sector employment relationship in Ireland. because of the large numbers of part-time people employed. However, in recent years there have been a number of laws passed which lay down certain minimumMinimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act standards which are often improved upon by col- 1973: The act sets out io specify the minimum notice lective bargaining. that must be given by employers and by employees in terminating a contract of employment and to give As a general rule, employment laws do not apply to employees the right to have information about the the immediate family of the employer provided they terms of their employment in writing. The act does live with him and are employed in the same private notap- ply to the immediate family of the employer house. A law passed last year, the Worker Protection provided they live with him and hare employed in (Regular Part-time Employees) Act 1991, extendsthe same private house or farm. )5.

1!t51 Maternity Protection of Employees act 1981: The tation of minimum wage levels for shop assistants purpose of the act is to provide maternity protection agreed by the parties during the Labour Court sub- for employees who are expecting a baby and does missions as well as matters relating to part-time so by giving them certain basic rights.The act covers workers, overtime premiums, annual holidays, rest female probationers, trainees and apprentices who periods, work rosters and service certificates. The work for 18 hours or more per week. JLC has the statutory power to issue Employment Orders (ERO) which are legally binding for both Holidays (Employees) Act 1973: The ad provides a employers and employees. An employer cannot minimum legally enforceable entitlement for most plead inability to pay in the face of an ERO. Simi- employees working the required number of hours to larly any agreement between employer and three weeks' annual leave per year and to public employee to offer/accept pay or conditions less holidays. than those agreed by the JLC will be null and void.

Unfair Dismissals Act 1977: The purpose of the act is Employers in the newsagents, grocery and allied tra- to protect employees from being unfairly dismissed des will from Mc 1992 have to pay agreed labour from their jobs by laying down criteria by which dis- rates for a 39 hour working week depending on the missals are to be judged unfair. years service of the employee concerned. Hitherto, where an employee was dissatisfied with conditions Joint Labour Committee the option most commonly taken was to seek In recent years the government has conc;uded spe- employment elsewhere. This allowed employers to cial agreements with the social partners in order to replace high cost employees with newer, lower cost improve economic conditions. In recent years these recruits. The new minimum rates established by the have included the Programme for National Recov- Labour Court and to be implemented by the JLC will ery (PNR) and the Programme for Economic and make it more attractive for experienced employees Social Progress (PESP). The rationale behind these to stay with their existing employers. agreements has been to curb excessive wage increases and to determine a level of wage Employers' associations believe that the impact of increases applicable to all employees agreeable to the JLC will force employers to consider more seri- government, employers and trade unions. How- ously the necessity to treat their sales staff as an ever, both agreements have covered wider issues asset and to recognize the importance of training in including special schemes to improve unemploy-developing their staff. ment. Employers' organizations and trade As part of the negotiations leading to the PESPunions agreement in 1990 the trade unions requested the The Irish retail sector is characterized by a multi- introduction of a statutory national minimum wage. plicity of both employers' organizations on one side The trade unions cited the retail sector in general and trade unions on the other. Even within specific and the newsagent/grocery sub-sector in particu- and narrowly defined sub-sectors in the retail lar, as an area where low pay and below average industry it is possible to find more than one employ- conditions of employment were prevalent. ers' association. On national pay and working conditions issues, employers are represented by the The Department of Labour requested the Economic Federation of Irish Employers (FIE) and tra, le unions and Social Research Institute to carry out an investi- are represented by the Irish Congress of Trade gation. The results of this investigation supported Unions (ICTU). A number of the employers' organi- the trade unions' arguments and the government zations in the retail sector are associated with the agreed to consider th, . possibility of introducing a FIE and similarly the retail sector trade unions are national minimum wage during the period covere J affiliated with the ICTU. by the PESP agreement. The FIE has a specialist training division which pro- At the same time two trade unions which represent vides tailor-made in-house training courses for workers in the newsagents and grocers sub-sectors, managers/supervisors inallsectors. However, IDATLI and INUVGATA, made submissions to the involvement of the retail sector in these courses is Labour Court in 1990 for the establishment of a low. FIE and FAS, the national employment and Joint Labour Committee (JLC) to cover workers intraining agency, are finalizing a modular-based the Grocery and Allied Trades sector, under the pro-training programme for sales staff going into the vision of Section 36 of the Industrial Relations Act retail trade. Modules cover customer relations, 1946. sales, hygiene, safety and product knowledge. It is hoped to extend the modules to cover supervisory In November 1990 the Labour Court heard submis- skills. sions from all affected parties. The Federation of Irish Employers (FIE) co-ordinated the employers'Apart from the obvious difficulties to be expected campaign against the establishment of the Joint with a sub-sector having more than one employers' Labour Committee. organization in developing a common position for all employers in that sub-sector, there are other less After hearing submissions from both employers and obvious implications. One such implication of hav- trade unions, the Labour Cour ordered the introducing more than one employers' organization in a tion of the JLC. which came into effect on May 1, subsector is that they are likely to compete with each 16 1992. The JLC will be responsible for the implemen- other for members with the result that less time 16

,e and resources are available for policy developmentments for training in th.! retcil/ wholesale sector and and implementation. One of the consequences ofto determine what role if any FAS should take in this is that employers' associations often have plans relation to the two sectors. to provide training courses fc.,r their members but because of scarce resources these plans are never At the level of the enterprise as illustrated in the case put into practice. studies there are no mecnanisms to involve management and trade unions in the development and A number of trade associations in the retail sector implementation. of training programmes. The for- do, however, run training courses for members' mulation of training policies and plans is solely the employees. One example of this is the Irish Hard- prerogative of management. Even where there are ware Association (IHA) which represents manufac- structures to involve management and trail: unions turers, agents, wholesalers and retailers. The latter in areas of mutual interest as in ESB, training issues category accounts for the majority of the membersare rarely discussed. The main issues discussed of the IHA. The IHA has a Training Committee which between management and staff at these forums organizes training courses, sets examinations and are pay and conditions. Though employees and awards diplomas for new entrants and existingtheir representatives are not directly involved in employees. The association has a very comprehen- training they have a very positive attitude to contin- sive training programme covering all skill areas and uing vocational education. They are willing to tends to use experts in the industry to run program- undertake training even though there may be no mes. The only training area not being met is lan- prospect of promotion. guage skills. The IHA Training Committee designs curricula for distance learning programmes with In the absence of a recognized body responsible for assistance from its counterpart organizations in thetrcfriing in the retail sector the larger enterprises in US and the UK. the industry have had to develop their own internal programmes. This has been a difficult process for There are similar problems to employers' organiza-the larger enterprises due to the lack of retail train- tions on the trade union side in that a number of ing experts in Ireland and the lack of available train- unions compete for members in the same retail sub- ing material suitable for the retail sector. The solu- sector. Other difficulties experienced by trade tion in many cases has been to develop their own unions are the difficulties of serving members who internal experts and to customize existing training are the sole employee in retail outlets in peripheral material to their own particular needs. regions of the country and the high proportion of part-time workers in the retail sector many of whom The lack of a recognized sectoral training body is are not unionized. Trade union officials spend a felt most keenly by the small to medium-sized -etail considerable amount of time dealing with members' enterprises who are not able to afford the cost of grievances relating to pay and conditions but train- external trainers or training mate, ial. Though there ing is not a priority in negotiations with employers. are a number of Dublin-based educational institutions providing courses for the retail sector the Social partners involvement in uptake of these courses has been largely from vocational training employees of the larger retail groups. In the area of continuing vocational training in Ire- land, the government has developed structures The larger organizations are not in favour of a particularly within many sectors of manufacturing training levy being imposed to fund a national industry which allow for the involvement of the training programme for ti-!,4 retail sector as is the social partners in the development and formulation practice in other sectors of the economy. They of national vocational training policies. In the manu- already have spent considerable amonts of money facturing and tourism sectors for example, statutory on developing their own internal trainirg program- training organizations composed of representa- mes and would be reluctant to contribute resources tives of the social partners exist to take decisions on to a national training programme which might issues relating to education and training matters in duplicate their own. these sectors. In these sectors a training levy is collected from employers, calculated as a percentage The government, in its 1986 White Paper on Man- of wage and salary costs, and is used to fund train- power Policy and reiterated in the Programme for ing programmes for the sector. However, in the Economic and Social Progress (PESP) published in retail sector there has been no government impetus January,1991, committed itself towards the creation to involve the social partners in the provision of of an apprenticeship system which would be based training for the sector. There is no sector specific on standards rather than on time served. Unaer the statutory body for the retail sector in which social PESP which was negotiated by the tripartite social partners can meet to discuss the development and partners, the government aimed to increase the implementation of national vocational training poli- number of apprentices in currently designated cies. trades and to increase the number of trades to be included in apprenticeship schemes. By moving to a The main statutory body concerned with vocational standards-based apprenticeship system, the meth- training in Ireland, FAS, the training and employ- od of funding would change from the present train- ment authority, has established a Retail/ Wholesale ing levy system to a situation where employers in Training Committee. The committee is composed of each designated sector would contribute towards representatives of both employers and trade unions an apprenticeship fund. Employers could offset and its remit is to examine what are the require- their apprenticeship expenses from the fund and 17 ; 4 7 the rule of the fund would be structured to make it The twelve retail outlets within the department store more attractive to employers than the training levy. category employ a total of 3 507 persons of whom One possible inducement for larger employers is 22 per cent are part-time employees. Over four that apprentices would receive credits for boththousand people are engaged in the chemist sector external end internal courses. It is likely that the though there are over one thousand retail outlets retail sector will be one of the new sectors to befalling in this category. included in the apprenticeship system. As shown in Table 4.2 the majority of proprietors Some of the larger retail enterprises question the and family workers are concentrated in retail out- necessity for a nationally based retail traininglets with an annual turnover in 1987 of less than IRL programme. They point out that when they recruit 250 000. Two out of every five full-time employees new employees the main criteria is personality. This are to be found in retail outlets with an annual turn- was particularly evident in the Superquinn case over of between IRL 100 000 and IRL 500 00. The study. The fact that the applicant may have under- numbers of part-time employees rise in proportion taken a retail skills course is not a major factor into turnover with the majority of part-time employ- the selection process as the new recruit will be sent ees being in retail outlets with an annual turnover of on the company's own training programme as a more than IRL 5 million. matter of course. However, it is thought that if a nationally recognized and certified retail training The 1988 Census of Services indicates that 56 per course was developed it would in time be supported cent of all retail outlets in Ireland had an annual by the larger retail companies. Such a course would turnove- of less than IRL 100 000 (77 000 ECU) and allow them to concentrate on more advanced train-only 12.: or 0.5 per cent of all retail outlets had an ing programmes that are specific to their market annual h.over greater than IRL 5 million (3.8 mil- needs. lion E- CU). The outlets in the latter category account- 4. Employment and labour ed for 15 per cent of all p arsons engaged in the A total of 111 555 persons were engaged in the retail distribution sector whereas the retail outlets in retail sector in Ireland in 1988. Of these 34 447 orthe former category accounted for 23 per cent of 31 per cent were proprietors or family members those engaged in the sector. and, of the total of 77 078 persons employed in the retail trade, some 54 152 or 49 per cent of the Outlets with an annual turnover of less than IRL 100 total numbers engaged in the industry were full- 000 in 1988 accounted for 63 per cent of all propri- time. Table 4.1shows that part-time workersetors and famil, workers but only 12 per cent of all formed 20 per cent of the total numbers engaged employees. At the other end of the scale the 125 (including proprietors and family members) in the outlets with an annual turnover of more than IRL 5 industry and 30 per cent of the total numbers million accounted for 17 and 31 per cent respec- employed. tively of all full and part-time employees. There were no proprietors or family workers in this cate- The food, drink and tobacco retail sub-sector gory size. accounted for almost two-thirds of those employed in the retail sector as a whole with clothing and foot- The IR 100 000 turnover cut-off point separates wear and all other non-food retail outlets account- the outlets where the proprietor can manage with ing for the remaining 11 and 24 per cent respec- inputs from family workers from those where tively. The food sub-sector is characterized by a increasingly employees either full or part-time - higher than average percentage of proprietors andare needed. family workers and part-time employees than the retail sector as a whole. Thirty seven per cent of It should be pointed out that in larger unionized out- those engaged in the food sub-sector were proprie- lets there may be agreements between employers tors and family workers with a further 23 per centand trade unions on the introduction of part-time being part-time employees. Proprietors and family labour. An agreement was concluded in 1985 be- workers were particularly evident in the public tween the grocery multiples and the Irish National house and small grocery outlet categories while the Union of Vintners, Grocers and Allied Trades Assis- supermarketandthepublichousesectors tants regarding part time labour in supermarkets. accounted for the majority of p art-time employees. This led to a two tier pattern of part-time labour The tobacco, sweets and newsagents (TSN) sub- usage in supermarkets: permanent part-time work- sector also had a high percentage of part-time ers (pro rotas) and temporary part-time workers employees. (casuals).There was no change in the terms and conditions of casual part-time staff but permanent part- Both the clothing and footwear and all other non- timers could be recruited provided there were food retail sub-sectors had a higher proportion ofgranted pro rata rights. A ratio of 1:4 part time to full-time employees at 58 and 67 per cent respec- full-time staff was instituted. Part-time workers are tively compared to the sector norm. In both sub-sec- used primarily to meet peak demands, to provide a tors 20 per cent of all persons engaged in retail out- measure of flexibility, to cover extended hours of lets were proprietors and family workers. opening and to reduce wage/ overhead costs.

Nearly six thousand persons are engaged in the A study of part-time workers in supermarkets found general drapery category of which nearly one-thirdan equal distribution between males and females. 18 were part-time employees. Among casuals, nearly sixty per cent were male Table 4.1 - Estimated number of persons engaged in all retail outlets - analyzed by status and by s actor, 1988

No. of proprietors No. of employees No. of Sector No. of & family persons outlets workers Full-time Part-time Total engaged

Food, drink and tobacco 18 239 26 497 29 020 16 737 45 757 72 254 Supermarket 433 152 10 480 7 094 17 574 17 726 Delicatessen 134 182 221 77 298 480 Other grocery 5 176 8 037 3 560 1 756 5 316 13 353 Grocery with public house 921 1 650 825 372 1 197 2 847 Public house 6 478 10 302 7428 5 231 12 659 22 961 Off-licence 92 80 175 47 222 302 Fresh meat 1 690 1 955 2 531 357 2 888 4 842 Bread & flour confectionery 337 263 768 276 1 044 1 307 Dairy products 772 863 496 206 702 1 565 Fish and poultry 111 120 169 45 214 334 Fruit and vegetables 327 438 294 109 403 841 General country shop 79 137 349 51 400 537 TSNs 1 689 2 318 1 724 1 116 2 840 5 158

Clothing & footwear 3 202 2 600 7468 2 724 10 192 12 792 Footwear 567 380 1 285 324 1 609 1 989 Men's & boys' wear 440 285 1 002 100 1 102 1 387 Ladies, girls' and infants' wear 1 148 915 1 921 618 2 539 3 454 General drapery 1 047 1 020 3 260 1 682 4 942 5 962

All other non-food 6 434 5 380 17 664 3 465 21 129 264250709 Chemist 1 039 917 2 751 539 3 290 Hardware 840 756 2 394 352 2 746 3 502 Electrical goods A08 295 1 532 151 1 683 1 978 Electrical goods with repairs 124 121 223 31 254 375 Furniture and carpets 611 512 1 224 189 1 413 1 925 Department stores 12 0 2 733 774 3 507 3 507 Variety stores 74 54 149 32 181 235 Leather, sports & fancy goods 576 566 694 161 855 1 421 Books and stationery 370 304 1058 287 1 355 1 659 Jeweller 425 347 976 122 1 098 1 445 Solid fuel 148 186 264 50 314 500 Motor tyres 142 57 311 29 340 397 Car accessories 163 94 393 24 417 511 Clothing fabrics, yarns and threads 213 206 288 123 411 617 Flower shops 231 252 215 53 268 52G All other non-food 858 713 2 459 538 2 997 3 710

Total 27 875 34 447 54 152 22 926 77 078 111 555 31 49 20 69 100

Source: 1988 Census of Services, Volume 1, Central Statistics Office

19 Table 4.2Estimated number of persons engaged in all retail outletsanalyzed by status and by annual turnover of business, 1988

No. of Annual turnover No. proprietors io. of employees No. of excluding of family persons VAT outlets workers Full-time Part-time Total engaged

IRL 9 999 or under 2108 2 593 283 161 394 2 987 IRL 10 000 - 24 999 3 425 4 576 404 384 788 5 364 IRL 25 000 - 49 999 4 003 5 727 1 139 853 1 972 7 699 IRL 50 000 - 99 999 6 152 8 887 3 817 2 042 5 859 14 746 IRL 100 000 249 999 7 961 9 842 12 881 4 234 17 115 26 957 IRL 250 000 - 499 999 2 670 2 302 10 349 2 951 13 300 15 602 IRL 500 000 999 999 960 454 7 351 2 392 9 743 10 197 IRL 1 000 000 - 4 999 999 471 96 8 635 2 791 11 456 11 552 IRL 5 000 000 + 125 9 313 7 138 16 451 16 451

Total 27 875 34 477 54 152 22 926 77 078 111 555

No. of Annual turnover No. proprietors No. of employees No. of excluding of family persons VAT outlets workers Full-time Part-time Total engaged %

IRL 9 999 or under 8 7 0.5 1 0.5 3 IRL 10 000 - 24 999 12 13 1 2 1 5 IRL 25 000 - 49 999 14 17 2 4 2.5 7 IRL 50 000 - 99 999 22 26 7 9 8 13 IRL 100 000 - 249 999 29 29 24 18 22 24 IRL 250 000 - 499 999 10 6.7 19 13 17 14

IRL 500 000 - 999 999 3 1 13.5 10 13 9 IRL 1 000 0004 999 999 1.5 0.3 16 12 15 10 IRL 5 000 000 + 0.5 17 31 21 15

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

Source: 1988 Census of Services, Volume 1, Central Statistics Office

whereas the ratio of male to female was reversed on employment in the retail sector is the annual for pro rata part timers where women predominat-Labour Force Survey undertaken by the Central Sta- ed. All casual supermarket staff were single, while a tistics Office. The main methodical difference be- minority of pro rates were married. Casual staff tween the Census of Services and the Labour Force were also younger than pro ratas, most were agedSurvey is that in the former the owner of the enter- 20 years or younger whereas pro ratas ranged be-prise completes the questionnaire while in the latter tween 20 and 50 years of age. Most pro rata staffthe head of private households completes the ques- were under thirty years of age. The study cited a tionnaire. It has been found that where returns are number of factors among supermarket multiples completed by householders they are more prone to influencing current and future demand for parttime error. labour. The positive factors included rising labour costs, customer demand, abolition of the marriage However, the Labour Force Survey while only pro- bar, changing trade union attitudes, requests by viding aggregrate data for employment categories staff to work part-time and the granting of equal does give information on male and female employ- pay to women. Part-time workers were rated equal ment in the retail sector. The table below illustrates to, if not better than, their full-time counterparts inthe changes in male and female participation in terms of productivity, absenteeism, loyalty, em-retail sector employment. ployee relationships,availability, trainingcosts, wage costs, fringe benefits, supervision and use of Table 4.3 shows that there have been fluctuations in overtime. The only negative view of part-timers the level of employment in the retail sector and in compared to full-time staff among supermarketsthe breakdown of male and female employees. was in terms of higher labour turnover. Overall employment declined from 123 200 in 1979 to 121 800 in 1985 and increased again to 126 200 It could be argued that in small retail outlets family in 1990. Male employment in the retail sector fell by workers take the place of both full-time and part-1 200 while female employment rose by 4200, an 20 time employees. The principal other source of data increase of 9 per cent. 20 Table 4.3Male and female employment in the retail Table 4.5Retail outlets classified by legal status sector Number of Number of Number of Retail outlets persons employees employment engaged as % of total Male Female Total employment Individual proprietorship 20 113 51 300 20 687 1979 76 900 46 300 123 200 10.7 Partnership 1 570 5 568 2 420 1985 74 300 47500 121 800 11.3 Co-operative 28 270 258 1990 75 700 50 500 126 200 11.2 Public Limited Company 24 842 839 Source: Labour Force Surveys 1979, 1985 and 1990, Private Limited Central Statistics Office Company 5 978 53 213 52529 Other 164 360 345

Employment in the retail sector as a percentage of Source: 1988 Census of Services, Volume 1, total employment increased from 10.7 per cent in Central Statistics Office 1979 to 11.2 per cent in 1990.

The Labour Force Surveys also provide information 5. Changing conditions and their impli- on employment status, hours worked, regional distri- cations for skill requirements and train- bution of workers, age profile and occupations.ing However, the disadvantage of Labour Force Sur- veys is that this information on the retail sector isTechnology aggregated with other sectors such as insuranceTrade sources indicate that scanning is one of the and finance. most significant developments in the grocery market noting that in 1987 only ten outlets were equip- Data on par.-time employment in the retail sector is ped with scanning facilities and three hundred and derived from Census of Population returns and is fifty companies were using bar-coding on their shown in Table 4.4 below. products. Estimates to date put the number of stores with scanners installed at 33 and the number of companies bar-coding their products at 500.

Table 4.4 - Part-time employment in the retail sector The Quinnsworth grocery chain lead the field in the introduction of scanning equipment and is followed Number of by a smaller provincial chain, L&N. So far only the part-time Percentage grocery trade has been using scanners but other Year employees of total sectors of the retail industry in Ireland are planning their introduction and include retail outlets in the 1977 9 267 10.8 hardware and stationery sub-sectors. 1988 17 648 20.0 The presence of scanners at checkouts is impacting Source: Census of Population 1977 and 1988, on the work performed by the checkout operators Central Statistics Office and the training provided for them. For example, because scanners allow for greater checkout operator - .,.,tamer communication there is now a great- Due to methodical differences in the way the infor-er emphasis being placed on training staff in these mation was collected the Census of Population data positions in customer service and interpersonal on part-time employment cannot be directly corn-,skills. pared with the Census of Service data on part-time employment. However, as Table 4.4 clearly illus-Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)is becoming trates, part-time employment in the retail sector is increasingly relevant now that many of the major increasing. During the period 1977-1988 part-timegrocery companies have introduced check-out employment rose from 10.8 to 20 per cent of total scanning. Both Quinnsworth and Dunnes Stores are employment in the retail sector. conducting feasibility studies with a small number of large suppliers and once they have implemented The Census of Service provides information from EDI in their stores all suppliers will be expected to fol- which it is possible to calculate the number of self-low suit. employed within the retail sector. It is common customary practice in Ireland for the From the table 4.5 it can be seen that there were supplier of electronic equipment and software to 20113 individual proprietorships in the retail sectororganize the training of staff in the companies pur- in 1988 which can be equated with self-employ-chasing scanning or EDI systems. In the larger firms, ment. Individual proprietorships as a percentage of the suppliers will normally train the trainers within total numbers engaged in the retail sector in 1988 the client company who will then become responsi- amounted to 18 per cent. ble for training the rest of the staff.The smaller corn- 21 Jo, 2j pony will generally rely on suppliers to organize reducing the number of jobs in the sector and con- initial training and follow-up courses. At presenttributing to the de-skilling of those who remain. there is no recognized training courses for employees in scanning or Electronic Data Interchange tech-Social changes nology. One of the major factors affecting the nature of retailing has been the greater participation of women, par- The future is likely to see the greater use of electronic tkularly married women, in the labour force. This has point of sale (EPOS) technology as costs decrease.had the effect of increasing disposable household One implication for human resources managers in income E. it it has also meant that shops have had to retail companies is that EPOS technology will lead increase theiropening hours to take account of this fac- both to a reduction in staff numbers because less tor. In the major urban areas the large multiple shops staff will be needed, for example in the pricing of remain open in the evening three nights a week to goods on the shelves, and to a further de-skilling of faciliatate working housewifes. The smaller symbol sales assistants jobs as self selection did earlier. The and independents have also extended their opening coroilary of the new EPOS technology is that it is cre-hours to compete with the multiples and to gain com- ating the need in retail companies for new techni-petitive advantage are generally open for longer cally-oriented skills such as system designers and hours than the supermarkets. operators. The impact of women working outside the home has Legislative changes lead to a concentration of grocery shopping during The introduction of a Joint Labour Committee (JLC) the latter half of the week. For retailers this means in the newsagents, grocery and allied trades sub-that staff are often underutilized from Monday to sectors outlined in section 3 is likely to lead to em-Wednesday, particularly during the mornings and ployers to consider the necessity for training of em-early afternoon. On the other hand stores need to ployees. Up until now employee turnover in these bring in part-time employees to supplement full- sectors was high and therefore employers were not time staff to cope with the peak shopping days dur- like-/ to consider the notion of training employeesing the second half of the week. who mistri leave in the short term. The implementation of Li iployment Regulation Orders by the JLCAnother implication of women working outside the will lay down minimum wage and working, condi-home and greater household disposable income is tions for employees. that there is a trend towards convenience foods and eating out. The grocery outlets have been develop- Trade sources predict that as a result of the JLCing their product offerings to take advantage of employee turnover will decrease and thereforethe trend towards convenience foods. Superquinn, employers will be more likely to consider continuing for example, which was profiled in one of the case training for their staff. Another implication of the JLC studies pioneered the development of in-store for the retail sector is that it will push up costs and pizza kitchens in Ireland and markets other ready- may drive marginal firms out of business. made food products. All the major grocery outlets have created their own delicatessen counters which Economic changes serve pre-cooked food items and have developed The increasing competitive pressures within the other specialist sections such as bakery, fresh meat retailing sector and slow economic conditions are and wine departments. causing companies to r...view staff numbers. This is particularly true in the non-food sector where a 6. Training and recruitment number of UK companies have entered the Irish Unlike some other EC Member States Ireland does market in recent years. Some indigenous retailers not have a legal or industry-regulated system believe that the Single European Market will lead to requiring that owners or employees in the retail the arrival in the Irish market of new entrants from sector have a minimum vocational educational Continental Europe and speculate that even UStraining. There are no rules or conditions governing retailers may establish stores in Ireland. These fac-entry into the retail trade. The Retail Grocery, Dairy tors have resulted and will continue to result in retail-and Allied Trades Associaton (RGDATA) estimate ers reducing staff numbers to the economic mini-that 500 people go into the retail sector in Ireland mum. Smaller staff numbers mean that sales staff every year with no business skills. RGDATA estimates must take more responsibility, use more initiative that there is a ten per cen turnover in shops each and must take on the management of stock. The year with negative effects tar consumers and suppli- move to providing higher levels of service means ers. that the role of the sales assistant is more important. Many retailers are now realizing that people are There are no restrictions on the location of new retail the key to competitive advantage. Therefore the outlets in Ireland though planning policies may quality of staff required by retailers now and for the place restrictions on the establishment of out-of- future is higher. town shopping developments.

Economic conditions are on the other hand forcing Employees do not have to undergo any vocational retailers to reduce costs by sub-contracting many training prior to starting a career in the retail indus- functions which were previously undertaken in-try. It is understood from discussions with retailers' house. Functions such as butchering, merchandising and employers' representatives that even if there and packaging are now being sub-contracted out were a recognized training certificate an employer 22 to external companies which trade unions say is would prefer to take on recruits without any 22 previous training and train them in his or her custom-The practice in larger retail organizations was for ary mode of retailing. Many of the large retail com-the provision of internal management development panies operate their own formal induction and con-courses for store and area managers. However, tinuing training courses for their staff. there is a recognition that the store manager's job has become more difficult and complex, and retail Training outside of the larger enterprises is ad hoc companies are increasingly sending their managers and tends to be unstructured, on-the-job and infor-on external management courses which specialize mal. Progressive managers in smaller retail compa-in the retail trade. As there are no advanced man- nies face many problems in providing training to agement degree courses in Ireland specifically for their staff. One of the biggest problems is that many the retail trade, companies are sending staff to of the institutions which do provide training in retail study at UK universities. skills are Dublin-based which makes for difficulty for regional retailers. A second difficulty for smaller con-The development of annual train-ing plans is well cerns given the low margins prevailing in the Irish established in the bigger retail company. In the smal- retail industry is finding the financial resources to ler retail outlet, planning for training is unlikely to be pay for the high cost of external trainers. Also, in the carried out in a structured way as most training is smaller shop it is more difficult for managers to undertaken in an ad-hoc manner. However, even in release employees for courses because there are the larger retail enterprises formal assessments of less staff available to cover for them. The reality is the training needs at an individual level are rarely that in the smaller retail outlet either the manager undertaken. Most of assessments of staff training provides the training based on his or her own knowl-needs are calculated in a subjective manner by edge (in some of the symbol stores managers were supervisors and managers. It would appear also recruited from the multiples and were able to pass that detailed assessments of the costs and benefits on the training they had received to their staff) or no of training programmes are rarely carried out. Lack training is undertaken at all. of staff and resources may be the cause of this situation but the larger companies are aware of the There is also the problem that many of the olderrequirement for more formal evaluation of individ- retail owners particularly those in rural areas do not ual training needs and for in-depth cost-benefit see the need or value for training. analyses of training programmes. One of the companies profiled in the case study, ESB, is pilot-testing The lack of a recognized training course for the a new scheme for ascertaining staff training needs. retail sector as a whole and the absence of an industry train-Trainees and apprentices in the retail ing body has resulted in the large companies partic-trade ularly the grocery and department store sectorsThe retail sector in Ireland is characterized by a developing their own internal training programmes.higher percentage of trainees and apprentices compared to other service sectors and the manufactur- As there is also a lack of available retail training ing sector. experts and external training programmes suitable for the retail trade, the large companies have hadThe definition of trainees in the retail trade can no alternative but to develop their own in-house encompass entrants to particular trades such as bak- training programmes. The range and quality of ers and butchers where there is a defined appren- these internal programmes vary enormously. Some ticeship structure and to management and staff are structured using a mixture of on-the-job and positions. However, apprenticeship as defined in classroom training, others are less formal and are the very strictest sense has almost disappeared exclusively on-the-job training. apart from a small number of butchers and bakers. Trainees are a feature of both the food and non- Because of the great variation in training ap-food retail outlets. In the grocery sector for example, proaches used within the large retail companies it is the large multiples recruit young people, termed not possible to specify the amount of expendituretrainee managers, who they train as managers in on training. However, a survey of labour costs short but well-structured induction programmes. carried out by the Central Statistics Office of large enterpi ises in the retail sector in 1988 found that a The labour costs associated with trainees and appren- total of IRL Z4 million was spent on training dividedtices are higher in the retail sector compared with the between IRL 2.8 million in the food, drink and wholesale sector and with the distribution sector as a tobacco sub-sector and IRL 4.8 million in all other whole. In 1988, a survey of firms with more than 10 sub-sectors of the retail industry.The enterprises sur-employees in the retail sector estimated that training veyed had an average annual labour cost per costs stood at 2.5 per cent of total labour costs per employee of IRL 10 565 of which 2.5 per cent or IRLemployee and were higher than equivalent figure of 265 was accounted for by training costs. 0.8 per cent of total labour costs per employee of similar sized firms in the wholesale sector (see Table 6.1). The majority of large retail enterprises provide Training costs per employee,for the distribution sector induction training for new staff which would cover as a whole was 1.5 per cerit of total labour costs per checkout skills, cash handling and basic customer employee. Training costs per as a percentage of service. Continuing training of staff is chiefly the labour costs per employee in the retail sector at 2.5 responsibility of store managers or supervisors andper cont was more than twice the equivalent figure of largely consists of on-the-job training thoughspe- 1.1 per cent of firms employing more than 20 in the cialist skills. manufacturing sector. It should be noted that this 1988 survey of labour having discussions with Trinity College Dublin con- costs, undertaken by the Central Statistics Office,cerning a degree programme in distributive market- was confined to firms in the retail and wholesale sec-ing management. tors with more than 10 employees and in the manufacturing sector to firms with more than 20 employ-The courses provided by the college are for man- ees. Because of the ten or more employee limit foragement level; there are no education programmes the retail sector and due to the predominantly small for entrants at general staff level. size of enterprises within the retail sector, the vast majority of employees within the sector would not FAS, the national employment and training author- have been included in the survey. A total of 203 ity, provides a number of retail trade related train- food, drink and tobacco retail enterprises were ing courses. However, these courses are directed at surveyed along with 353 other non-food retailunemployed people to help them find positions enterprises. The survey also collected data at the within the retail trade. enterprise level and not separately for individual establishments or branches. As mentioned previously the authority is presently finalizing in conjunction with the Federation of Irish The survey also showed that trainees and appren-Employers a modular-based training programme tices are a feature in the retail sector to a greaterfor sales staff entering the retail trade with modules extent than in wholesaling or in other sectors such on customer relations, sales, hygiene and safety and as banking and insurance. In 1988, a total of product knowledge. 1 248 trainees and apprentices were employed in the distribution sector as a whole of which 1 039 The Vocational Education Colleges (VECs) are only or 83 per cent were employed in the retail sector minimally involved in retail trade education. as shown in Table 6.2. It is estimated that the largest component of training costs per employee in the The structure of the Irish retail sector with the small distribution sector relates to wages and salaries of size of outlets and low margins presents difficulties apprentices and trainees rather than the cost of pro-for both public and private organizations consider- viding internal training courses or payments of feesing the possibility of providing training to retailers for attending external courses. and their employees. The difficulties are com- pounded because of the need to provide courses in Provision of training courses rural areas as well as urban centres. The high cost The biggest problem facing the non-multiple retail involved is likely to deter private sector training pro- outlet is access to training courses. The main provid-viders. er of retail trade related courses is the College of Marketing in Dublin. This poses obvious problems 7. Issues for retclers in rural areas particularly those whoOne of the most pressing issues in the Irish retail can only afford to allow their staff to be absent from industry is whether there should be a national their work-places for a short time. vocational education course for people wort .ng within the industry. At present only the large...Acid The College of Marketing provides a range of enterprises provide formal training coursein re- courses from a certificate course in retail marketing tail skills for their employees. For persons working to certificate in principles of retail management. It in smaller enterprises there are few options open runs a special programme, proprietorship, for to them for increasing their work skills and knowl- family members of retail operators. The college is edge.

Table 6.1 Average labour costs per full-time equivalent employee and percentage distribution of labour costs in retail distribution compared with wholesale distribution and manufacturing industry, 1988

Percentage distribution of labour costs

Total labour Wages Social security payments All Sector costs per and . . _ Training other employee* salaries Statutory Other costs costs

IRL ok

Food, drink & tobacco retail distribution 9 699 85.1 9.0 2.2 2.5 1.2 Other retail distribution 11 109 83.6 9.4 3.4 2.5 1.1 Retail sector average 10 565 84.1 9.3 3.0 2.5 1.1 Whole:ale distribution 16 709 cs1.9 8.0 7.0 0.8 2.3 Dist ibution sector average 13 321 82.9 8.5 5.3 1.5 1.8 Manufacturing sector average 16 020 83.0 8.1 6.0 1.1 1.7

* Port-time employees converted to full-time equivalents 24 Source: Labour costs survey 1988 in industry, distribution, credit and insurance, Central Statistics Office 2 Table 6.2 Total employment (full and part-time) of retail and wholesale distribution firms with 10 or more employees

Full & part-time Ap- Total Sector Full-time Part-time pren- employ- No of enterprises employees employees Male Female Total tices me No No No No No No No

Food, drink & tobacco retail firms (203) 8807 4196 5450 7553 13003 468 13471 Non-food retail firms (352) 14191 7080 7302 13969 21271 571 21842 Retail sector total (555) 22998 11276 12752 21522 34274 1039 35313 Wholesale sector total (671) 22501 812 17222 6091 23313 209 23522 Distribution sector total (1 226) 454> 1 12088 29974 27613 57587 1248 58835

Source: Labour costs survey 1988 in industry, distribution, credit and insurance, Central Statistics Office

Proponents of a nationally recognized certificate in all the skills required by employees in these sectors. retail skills point out that it will help employees to However, it is accepted that a basic course in retail develop professionally and personally in their jobs.skills would be acceptable to many of the social part- It would also lead to a greater professionalismners and that it would be up to each sub-sector of within the industry and it would lead to greater staffthe retail sector to provide the specialist training mobility. Such a qualification would also be of assis-input relevant to that sector. tance if they wished to take up a retailing position elsewhere within the community. The certificate course in retail skills would be organized by FAS, the national training and employment The arguments against the concept of a national authority, or through the existing vocational educa- retail certificate is that the retail sector in Ireland is tion structure in Ireland.The course would ideally con- so diverse that it would not be possible to cater for sist of a mixture of theory and on-the-job training.

25 2 51 AN

CEDEFOP, The role of the social partners Fitzpatrick, J. & Associates, "Retailing in the Republic in vocational education and training, in- of Ireland, EIU Marketing In Europe, No. 296, cluding continuing education and training, 1987, pp. 22-36 Nielsen Marketing Research, Retail in Ireland, Berlin, 1988 Census 19b3, A.C. Nielsen of Ireland Limited, Dublin, 1989 Central Statistics Office, 1988 Census of Services, Stationery Office, Dublin, July 1991 Parker, A. .i.,"Retail Planning inIreland-, in Davies, R. L., (ed.), Retail Planning in the European Central Statistics Office, 1977 Census of Distribu- Community, Farnborough: Saxon House, 1979, tion, Stationery Office, Dublin, November 1982 pp. 117-202

Central Statistics Office, Labour Force Survey 1979,Parker, A. J., "The Development of Planned Shopping 1985 and 1990, Stationery Office, Dublin, various Centres in the Republic of Ireland", Retail rt,c1 dates Distribution Management, 10 (2).1982, pp. 25-29 Central Statistics Office, Labour Costs Survey 1988 in Industry, Distribution, Credit and Insur-Parker, A. J., The Evolution of Supermarkets in ance, Stationery Office, January 1991 Ireland, Report for the Irish Productivity Centre, 1983, pp.23, (subsequently published in the IPC Report, New Dawson, J. A., 'Retail Sales of Towns in the Republic of Tecklology in Supermarkets in Ireland) Ireland", Irish Geography, Vol.6, 1972, pp. 487-492 Parker, A. J., `The Changing Nature of Irish Retailing", in Drew, Eileen P, Part-time Working and the Serv- Ireland: A Contemporary Geographical ice Sector, Working Paper No. 5, Service Industries Perspective, R. W. G. Carter and A. J. Parker (eds.), Research Centre, Dublin, 1990 Routledge, London, 1989, pp. 237-270

Fitzgerald, J. D., 1992: The Distribution Sector,Ward, E. B., "The Future Pattern of Grocery Retailing, ESRI, Dublin, 1988, pp. 15 (mimeo) IBAR, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1979, pp. 35-44

IP" APPENDIX 'I

Census of Service retail busineys 100 000 in 1987 and have sold a categories wide range of goods in sizeable In the 1988 Census of Services publication focusing quantities such as: on retail distribution, the Central Statistics Office general grocery and house- uses 37 business categories to classify retail busi- hold provisions; nesses. They are as follows: solid fuel; domestic hardware; Supermarket Outlets where general groceries domestic kerosene; and household provisions agricultural supplies; accounted for the bulk of retail clothing and footwear. turnover. To qualify for inclusion in this category an outlet had to There should have been significant sales of at least be self-service with three orone of the last four items, particularly agricultural more checkout points. supplies and hardware. If 50 per cent of more of retail turnover was accounted for by general gro- Delicatessen Outlets for which more than 40 cery and household provisions then the shop was per cent ofretailsales are classified as grocery; if the sales of agricultural sup- accounted for by delicatessen plies exceeded half of the total turnover, then the type goods and health foods. outlet was classified to wholesale trade.

Other grocery Other grocery outlets (including Tobacco, sweetsOutlets where 70 per cent or self-service shops) not classified and newspapers more or retailturnover was as supermarkets. accounted for by sales of ciga- rettes, tobacco, chocolates, ice Grocery with Outlets where 50 per cent or cream, newspapers, periodicals, public house more ofretail turnover was etc., and where there was at accounted for by general gro- most 10 per cent of sales of gen- ceries, household provisions and eral grocery and household pro- sales of alcoholic beverages for visions. If 80 per cent of retail consumption on the premises. turnover related to books, periodicals, stationery, etc., the out- Public house Outlets where 50 per cent or let was coded under the categ- more ofretailturnover was ory books and stationery. accounted for by alcoholic beverages and soft drinks for con-Footwear Outlets where footwear sumption on the premises. accounted for 50 per cent or more of retail turnover. Off Licence Outlets where 50 per cent of retail turnover was accounted Men's and Outlets where men's and boys' for by alcoholic beverages off boys' wear clothing accounted for 50 per the premises. cent or more or retail turnover. If ladies' wear accounted for 10 Fresh meat Outlets where fresh meat sales per cent or more of retail turn- accounted for 50 per cent or over the outlet was coded to the more of retail turnover. category general drapery. Out- lets specializing in men's and Bread and flourOutlets where bread, confection- boys' wear and footwear were ery or biscuits accounted for 50 classified to this category if foot- per cent or more of retail turnover. wear accounted for less than 50 per cent of retail turnover. Dairy products Outlets where fresh milk, cream and other dairy products(i.e. Ladies', girls' Outlets where ladies', girls' and cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, etc.) and infants' wear infants' wear accounted for 50 accounted for 50 percent or more per cent or more of retail turn- of retail turnover. This category over. If men's wear accounted also includes milk roundsmen. 10 per cent or more of retail turnover the outlet was coded to Fish and poultryOutlets where fresh fish and the category general drapery. poultry accounted for 50 per Outletsspecializinginladies', cent or more of retail turnover. girls' and infants' wear and foot wear were classifiedtothis Fruit and Outlets where fresh fruit and category if footwear accounted vegetables vegetables accounted for 50 per for less than 50 per cent of retail cent or more of i utail turnover. turnover.

Country generalTo qualify for inclusion in this General drapery Outlets not falling into any of the shop category an outlet had to have above specialist clothing and an annual turnover of at least IRL footwear categories were classi- 27 27 fled to this category if drapery than 20 per cent of total retail items (excluding uncut materials) turnover). accounted for 50 per cent or more of retail turnover with sig-Electrical goodyOutlets with significant sales of nificant sales (at least 10 per cent with repairs electrical goods and also en- of retail turnover in each case) of gaged in substantial repair and ladies' and girls' wear and of service activity (between 20 and men's and boys' wear and such 50 per cent of turnover). Outlets items as uncut material, bed involved mainly in repair are not linen, etc. Howev,r, if there were included. significant sales of furniture, soft furnishings, etc., the outlet was Furniture and Outlets where 50 per cent or classified to the category other carpets more of retail turnover was in non-food. respect of furniture, bedding, floor covering, household tex- Cycle shop* Outlets where the sale, repair tiles and soft furnishings. Outlets and servicing of pedal cycles also selling clothing in significant and mechanicallypropelled quantities were coded to the cycles of all kinds (e.g. motor category Other non-food. cycles, scooters, mopeds, etc.) accounted for 50 per cent or Department store To qualify for inclusion in this busi- more of retail turnover. ness category an outlet had to satisfy the following criteria: Filling station* Outlets where petrol and oil at least 10 per cent of retail accounted for 80 per cent or turnover accounted for by each more ofretailturnover with of these commodity groups (I) no motor vehicle sales.Where the clothing and footwear and (II) only items sold were non-garage furniture, floor coverings and items e.g. sweets and groceries other household textiles and soft the 80 per cent condition was furnishings with, in addition, sub- reduced to 50 per cent. stantial sales of a number of other commodities; Repair and Outlets where 50 per cent of at least 50 persons employed; service garage*more or retail turnover was selling space of at least 15,000 accounted for by repair and ser- square feet; vicing of motor vehicles and by not more than 25 per cent of the sale of petrol and oil with, thestore'sretailturnover in possibly, a limited amount of respect of general turnover and vehicle sales (not exceeding 20 household provisions. per cent of total turnover). Leather, sports Outlets where 50 per cent or Motor vehicle Outlets where motor vehiclesand fancy goods more of retail turnover was in sales* accounted for 20 per cent or respect of leather and sports more of retail sales. goods, fancy goods, souvenirs, toys, etc. Chemist An outlet where sales of drugs and medicines on prescriptionVariety goods Outlets which sold a very wide accounted for 50 per cent or range of goods includingin more of retail turnover. Most out- particular sports goods, toys, lets in this category also dealt in leather and fancy goods. toiletries,photographicand optical goods, etc. Books and Outlets where 80 per cent or stationery more of retail turnover was in Hardware Outlets where 50 percent or more respect of books, stationery, peri- of retail turnover was in respect of odicals, office supplies, etc.If domestic hardware,china,decora- there were substantial sales of tors' supplies, garden implements sweets and tobacco the outlet and other hardware. was included in the category Tobacco, sweets and newspapers. Electrical good Outlets where 50 per cent or more of retail turnover was inJeweller Outlets where 80 per cent or respect of electrical goods (tele- more of retail turnover was in vision sets, radios and other elec- respect of the sale and repair of trical goods and fittings), but watches, jewellery, etc. Outlets having only a limited amount of involved solely in repairs were repair and service activity (less excluded. 28 Excluded from current study. Solid fuel Outlets where 50 per cent or Flower shops Outlets where 50 per cent or more of retail turnover related more ofretail turnover was to coal, coke, turf, etc. accounted forbyflowers, wreaths, etc. Motor tyres Outlets where 50 per cent or more of turnover was accounted All other Retail outlets for which 50 per for by tyres. non-food cent or more of retail turnover is accounted for by non-food items Car accessories Outlets where car accessories and which were not classified to accounted fro 50 per cent or any of the other retail business more of retail turnover. descriptions.

Clothing fabrics,Outlets where 50 per cent or yarns and more ofretailturnover was threads accounted for by clothing fabrics, yarns and threads.

29 PART 2:

1. Clerys

2. E. S. B. (Electricity Supply Board)

3. Marks & Spencers (Ireland) ltd.

4. Superquinn

30 1. CLERY & COMPANY 0941) LTD

1.1 General description of the firm bringing in a new young management team with determined ideas about changing and improving 1.1.1 Facts about Clery's Clery's :ather staid image. The store is now focusing Clery's is a family-owned department store with on a consumer profile aged 25-44, primarily one location in the heart of Dublin city' . The tore female. Accordingly it has recently opened an recently celebrated its 50th birthday. Clery's sells a in-store creche and a hairdressing salon. The youn- wide range of clothing and household goods (no ger customers 16-24 are increasingly attracted to food) and has approximately thirty concession the store by the concession shops, (Miss Selfridge stores(employing approximately 180 people) etc.). High on the management agenda is a signifi- within the building. Over the last three years cant investment in the training and development of the store has undergone a fundamental change,staff with an emphasis on customer relations and

Table 1 - Training Undertaken by Marks & Spencers, Cork 1991/1992

Course Location No. of Staff Length of Programme

Management courses 1. Divisional deputy managers conference Scotland 2 3 days 2. Divisional management

development course Bath 1 5 days 3. Disciplinary commercial

workshop Scotland 1 2 days 4. Assessment centre training Scotland 1 1 day Supervision 1. Sales floor standards & presentation Cork 7 1 day 2. Foods commercial workshop Scotland 2 3 days 3. Textiles commercial workshop Scotland 2 3 days 4. Managing change course Cork 7 2 days 5. Managing change course (deputy supervisors) Cork 10 1 day (May '92) 6. Time management Cork 10 1 day Z communication & presentation skills Cork 10 1 day 8. Working with assertiveness Cork 10 1 day Main general staff training 1. Textiles & food workshops Cork 50-60 half day 2. New technology training Cork 60 1.5 days 3. New commercial documentation Cork 60 1 hr. per person 4. Sales assistants trained in stockroom Cork 4 2 days per person 5. Till procedure update Cork 50-60 half hr. per person 6. Health & safety Cork all staff half day 7 Theft & loss Cork all staff half hr. per staff 8. Quality service Cork all staff half hr. per staff

Attachments Food supervisor Glasgow store 3 weeks Food deputy supervisor Harrow London 2 weeks Training co-ordinator Perth 1 week Catering deputy supervision Bristol/Cork 3 days

As Clery's has only one outlet this case study does not isolateone particluar store but presents the information on policy and practice together for the one outlet. 31 31 staff/management team work. Given the age of to have enhanced skills and made jobs more attrac- the store it is not surprising that many staff are aged tive. 50 + with over thirty years service many of whom have never worked anywhere else. Motivating and encouraging staff to participate in training has 1.1.4.2 Employment statistics been a major challenge for Clery's new management team. Gender of staff

1.1.2 Business strategy and All staff 0/o Buyers Department management style managers The senior management team has developed a ten year business plan with a detailed five year pro- Male 44 36 27 gramme of action. Major items on the agenda are: Female 56 64 73 a move away from a 'low' price to a 'quality/serv- Total 100 100 100 ice' image with customer service identified as the main competitive advantage, computerization of stock linked to sales, more service departments, upgrading staff and management skills. Age of Staff

A major programme of investment to modernize No. and rationalize the store is being undertaken, complemented by a significant investment in staff train- Under 25 2 1 ing. Skills, staff development and succession plan- 25-55 231 72 ning are seen as the key to the successful completion over 55 87 27 of this long-term plan. Total 320 100

A philosophy for the store of the "best standards in retailing" is being promoted. It is recognized that in many cases progress must be made from a rela- Years pf service tively low standard of basic education and training. This situation must be taken into account in planning Years 0/0 and developing training initiatives. 0 -2 12.2 Management style is increasingly open and team- 9.8 based with information spreading down the struc- 3-4 ture. Departmental managers, having recently 56 12.2 completed a two year training programme, will be 7 - 8 4.9 given more responsibility and autonomy and will be 9-10 17.1 encouraged to 'network' more. Job enhancement 11-12 7.3 for all staff is seen as a vital goal as promotion 13- 14 7.3 opportunities are very limited. 15 - 16 2.4 17 -18 2.4 1.1.3 Structure of firm 19 -20 4.8 Clery's is a privately owned limited company. Mrs 21 30 9.8 Guiney, the founder's widow and current chairman 31-40 9.8 holds fifty-one per cent of the shares; forty mem- Total 100.0 bers of her extended family hold the remainder. Mrs Guiney, a lady of advanced years but still very active in the company, has established a trusteeship to prevent the store being sold for twenty-five years Wages 01/10/91 under the Programme for Economic after her death. (Ownership includes the store and Social Progress building and adjoining land, a site of very high commercial value). Table 1 shows how the company is 1R£ currently structured. Year 4 Sales assistant 1.1.4 Human resources (lowest current level) 154.88 Year 5 158.40 1.1.4.1 Employment Year 6 165.74 The store has only one outlet which currently Chargehand 177.97 employs approximately 320 people - 200 sales Allowance 15.24 and 120 non-sales staff. The company payroll is Departmental manager 175.56 about £5 million. Employment has fallen from Allowance 15.39 approximately 850 in 1983 to its present number, Port-time staff 103.86 due primarily to increasing self-selection of prod- Allowance 9.55 ucts by customers. Information technology has con- Register money 4.65 tributed somewhat to the fall, through natural wast- Productivity allowance 15.24 32 age. However, new technology is generally seen 32. 1.1.4.3 Part-time employment Currently the training manager is responsible for Currently only twenty three sales staff in Clery's are identifying broad areas of training need, arranging permanent part-time workers representing less courses/programmes and encouraging staffto than ten per cent of total permanent employment. attend. Howeverthere are plans to delegate more of This low level of part-time working relative to other this activity to line managers. Staff are also encour- retail establishments is seen to create commercial aged to engage in any type of external night courses difficulties for management in a business where with funding available up to 100 %, depending on demand peaks on a daily and a seasonal basis. The degree of relevance to the business. high percentage of full-time staff reflects the length of time Clery's has been trading and th long lengthThe approach taken towards staff training is one of of service of many staff. A number of voluntaryincremental change. Staff are encouraged to partic- schemes are in operation to reduce full-time staff ipate in training. Old attitudes of suspicion and dis- numbersearly retirement, voluntary redundancy, trust are being broken down by example. Training leave of absence etc. successes are seen as the keyto encouraging all staff to undertake training. One of the principal objec- 1.1.4.4 Gender tives of training is to broaden staff's experience. Thirty-six per cent of buyers and thirty-seven per Many sales staff have no experience or apprecia- cent of departmental managers are women; one of tion of other areas of the business apart from sales. the senior management team is a woman and the Training is geared to changing this narrow focus. store is owned by a woman. All part-time employees are women. Special efforts are seen to be 1.2.1.2 Future training priorities required to encourage more female staff to apply Major issues for the future in relation to staff train- for promotion. ing and development are: to instill in all staff an attitude of responsibility for 1.1.4.5 Recruitment their own career and development needs. All recruitment at the current time is for temporary to become less reactive and more proactive in seasonal employees. No recruitment of permanent anticipating training and development needs. staff has taken place in the last year and none is planned. Training priorities for the next two years are: product knowledge training (mandatory for all 1.1.4.6 Summary of employee profile sales staff), In summary, employees have the following profile: basic functional skills training (mandatory for all fifty six per cent female, staff), twenty seven per cent aged over 55 (only 2 courses to meet individual needs (optional) employees are under 25), agreed between the individual and their line mixed educational levels, depending mainly on age, manager, twenty per cent have over twenty years service, development courses (selected at appraisal time while twelve per cent have 2 years or less, in conjunction with line manager). less than ten per cent are part-time workers, absenteeism and turnover are low at under 5%, Training will, increasingly, be identified jointly by the wages are standard for the sector Year 4 sales line manager and the staff member concerned, with staff, the lowest grade currently in the store, earnstaff being encouraged to assess their own per- IRE 154.88 per week for a 37.5 hr. week, formance, to draw up career plans and to develop wages are supplemented by commission of 1.25 to their full potential. As stated above, Clery's have per cent of sales. identified the development of existing staff, many of long years service, as a key element in ensuring the 1.2 Training policy future competitiveness of the store. 1.2.1 Training strategy 1.2.2 Training structure 1.2.1.1 Aims of the company 1.2.2.1 Responsibilty for CVE The following are the agreed aims in relation to Up until two and a half years ago there was no staff training and development in the store: training department in Clery's and no formalized Identify the broad training needs for the majortraining system. Following the appointment of a groups of staff. new personnel/training manager with many year's Draw up a three to five year training plan based experience in both the industrial and services sec- on this identification of training needs. tor, this has now changed. Supported by senior Identify appropriate training programmes tomanagement a concerted drive to foster and meet these needs. encourage training has begun. The training man- Outline training methodologies for these pro- ager is a member of the senior management team. grammes. She has no staff in the training section of her depart- Examine resources (both external and within thement. She is also responsible for personnel and company) to mount training programmes suited industrial relations in the store. to on-going requirements. Examine management training needs across the 1.2.2.2 Identification of training needs organization. and evaluation of training Recommend a method to manage long term The training manager identifies broad areas of potential. training need through annual interviews with all the aj store's buyers who advise on the training and devel- 1.2.5 Description of major programmes opment needs of sales staff. This process has identified an urgent need for product knowledge training 1.2.5.1 Induction training as well as a range of other individual training needs. Induction training programmes are run in-house for During these interviews staff problems are also all new staff a half day in length with follow up ses- raised and tailor-made programmes, plus coun- sions with the training manager. Induction training is selling if required, is arranged to solve specific provided for all temporary employees (recruited problems. around the Christmas period). With no recruitment of permanent employees into the store at the pre- In 1991 performance appraisal was introduced for sent time induction training is currently not a priority. all staff down to departmental manager leveliden- The priority is for updating the skills of existing lying individual training needs and reviewing employees, many of long years standing. training undertakenisa key element of the appraisal. 1.2.5.2 Continuing training - general staff Evaluation of training is qu- litative, based on anAs stated above, continuing training of staff, assessment of whether or not performance has im- many with long years of service, is the key train- proved following training. While the training man- ing priority in Clery's. Over the last two years ager accepts that more formal evaluation would be the major training programmes for staff have cov- desirable, the view has been taken that form filling ered: etc. should be kept to a minimum while positive atti- sales training, tudes to training are being developed among staff. training on new equipment, No formal cost-benefit analysis of training is under- customer relations training, taken. supervisory training.

However, external training programmes under- Training needs are mainly met in-house using exter- taken by individual staff members are formally nal consultants, complemented by attendance at assessed with all participants being asked to fill in a external programmes. Appendix 1 gives a listing of form evaluating the course taken, its relevance, suit- the main training programmes undertaken in the ability etc. last two years.This shows the wide range of training being undertaken in Clery's. Investment in training is seen as a long term investment in staff, the benefits of which must be assessed Efforts are made to vary programmes and to offer in relation to its long term effect on competitiveness training that will have immediate appeal and be fun and company profitability. to learn. For example grooming for sales staff, demonstrating new computer games, fire fighting 1.2.2.3 Training budget for all staff, security seminars, etc.'Core'training pro- The training manager has a training budget of grammes for which there is an ongoing need cover £35,000 split approximately 50/50 between sales topics such as register procedures, product knowl- and non-sales staff. All of this budget is currently edge, customer service, buyer familiarization, etc. being spent on continuing training as no new staff are being recruited. This represents 0.7% of payroll A tradition of training is becoming embedded in the costs. store. Attitudes have already begun to change with staff asking "why am I not on a particular pro- 1.2.3 Impact of new technology gramme?" instead of, "Why am I being picked out New technology, particularly at the point of sale, isfor training?" regularly being introduced into the store. This technology is considered to have improved the quality As well as formal training programmes staff are of salespersons' jobs, to have enhanced their skill encouraged to participate in external educational levels and to have improved the environment within courses. A small number of staff are currently pursu- which they work. Further investment in the most up- ing such courses. to-date cash registers is planned particularly EPOS and there will be an on-going requirement 1.2.5.3 Continuing training managers for training in this area. Over the years the introduc-Two initiatives have been introduced over the last tion of such technology has contributed towards the two years aimed at improving management skills lower level of staff required in the store. and at ensuring on in-house supply of new management material. 1.2.4 Participation of social partners A number of unions represent staff in Clery's. Both These are: SIPTU (Services, Industrial and Professional Techni- A two year programme of workshops for depart- cal Union) and I DATU (Irish Distributive and Admin- mental managers aimed at improving their lead- istrative Trade Union) represent sales, clerical and ership, communication and staff management display staff, while another branch of SIPTU repre- skills and at increasing their flexibility and mobility. sents porters etc. Craft unions represent the small A two year staff development programme for number of craft workers employed in the store. selected staff to prepare them for management There are no formal agreements to cover the train- positions (this programme is discussed in detail ing area. Formal agreements deal only with pay below) and to encourage mobility across different 34 and conditions. departments.

3 4 1.2.5.4 Example of a major training Staff attitudes to training are changing. In the past a initiative in Clery's: The staff develop- fear of change resulted in some staff being suspi- ment programme cious of training and development. Efforts are This programme is aimed at developing future being made to create a culture where staff are not in-store managers from existing general staff. afraid to try new things and are not penalized for A comprehensive selection systemisused onfailure. All staff are encouraged to take part in this programme with staff members applying andtraining and external educational courses. As a being selected through a series of interviews. Five result attitudes are changing with more staff coming people, three men and two women, were chosen for forward each year to avail of training. A gradual the first programme in 1990. This programme will long term process of change and development is run for two and half to three years. taking place in Clery's.

The programme takes the following approach: Unions are supportive of management's efforts to 2-3 internal placements in the store (six month increase the amount and type of training available placements in a management position in different to staff.There are no areas of substantive disagree- departments). Placements are agreed between ment between management and staff in relation to the participant and the training manager. training matters. Attendance at external courses (management, marketing, computers etc.) which are agreed with Union representatives believe it would be beneficial the training manager. for management to present a long term training Appointment of a mentor for each participant to plan to staff in Clery's. They consider that this would guide them throughout the programme. assure staff of management's commitment to the Regular meetings with the training manager tolong term development of the store's employees. discuss progress Clery's bearing the full cost of the programme. 1.3.3 By the author Clery's represents a department store going The benefits of the programme, now in its second year, through a process of significant change in order to are seen by the participants to be in areas such as; cope with the more competitive environment of broadening experience, the 1990's. improving motivation, Retraining and developing existing staff is a key raising confidence, element in the store's strategy for greater com- preparing for promotion. petitiveness. The long years of service of many staff presents a While promotion is not guaranteed following the major challenge to trainers. Such staff must be programme, both management and participants encouraged to avail of training in a non-threat- are confident that participants will achieve promo- ening environment. Managing change is a key tion over the next couple of years. training need. The new training department in Clery's has initi- Other direct benefits of the programme, its per- ated a major training programme for the store. ceived success has enhanced the status of training Particular attention is being paid to broadening within the store. A greater number of staff are now staff's skills and experience and to developing keen to participate in similar programmes. selected staff for promotion. Attitudes towards training have become more 1.3 Evaluation positive in Clery's as more training has been made available to staff in recent years and as manage- 1.3.1 By the firm ment commitment to training has been clearly FAS,theNational Trainingand Employment demonstrated. As a result, staff have become bet- Authority, has provided a significant amount of ter motivated and confident and are keen to training for Clery's staff. This training has been develop their own skills through training. viewed very favourably by both management and For the future, both line managers and staff are staff. However, one of the major problems facing being encouraged to take greater responsibility Clery's'training manager is the limited availability of for their own development and that of their training material and/or programmes in Ireland staff. specifically for people employed in the retail sector. The presence of concession stores within Clery's Certification of retail skills training is not generally has had a positive effect. It has attracted more available. More formalized training for all levels of young people to shop in the store and has in- entrants to the retail sector is considered desirable. creased staff awareness of business imperatives. Suitable external management courses of a general nature are considered to be available when 1.4 Conclusion required. Clery & Co. is a store going through a process of considerable change to meet the more competi- 1.3.2 By employees and their tive environment of the 1990's. The store is com representatives mitted to improving quality and customer service The new senior management team in Clery's has a and to developing a more 'up market' image. This very positive attitude towards staff training and strategy has brought skills and training to the development. For them, investing in training is an forefront of the store's agenda over the next five integral part of a long term strategy for competi- years. Staff development is now perceived as vital tiveness and greater efficiency in the store. for the Future success of the store.

*.A While much progress has been made to regener- Key skill needs for staff in the retail sector as evi- ate the store, a number of further developments denced in Clery's are product knowledge, new are required. Line managers rnd individual technology, and customer relations. These skills staff must become more responsible 1.)r their are constantly changing and therefore create an own development. More individually-based ongoing training need. approaches to the identification of training needs There are currently no formal systems in place for must be developed.These changes would result in identifying general staff training needs, nor for less direction from the training department and evaluating training at any level. Stores like Clery's more from individual line managers. The man- require assistance in developing these systems if agement in Clery's is aware of these requirements they are to maximize their returns on training and is moving in this direction. investment. Currently the training department in Clery's has The unions currently have no formal role in staff very limited resources in terms of both human training. There appears to be little perceived need resources and back up training material. To for change in this area. Nevertheless the creation develop Clery's staff development programmes it of an agreed long term training plan for all staff will be necessary to increase such resources - would appear beneficial in developing the posi- either in-store orthrough increasing availability of tive attitude and commitment to staff training traning supports from the external education and which is required to prosper in the competitive training system. environment of the 1990's. The current lack of any integrated back-up training support for retail stores in Ireland increases the difficulty stores like Clery's face in developing their training programmes. Such back-up support is urgently required.

36 36 APPENDIX 1

Listing of main training programmes undertaken in Clery's in 1990 and 1991

1990 1991 Quality customer service (all sales staff) Women in business Safe manual handling (Porter etc.) Management skills (departmental managers) Keyboard skills (office staff) Telephone skills Security seminars Counselling Skills (store's nurse) Buyer familiarization Legislative changes Lift release course Business ethics Driving skills Consumer legislation First aid Supervisory management Fraud prevention Grooming Planning for retirement Training for the store's creche Managing people effectively

37 2. ESB (Electricity Supply Board)

2.1 General description of the firm private sector retailers.The first is that ESB shops are also locations where customers can pay their elec- 2.1.1 Major facts about ESB tricity bills which are charged every two months. The Electricity Supply Board (ESB)isIreland's Approximately forty per cent of customers pay their national electricity generating and distribution bill in person at ESB shops. All shops have facilities company. It was establishcin 1927 and is a state- for customers to pay their electricity account. In owned monopoly. It is one of Ireland's largest com-many of the larger towns there is a considerable panies employing 9 733 people. ESB operatesnumber of potential purchasers of electrical appli- twenty two power stations and uses a number of ances passing through the ESP 'hop which could sources to generate electricity including hydro- give ESB an advantage over its rivals in the sale of electricity, coal, gas, oil and peat. The company is such appliances. In addition, however, there are also conducting experiments with the generation of 25 30 small shops throughout the country which electricity by harnessing wind power. are not viable in terms of appliance sales and exist as a service to the local community. In 1990 ESB had a turnover of IRL 800 million and generated a surplus of IRL million.The buoyancy The second special feature is that ESB is able to in the Irish economy in 1990 v.-'s reflected in the allow customers to spread the purchase of an elec- demand for electricity that increased by 5.4 per cent trical appliance on their electricity bill. Customers compared with 5.2 per cent in 1989. Growth inhave on option of paying for the item in cash or demand is welcome in most industries and no less so spreading it over a number of months or years. in ESB where it brings increased revenue and posi- Many of the items on special offer in ESB shops are tive company morale. Excessive growth, however, advertised with the bill received by each customer. has a down-side for ESB in that major new borrow- Because of +heir central computerized billing sys- ings become necessary to finance the construction tem, ESB shops are able to evaluate whether a cus- of new facilities. tomer is credit worthy.

ESB has recently diversified into a number of ancil- Under pressure from the private sector electric appli- lary areas including overseas consultancy work with ance retailers the government has sought to restrict particular regard to the development and opera- the facility whereby ESB could allow customers to pay tion of electricity generating stations, fish rearing for items bought over their electricity bill. However, a and farming and the sale of electrical appliances. hostile public response quickly caused the govern- ESB has been involved in the so:9 of electrical appli- ment to back down. ESB has consistently pointed out ances since it was established. Originally it was the that for many high value items such as television sets only source for such appliances. Since then ESB has the ESB method of billing i.e. using the electricity bill, been a market leader setting standards and pro- is less expensive to customers than using a private moting efficiency. Itis the continuing vocational sector television rental company. As such, the the ESB education in this ESB retail shops that will be the argues that their billing method actually favours the focus of this case study. lower paid sections of the community who might otherwise have to pay more for electrical goods. ESB operates some 105 retail outlets which sell electrical appliances including both white goods (cook-Virtually all of the major retailers of electrical appli- ers, refrigerators, freezers, etc.) and, increasingly in ances in Ireland are Irish-owned. The growth in the recent years, brown goods (televisions, video-play- Irish electrical appliance market has attracted the ers, hi-fi equipment, etc.). As a further development interest of a number of overseas companies. the brown goods area ESB has recently started to To-date, however, this interest has not materialized sell home computers and is the first electrical appli- into actual presence in the market. It is known that ance retailer to market these products. large UK discounting operations such as Currys and Dixons could enter the Irish market starting with a The market of electrical appliances has been one offlag-ship store in Dublin and then branch out to the growth sectors in the Irish retail industry. One ofother cities. Such a strategy has already been the main reasons has been the reduction of Value adopted in the Irish music record and cassette mar- Added Tax (VAT) on electrical appliances from aket by new entrants from the UK. high rate of 35 per cent in the early 1980s to just 21 per cent presently. 2.1.2 Business strategy ESB is headed by a twelve member board, some of Competition is intensive within the electrical appli-whom are appointed by the government and some ance sector and the sector is dominated by a small of whom are elected directly by the staff of ESB. number of large companies. ESB is the largest elec-The chief executive of ESB who is also a board trical appliance retailer in the country and is fol- member has seven functional directors reporting to lowed by three privately owned companies all of him:personnel,generatingandtransmission whom are Dublin- based. The market share held by operations, new business investment, finance, cor- other outlets is considered small. There is consider- porate services, customer operations and company able friction between the private sector retailers secretary. of electrical appliances who believe that ESB is abusing its monopoly position. The board of ESB is responsible for deciding the strategic direction of the organization and the There are a number of special features which make implementation of strategy is the responsibility of ESB electrical appliance outlets different from the the chief executive and his functional directors. 39

38 The ESB board has recently submitted a strategic six regions. There are 62 full-time sales staff. There document to the Minister for Energy who has statu- are approximately full time 200 area clerical offic- tory responsibility for ESB. The document, entitled ers who combine cash collection, handling customer "Connecting With The Future" describes the strategic queries and sales as part of their normal duties. The direction ESB will follow at least until the year 2000.1t area clerical officers are mainly found in the smaller is primarily concerned with promoting maximum effi- shops. ciency in the generation, transmission, distribution and usage of electricity to limit growth in demand to 2.1.4.2 Employment statistics the level which is necessary to support national, eco- Of the 62 full-time sales staff, 23 are male and 39 nomic and social development. The guiding strategy are female. The age distribution of the full-time is known as Demand Side Management and its sales staff is as follows: objective is to achieve an annual growth in electricity demand of around 3 per cent. If this can be achieved over the long term the benefits to the country will be Age category very substantial both in protecting the environment, in curtailing borrowing to build new plants and in 20 29 4 maintaining electricity prices at levels which are com- 30 - 39 21 petitive in the European Community. 40 49 17 50 - 69 16 2.1.3 Structure of the firm 60 + 4 ESB is divided into six operating regions each of which is under the control of a regional manager. Source: internal ESB records The regional managers in each of the six regions report to the director of customer operations. HeadWhile no statistics are available for the electrical office provides support services to the regi ns andappliance retail trade as a whole, it is believed that liaises with regional staff in the preparation of pol- employees in the private sector firms are more tran- icy and in the establishment of targets. One of those sient whereas staff turnover in ESB retail shops is low. reporting to the regional manager is a marketing The management of ESB understand that employ- manager who has a number of responsibilities ees in ESB shops are paid a higher basic salary than including energy marketing, sales of electricity totheir counterparts in the private sector. industrial, commercial and domestic users, and the operation of the retail shops.Table 1 provides infor- 2.1.4.3 Gender mation on the six regions and table 2 illustrates theAs noted above, females account for a majority of typical structure of ESB in each region. the full-time sales positions. Thirty nine of the sixty two of full-time sales staff in ESB retail shops are In each region the marketing manager has an ap- female. In addition, approximately 75 per cent of pliance sales controller reporting to him who is also the area clerical officers are female. responsible for the sales function in the shops. All shop staff(full -time, part-time and relief staff)The implementation of equality of opportunity for whose sole responsibility is selling report to thewomen throughout ESB continues to be a manage- appliance sales controller. ment priority. ESB has had a formal policy of equal opportunity for several years, and in 1985 ESB was The larger shops normally have sales staff who deal amongst the first of the major businesses in Ireland exclusively with appliance selling. In addition thereto appoint its own Equal Opportunity Officer. In are clerical assistants who deal with payment of 1990 the management of ESB invited Dr. Mary electricity accounts, telephone queries, customer Redmond, an authority on labour law and equal enquir es and provide backup to the sales profes- opportunity, to chair a review group of young men sionals and the areas supervisors. and women within ESB to examine and report on the present reality of equal opportunity for women In the smaller shops sales and cash handling is car- in the organization. The review group consulted ried out by area clerical officers who rotate the cash extensively with staff, unions and management and handling and appliance sales functions.All the cleri- submitted a comprehensive report and recommen- cal officers report to the accounting manager. dations. ESB has accepted all of the group's recom- mendations and is implementing them. Within the regional-based structure of the retail shops, the head office departments provide ser- 2.1.4.4 Part-time employment vices such as centralized buying, promotions, stock In addition to the sixty two full-time sales staff there control and distribution. Continuing vocational are approximately 100 part-time sales staff who education services to ESB retail shops are provided cover busy periods such as weekends and provide by two head office sources, the training and devel-holiday relief. opment department and the training unit within the marketing department. 2.1.4.5 Recruitment It is important to note that the majority of the person 2.1.4 Human resources nel who work in the retail shops entered ESB as clerical officers i.e. ESB did not recruit people with sales 2.1.4.1 Employment or marketing backgrounds directly for the shops. Within ESB retail shops there are 15 people in head- While in recent years the in-take of clerical assis- 40 quarters and an area sales controller in each of the tants has declined the average qualification of new 39 recruits has increased with a number having third Learning Centres in informal sales training program- level qualifications. In the past the most common mes for staff members. qualification for a clerical officer was to have completed the Leaving Certificate. The Learning Centres have only been on trial for five months but the resu s available to-date show a very Within ESB retail shops the most common career high level of usage. If successful, ESB plans to extend path is for clerical officers to apply fora cashier posi-the number of such Learning Centres in order that tion within the shops. Then if the clerical officerno employee will be more than a twenty minute shows aptitude for dealing with the public and drive away. The Learning Centres are seen as a way wants to progress as a salesperson, he or she is by which ESB can cope with the anticipated demand given a trial period on the sales floor. Should the for training courses as articulated in both the busi- area sales controller find the clerical officer satisfac-ness plans and in the individual training needs tory during this probation period, that person analysis. The Learning Centres also have a number would be promoted to salesperson. In time he or she of computer-based training (CBT) programmes.The could be promoted to senior salesperson, though training unit within the marketing department is this latter position is only found in the large shops.aware of the potential for CBT. An analysis of the The senior salesperson, where the post exists,gener-CBT continuing vocational education packages on ally acts as store manager but this is not reflected in the market has identified a number of potentially their job title.The position above senior salesperson useful sales and marketing and general electrical is the area sales controller. However, the personnel safety programmes which could be used bythe staff in the shops may also have come not from the cleri-in the retail shops. Consideration I lud been given to cal officer grades but fi om technical positions within disseminating such CBT courses through the com- the company. A number of the salespersons work-puter system installed in the larger sl lops. However, ing in the retail shops at present started off theirit appears that the existing computer system is not career in ESB as trainee electricians. capable of transmitting CBT material though future enhancements and up-grading of the system will It is also possible for a staff member of ESB appliance allow for such transmission. Once CBT is available in shops to apply for another position throughout ESB the shops the training unit in the marketing depart- such as in one of the electricity generating stations or ment intends using the system to provide product in ESB's international consultancy subsidiary. knowledge courses which the staff members can access during slack moments. 2.2 Training policy ESB believes that work experience and training pro- 2.2.1 Training strategy grammes are important for the development of ESB makes substantial investments in the develop-staff. It also believes in the importance of education ment of staff so that employee's talents and skills support especially when it takes full account of the may be used to the best advantage of the personcareer development plans of staff as well as ESB and the company in the interests of better service business needs. ESB has introduced the Education for the customer. In 1990 ESB as an organization Support programme which applies to all members spent IRL 12 million on staff training and develop-of the organization, irrespective of category. The ment. As well as providing for all of the ongoing programme reflects the dual involvement of the indi- trailing needs of a complex nationwide hillinessvidual and the company in the learning process. ESB is now putting in place new arrangements to shc pen the focus of staff development and to The Education Support programme allows mem- lake it available to the entire workforce. bers of ESB to attend a course or study for an approved qualification. The programme specifies As one of these new arrangements, ESB is piloting a that the course must be relevant both to ESB and the number of Learning Centres with the intention that individual's personal development and further- these centres would have available a wide range of more that the course must be done on a part-time training material to which staff members could have basis and be examined by an approved institution. access. These centres are a new departure for ESB Where an individual is approved under the Educa- and they are open during both business hours and tion Support programme ESB will provide advance after hours. One of the locations chosen for the pilot of fees, refund of course fees on successful comple- programme, a power station in the middle of thetion of examinations and examination leave with country, was selected because of the absence of a pay. vocational training college nearby. There are three such Learning Centres being piloted at present. Under the Education Support programme the staff Staff members of ESB will be free to borrow courses in ESB retail shops could, for example, study for a in a wide range of media such as video, audio-professional marketing degree from the Marketing visual and manuals in an equally wide range of sub-Institute of Ireland or undertake an open learning ject areas from welding to planning for retirement.course. The training and development department Each Learning Centre has a wide range ofmar-has urged all managers in ESB to interpret the guide- keting and sales training material which could be lines for the Education Support programme liberally. used by the staff in the retail shops though it shouldThe department wanted to ensure thatifan be emphasised that the material is general in nature employee had been out of education for some time and does not specifically relate to the retailing of and that even if they only wanted to attend a night electrical appliances. However, it is anticipated that class related to their hobby and by implication not the area sales controllers will use the material in the of direct benefit to ESB- that they would be sup- 41

4 CI r

ported by the programme. In this way the trainingretail shops, are provided by the marketing depart- and development department reasoned,the ment. individual's interest in learning would be stimulated and perhaps he or she would be then be encoura-The marketing department is divided into five divi- ged to undertake a more advanced, work-related sions, one of which is the demand management divi- course. sion (see table 3). This in turn is divie. 1 into a number of units including communications, newsletter/ 2.2.2 Training structure media and training.The training unit comprises one The training function within ESB has undergone fun-trainer and a clerical assistant and has responsibility damental change since 1990; previously the train-for providing training to the marketing function and ing function was scattered throughout the differ-to ESB retail shops. It maintains a close relationship ent functional areas. Now, however, following a with the training and development department joint review conducted by ESB and external consult-which has a monitoring role in relation to the ants, the training function has been largely central-courses provided by the former. The training and ized as a single unit in head office in Dublin. There development department review thetraining are a number of exceptions to this where a depart-programmes prepared for the retail shcp's annual ment provides specialized training to its staff and business plan by the marketing department's the training is confined to that department. One training unit; the purpose of this review ensure such area which affects this case study is the provi-that the policies and programmes deve; sped by sion of sales and marketing training to ESB retail the unit are consistent with overall ESB training shops. This continues to be the responsibility of the objectives. marketing department though all other training is provided by the training and development depart-As a general rule training needs analysis within ESB ment. The reason that a number of training centres is undertaken by the staff member's immediate were excluded from the central training function, superior.The process is informal, though the training now re-named the training and developmentand development department are working on a department, was that departments which required pilot programme to make it more formalized. specialized training should retain their own specialist training units. The programme is in fact being piloted in the training and development departmentitselfand The decision to centralize training within ESB will be involves managers preparing individual training reviewed in 1993, when an analysis of the function-and development plans for each person in the ing of the training and development department department.The process asks staff members to high- will take place. A decision will also be taken on thelight oeeas of weaknesses that could be overcome continued separate existence of the specialist train-by training. ing units which have, up to now, remained outside the training and development department. The training and development department recognizes the need to extend formal individual training The training and development departmentis needs assessment throughout the organization and divided into three divisions; the first deals with believes that employees will respond positively as technical training in the power generating stations; the process will concentrate on their individual train- the second oversees general training in the organi-ing needs rather than the needs of the position they zation; and the third division is responsible foroccupy. However, the department recognizes that strategy and design. The total staff in the training this process will be administratively very difficult to and development department numbers 120 of implement. It is also worried that the process will per- whom eighty are in the technical division, thirtyhaps raise employees'expectations with the danger in the general training division and ten in the strat-that these cannot be fulfilled. egy and design division. The head of the department reports to the personnel director of ESB; the ESB operates a five year business plan which is other two main departments in the personnel prepared by each business unit and rolled over directorate are employee services and employeeeach year. For the first time the training has been relations. included in the 1992 business plan prepared in 1991. In the preparation of the 1992 business plan, The division which looks after all non-technical train-managers were asked to identify and to prioritize ing in ESB, the development division, is divided intothe training needs of each business unit to achieve four areas; general training, which includes all cour-the goals identified in the plan. In relation to the ses for management, supervisory and other grades; training needs of the retail shops it would be the information training, which deals with all non-spe-responsibility of the marketing manager in each cialized computer training; the development unit,region to specify the type and amount of training which looks at future training programmes; and the required by staff.The analysis of training in the retail overseas training unit, which looks after the training shops within the region is considered very much at course needs of ESB's international consultancy sub-the macro level but in some cases it is done at the sidiary, ESB International. micro level. In assessing the training needs of the business plan for the shops, the marketing manager The general training section provides a number of would normally consult with the area sales control- courses to ESB retail shops. However, the majority of ler. The training manager is only asked to consider continuing vocational education courses especially the needs of the retail shops in terms of on-going 42 those related to sales and marketing given to theoperational training progrc.nmes: induction pro- 41 grammes would not, for example, be considered in It should be pointed out that the Participation Coun- the business plan. cils are primarily intended for staff/management communication. Industrial relations matters are han- 2.2.3 Impact of new technologies dled by ESB Joint Industrial Council on which both The ESB retail shops have embarked on a majormanagement and employee representatives am computerization programme. To date only therepresented. ESB recognizing the crucial roleit larger shops have been computerized but in time. all plays in the provision of electricity to the economy shops will be electronically linked. Staff in the larger has developed elaborate structures and mechan- shops have received training in computer basics isms to ensure that disputes within the organization and in key board skills. Training has been provideddo not result in power cuts to customers. also on important application programmes such as electronic billing and verification of customer 2.2.5 Description of molar programmes credit. Given the orientation of ESB retail shops and their direct contact with customers, the type of continuing The product mix available within the ESB shops isvocational education provided to the staff differs changing with a greater emphasis on brown goods considerably from other sections of ESB where the (hi-fi, televisions, computers, etc.) compared to staff are more technically-oriented with less external contact. white goods traditionally associated with ESB retail shops. The changing product mix has implications Training in marketing and sales techniques and skills for the product knowledge of the sales staff in the form a major part of the overall continuingvoca- retail shops as it requires them to become familiartional education programme. Management and with new products and new technologies. Forexam-supervisory training is also an important and inte- ple, ESB shops now sell personal computersESB gral element of the programme. were the first major electrical appliance retailer in Ireland to d3 so. However, the staff in the retail Marketing and sales training is open to all staff in shops had no previous experience of sellingthe 105 ESB retail stores including part-time and computers and product knowledge training cour-clerical employees as well as full-time salesperson- ses had to be devised to provide this to sales per-nel. All of the training in this area is the responsibility sonnel. of the marketing department who either provide the training directly or hire external training organi- 2.2.4 Participation of social partners zations. ESB has institutionalized a mechanism whereby the social partners can meet together to discuss matters Training in sales and marketing can be divided into of common concern.This mechanism is known in ESB two parts: product knowledge and skills and tech- as Participation Councils and are held in each major niques. With regard to the former, formal courses in centre within the organization. For example, there product knowledge are held every twelve to eight- would typically be a Participation Council in each of een months in all the regions. These courses are the main electricity generation stations but in the developed and managed internally within ESB and retail shops there is generally one Participation generally cover all products. It is the responsibility of Council for the region as the shops are too small to the area sales controller in each of the six regions to warrant a separate council. ensure that the staff in the shops are kept up-to- date in terms of their product knowledge. The Con- The main issues discussed at the Participation Coun- troller will liaise with the staff on a regular basis and cils are general matters affecting staff and these should there be a requirement fora particular prod- take place once a month. In theory it is possible that uct knowledge course, the request will be chan- queries relating to training in ESB could be raised at nelled up the marketing department in head office. a Participation Council meeting by a staff member ESB has a number of specialist advisers, called and the general procedure would be for localman-energy sales officers, who provide advice and infor- agement to relay the information to the training and mation to both residential and commercialusers. development department to follow up. However, inThese advisers may be called upon to provide the practice, there have been few discussions oncon-retail staff with technical informationon new prod- tinuing vocational education at Participation Coun-ucts in their fields of expertise. A number of the cil meetings at the work-place level. energy salesofficershave trainedas home economists and are specialists in home appliances. Training issues are, however, raised at the National As such, they can be invaluable in ensuring that Participating Council meeting which is held oncea sales staff are kept informed of product changes. year over three days.The training and development Additionally, suppliers may be requested topro- department presented a paper on itsnew Education vide modules on these courses relating to their Support programme. brands.

The training and development departmentuses its The majority of product knowledgecourses held in own Participation Council to communicate changes the regions are run over three days and involve in policy direction to staff. Because of the recent inputs from ESB staff and external suppliers. From re-organization of the department there has beenthe point of view of the management of the retail some uneasiness among the trainers since their role shops, one of the most successful features of this has fundamentally chap .G.2.-2 from being purely train-course is the preparation and presentation of a pro- ers to facilitators of the training process. ject by the course participants either by individuals 43

A4440 or, more frequently, by a group.The ten minute pres- In addition, ESB has been involved with a distance entation centres on a particular product sold in the learning course in sales for the past twenty years or shops such as colour televisions or computers. Notmore. The course, sales training, is of sixmonths only does this aid in learning product knowledgeduration and runs from September of each year but participants also gain confidence in their own with examinations being held in the following May. ability to make presentations. The level of presenta-Virtually all the full-time sales staff have undertaken tions at these product knowledge courses is consis-this course and it has proved a popular choice tently high. throughout ESB organization even for staff who do not work in the retail shops.The course was develop- Informal product knowledge courses are also ed originally in the UK by the Electricity Council who arranged for staff. These take the form of eveninghave prepared a series of six booklets in a loose- sessions whereby a supplier willIt-range for a leaf format. Subjects covered by the course include: demonstrator to come in and give the staff an over- preparing to sell, the sales plan, appliance selling, view of the company's range of products. Such professionalsellingand gettingstarted.ESB sessions happen on an ad-hoc basis and are gen-arranges tutorials for staff undertaking this course erally arranged on a store-to-store basis. The which involve role-playing exercises which allow the staff are not paid for their attendance at these infor-participants to put the theory into practice within the mal product knowledge sessions, though it is custom- context of ESB selling environment. These tutorials ary for the supplier to provide a meal andrefresh-take place during the normal working day and they ments. often necessitate the retail shops having to take on relief staff to cover personnel attending tutorials. A recent example of this method of informal train-Each region will generally organize a one or two ing in product knowledge is the fact that some of the day product knowledge session as part of the partic- larger retail shops have recently diversified into sell-ipants' examination preparation. ing personal computers. The staff in these stores have attended a product knowledge course devel-Participants on this course have to undertake a oped by the hardware supplier. However, the prod-three hour written examination, usually held in May, uct knowledge session was less than satisfactoryand followed by an oral examination which takes because it was the first time that the supplier had the form of a sales interview. Successful candidates marketed computers through a etaii outlet whichare awarded a certificate at a formal ceremony was not a specialized computer ;upplier. The suppli-organized by the company. ESB has designed and er's instructors were used to dealing with the staff printed its own certificates and the presentation of customers who had some pravious experience ceremony is generally attended by a director of the of selling computers, whereas in the case of ESBorganization. A diploma is also available and is retail shops the staff had none. Both ESB and the awarded to those who have firstly completed the supplier recognize that this problem will have to be certificate course and, secondly, completed twelve rectified in the next product knowledge training months full-time experience in appliance sales. session. However, ESB is in the process of replacing the Elec- Other informal methods of product knowledge tricity Council sales course with a newer course training include arranging visits by the suppliers' rep-developed by one of the newly privatized electricity resentatives to particular stores to answer questions generation and distribution companies in the UK. relating to their products. Called the effective selling and customer service course, it is also an open learning programme. ESB The staff in the retail shops are unanimous in their has received permission to make adaptations to the support for product knowledge courses and believe course to make it relevant to the Irish situation. that the management could do more in this area. They point out that the purchase of many electricalThe effective selling and customer service course appliances sold in the shops represent a major finan-consists of three self-learning modules in the form cial commitment to a large section of the population. of workbooks, tutor marked assignments, tutorial Customers, therefore, will do a lot of shopping group meetings, on the job practice, assessments around before they make up their mind. For this rea- and written examinations. Topics covered by the son the staff say it is important that they have confi-course include serving the customer, identifying cus- dence in their product knowledge and this confi-tomer needs, product presentation, closing the sale dence is communicated to the customer. It is a truism and after-sale techniques. This course is replacing amongst the staff in ESB shops that customers come the previous course programme because of its into the shop on a Saturday to investigate and will greater emphasis on sales techniques and its use of return to the shop on Monday to purchase the item more up-to-date materials and role-playing situa- having considered the matter over the weekend. tions. The staff know that if they can demonstrate their product knowledge to the customer in a profes-Training is also provided to staff in the larger retail sional way their chances of persuading that cus-stores in sales documentation and procedures. tomer to buy from ESB are increased. Since three-quarters of ESB retail shops are computerized, training in computer procedures and key- With regard to sales and marketing skills, ESB pro-boarding skills for staff is essential. vides a formal two day course in selling skills. The course is held off the job and covers such topics as ESP also arranges informal training in sales and 44 the role of selling and objection handling. mark6ting for its staff. For example, new recruits are 43 sent to the larger retail stores to work along sidestanding of their requirements before advising experienced sales staff. them on the merits of a particular product. 2. For some time now, the management of ESB retail In terms of future training requirements some senior shops have been concerned about the quality of the members of ESB retail shops would like to seea display of products in the shop windows. It wasgreater emphasis on training in the legislative apparent that staff did not have the capability to aspects of marketing, particularly in the area of cus- merchandise the products to a consistently high tomer rights and product liability. They believe the standard.The problem was that there was a lack of customer protection area will change fundamen- expertise within ESB in this area and there was no tally and it is important that they be aware ofex- external source in Ireland who could provide train-isting and impending legislation. ing in the merchandising of electrical appliances with particular emphasis on window displays. In terms of number of training man-days provided by the marketing department who have responsibility for The training unit within the marketing department formal sales and marketing courses, it is estimated that sourced a shop display training course provided by in 1990 a total of 1,210 training man-days werepro- the Norweb Electricity organization in England vided to the staff in ESB shops. Of this total, 825were based in Manchester. The course was specifically accounted for by female staff members. Information designed for the display of electrical appliances but on expenditure on training as a percentage of the total was spread over five days. It was not possible forwage bill of ESB retail shops was not available. ESB to commit their staff for such a period of time since an additional two days would be lost trav-Formal product knowledge courses provided by the elling to Manchester; a compromise was reached marketing department accounted for an additional with the Norweb Electricity organization tocom-2 days per employee per year and suppliers contrib- press the course into a three day course. uted a further 2 evening sessions per employeeper year. A number of staff from the retail shops in the Dublin region attended the course in early 1991 and aThe foregoing covered continuing vocational educa- second group went later in the year. Despite the tional programmes which are specific to the staff in the shortened course both staff and management ofretail shops. However, there are a number of interest- ESB retail shops were pleased with the coursecon-ing training programmes which have been developed tent. Both groups of staff who participated on this for the whole of ESB and in which staff in the retail course have stayed together as a display group.The shops can participate. The most relevant of these members of both groups meet one evening a month organization-wide courses are described below. to help arrange the display in a particular store in the Dublin region. It has been found necessary forThe majority of ESB's clerical officers are female and the group to work as a team because of the heavy the organization, recognizing very few of its senior electrical items which have to be moved. Thegroup and middle management teamare women, has members give their time voluntary in carrying out taken a number of actions to redress the balance. this work. Management believe there has beenaThey have appointe-' an Equality Officer ESB isone considerable improvement in the quality of the shop of the very few organizations in Ireland to doso. ESB displays in the Dublin region. There are plans tohas also developed a career developmentpro- send similar groups from other regions to Man-gramme specifically for female employees. chester to attend this course. The career development programme is intended to The majority of the continuing vocational education assist women in identifying and develop theirown courses referred to above are directed at full-time abilities, personality characteristics andoccupa- sales staff or the more general category ofarea tional interests so that they can optimize theircareer clericalofficer. The marketing department has,potential within ESB. The programme also aims to however, provided training programmes specific-help women to determine their educational and ally for the area sales controllers whoare the linktraining needs in reaching their career objectives persons between the marketing managers in each and it also assists them in writing theirown personal region and the retail shops. It became apparent to action plans. Finally, the career developmentpro- the marketing managers that there wasa very large gramme provides participants with an opportunity gap in terms of responsibilities between the areato develop some of the skills needed for personal sales controllers and the staff who worked in the effectiveness. As a senior manager in the training shops. In order to address this situation a number of and development department observed, ifa man is senior sales staff have attended an intensive course promoted he immediately starts thinking of his next in marketing principles and practice.This has helped upward career move while woman ina similar posi- to broaden their skills and their personal develop-tion feels that she has to prove herself in thenew ment. post before setting her sights on the next promotion opportunity. The career developmentcourse is From the viewpoint of the staff in ESB retail shops open to female staff members in the retail appli- the courses in sales and marketing are important,ance shops and a number have already partici- given their recognition of the need to presenta pro-pated on the course. fessional attitude to potential customers. Theyare aware of the requirement to make contact with cus-Part of the career development course concentrates tomers as they enter the shop and to get an under-on life-style skills with the aim of helping women to 45 think through their own prioritiesparticularly enquiries. The cashiers handle up to 2 500 custom- whether they are working for a career or just purely ers a day. to provide an income for their family. The course is designed to help women to feel comfortable with The age profile of sale personnel varies quite widely. their career choice. Also included in the course is psy-All the men are full-time and they tend to have over chometric testing which for many participants is an twenty years experience. They are also have come eye-opener as it helps to identify their particular from a wide variety of backgrounds within ESB. Some strengths and weaknesses relative to their working of the male sales staff are close to retirement age. By duties. contrast the female members of the staff are younger and are more likely to work on a part-time basis.They There is a growing demand among female employ-are also more likely to have started in ESB as clerical ees in ESB for the course which is held over three officers and have worked as cashiers. modules, with each module lasting three days. It was jointly developed by the training and development Recruitment to the sales positions within the shop now division and external consultants. tends to be made from the ranks of cashiers since they are dealing with the public on a full-time basis. Another course open to all clerical officers, both Also, the cashiers may have gained some sales expe- male and female, throughout the organization is a rience through occasionally acting as substitutes for personal effectiveness programme which covers the sales staff during holiday periods. If a vacancy such skills as lime management and presentations.occurs in the sales staff in Fleet Sireet, a replacement The programme has the objectives of helping is appointed for a probationary period of twelve participants to clarify their personal goals, to months. A formal assessment takes place after twelve identity the key interpersonal skills they need to months but informal assessments may also take place achieve their goals, to identify, develop and applyduring the probationary period. effective assertion skills and, finally, to help participants to develop competent interpersonal skills.The Fleet Street store has a wide range of both white The personal effectiveness programme is held overand brown goods on display. The store has recently two days and involves role play and group exer-started to market personal computers and printers cises. with a high level of customer interest. Product knowledge is seen by the area sales controller as being a In terms of training input by the training and devel-vital part of training for staff particularly as none of opment department to ESB retail shops, it is esti-the staff in the store had experience of using or sell- mated that virtually all employees in the shops ing computers. Product knowledge refresher courses receive 2/3 days training every year. This includes every six months are considered essential in the all non-marketing and sales courses such as the brown goods area as products are constantly chang- career development and personnel effectiveness ing. White goods such as refrigerators and freezers courses. on the other hand tend to change more slowly and product knowledge refresher courses are only ESB provides a supervisory development pro-required every two to three years. gramme coveringallaspectsofsupervisory management. The programme which is modular inA key `nature of the product knowledge training design was developed internally by ESB. It covers session, is that time is allocated for participants to suchareasascommunications, management,make a presentation either singly or as part of a understanding the role of the supervisor, change group. One of the salespersons in the Fleet Street management, team working and supervisory skills outlet had recently made an excellent presentation both work-related and personal. on televisions for which he was highly commended. The high quality of presentations by staff was par- All supervisors who undertake this programme must ticularly pleasing to management who saw an addi- do a work-related project either on an individual or tional feature of the product knowledge courses as team basis. The purpose of the project is to relate aiding staff in their personal development. course content to the working situation in ESB and to aid the learning process. The level of merchandising of products in the store is rated very highly by management and is a result of 2.3 Closer look at a particular outlet the display training provided by the Norweb Elec- The ESB retail store in Fleet Street in the centre of tricity Organization in Manchester (two of the sales Dublin is the largest of the 105 ESB retail stores. The staff in Fleet Street had attended the course). store has five full-time sales staff and two part-time staff. In addition, there are two people on a job shar- In addition to product knowledge courses, the ma- ing scheme. In terms of staff categories, there is one jority of the sales staff had passed the previous UK senior salesperson, four salespersons and one sales Electricity Council distance lea' ning course on selling assistant (one of the two involved in job sharing), the used by ESB, sales training programme (described remainder being part-time. The area sales controller above), or were in the process of doing the replace- is based in Fleet Street but his responsibility extends to ment course, effective selling and customer service. the whole of the Dublin region. Both management and staff were satisfied with the The store also has 10 clerical officers, all female, level of training provided by the training unit within who work as cashiers dealing with payment of elec-the marketing department and by the training and 46 tricity accounts, telephone queries and customer development departmeri. However, some staff ,4a voiced their opinion that Improvements could be 2.4.3 By the author made in the area of product knowledgecourses in The staff of the ESB retail shops have a wide range of 2.. the brown goods area and, in particular, in personal good quality vocational educational programmes computers. available to them. At one level staff receive training to develop their skills in selling to customers and at The senior sales staff also felt that more attention another level they can receive courses in personal could be placed on providing staff with detailson development which can give them the opportunity to consumer legislation. Sales staff were of the opinion move elsewhere in the organization. The range and that training in consumer rights and legislation scale of both types of training is impressive. would help to clarify customers' legal rights. While assessment of training needs of staff within 2.4 Evaluation ESB retail shops is currently very subjective atpres- ent, management are examining a more formalized 2.4.1 By ESB and systematic method of evaluating training This case study of training in ESB retail shops has needs. taken place against a background of a policymove to centralize training within ESB. One of the excep-A unique aspect of ESB retail shops which sets them tions to this policy has been the training unit within apart from other private sector retailers of electrical the marketing department which continues to bea appliances is that they belong to a much larger public stand-alone unit and which provides the majority of sector organization whose chief function is the gen- courses to the retail shops. A review of the central-eration and distribution of electricity. ESB retail shops ization of training within ESB will take place withincan, therefore, benefit from economies of scale of the next twelve months and a decision will be taken belonging to a much larger parent organizationpar- on the issue of the training unit within the marketing ticularly in relation to the provision of trainingserv- department remaining outside the centralized train-ices. It is unlikely that a smaller organization could ing and development department. afford the range and quality of training services that the ESB parent organization provides to ESB retail Management is generally satisfied with the level ofshops. Certainly, no private sector electrical appli- training provided to staff in the retail shops. There ance retailer in Ireland provides such a high level of are, however, a number of areas that the manage-training to its staff as does ESB. ment of ESB retail shops would like to address themselves to in the future. One such area is the provision If ESB retail shops operated as a stand-aloneopera- of training in shop window displays to staff in shops tion and had to pay for the training services itcur- outside of the Dublin area (to date two courses have rently receives, it would appear to the author thata been arranged for staff in the Dublinarea and a third much greater emphasis would be given to undertak- is due to run this year, again for staff in the Dublin ing cost/benefit analyses of the training program- region). mes used. Another area is the introduction of formalized train-2.5 Transferability ing needs analysis in the shops which hitherto have ESB shops are an interesting organization to study been assessed on an informal basis. It is intended from the point of view of continuing vocational edu- that once the pilot experiment being conducted cation because of the range of courses open to staff presently within the training and development and because of the fact that training is provided by department has been assessed and evaluated, it two different units within ESB. will then be extended to other parts of ESB including the appliance shops. The concept of the Learning Centres is alsoan interesting feature of ESB and it is one which other retail 2.4.2 By employees and their organisations could consider. The Learning Centre representatives concept has already worked successfully in the Staff of ESB retail shops have a high regard for the financial services sector. ESB believes that the Learn- training they receive. They are conscious of the facting Centres will encourage more home study by that training helps them to bemore professional employees and the wide range of courses available particularly in their dealings with customers. They will help employees to satisfy their own personal are also conscious that training can help them to training aspirations. Already supervisors in ESB meet their sales targets and improve their earninghaving been using the material from the Learning potential. They are eager to gainmore productCentres to support their on-the-job training for knowledge given the changing product mix being apprentices. marketed in the shops. The recent introduction of the Education Support Members of the staff of ESB shops themselves have, programme by ESB is also noteworthy. The pro- however, identified the need formore product gramme is likely to encourage ESB employees par- knowledge training, particularly in the brown goods ticularly those who left school early to learna new area and especially in the personal computer area.skill. In time it is thought that these employeescan be They have also identified the need for training inthen encouraged to attend more formal training new legislation particularly customer protection leg-courses provided by the company. islation. These are two areas they would like tosee management addressing in the future in terms ofThe company has plans to introduce on-line CBT continuing vocational education. through its computer network to staff in the retail 47

46 shops in order that during slack periods during theThis is a function of the changing product mix of ESB 2 day they can refresh their selling skills or update their electrical appliance shops. A higher proportion of product knowledge. Existing limitations to ESB's com-more technically sophisticated brown goods are puter system means, however, that it will be some being sold by the shops compared to the more tradi- time before on-line CBT becomes a reality. tional, low technology white goods. Staff responsible for the marketing of such goods have to have their However, it should be pointed out that ESB is primar- product knowledge constantly updated to keep ily in the business of generating and distributing abreast of changing technology. electricity. The appliance shops are only one part of a much larger public sector organization. ManyofAnother feature is the recent inclusion of the identifi- the training programmes such as the product knowl-cation of training requirements in business plans. edge courses which are available to the staff in the Managers responsible for the development of retail shops are unique to the retailing of electrical business plans were asked to prioritize the training appliances and would have limited application in needs of each business to achieve the objectives other sectors of the retail industry. Staff in ESB retail identified in the plan. Though training needs are shops benefit because of the wide range of person-presently only identified at a macro level, ESB has al development courses available from the main plans to introduce formal training needs analysis at organization. the individual level. 2.6 Conclusions It is necessary to keep in mind at all times that ESB ESB retail shops have a number of distinctive features retail shops are part of a much larger public sector in relation to training programmes provided to them. organization whose prime function is the genera- The first is that training is provided from two differenttion and distribution of electricity. If ESB retail shops sources: the marketing department which provides were a stand-alone operation and had to buy staff in the retail shops with marketing and sellingtraining services from its current providers e.g. the skills, and the training and development department marketing department and the training and devel- which provides general skills training. opment department, itis unlikely that the shops could afford such a wide range of high quality The second distinctive feature of ESB retail shops is training programmes. the amount of product knowledge courses provided.

48 47 3. MARKS & SPENCER IRELAND LTD

3.1 General description of the firm During the eighties, policies have changed to allow parity of prices between UK and Ireland, effectively 3.1.1 Major facts about the firm and a price reduction for Irish customers of around ten brief history of its development in per cent. This removes extra costs incurred in Ireland repricing merchandise and has had a significant Marks and Spencer have three stores in the Republic effect on the volume of business being done by the of Irelandtwo in Dublin, and one in Cork. These Irish stores. This parity issue, together with higher three stores, trading as Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd,transport costs and higher employment costs in are a subsidiary company of Marks & Spencer plc,Ireland, make Marks and Spencer Ireland very based in London. All stores have food and non-food conscious of the need to reduce other costs and to (textiles) departments.The Cork store which has been improve efficiency. Training objectives for the Irish chosen for this study opened in 1989, a year after the stores reflect this priority. Given the present UK the second Dublin store. All Irish stores are now part recession, business strategy, as directed from head of division 1 of Marks & Spencer plc, following a office, is currently aimed at 'back to basics' i.e. get- major programme of regionalization introduced in ting the basics right in terms of customer service, etc. 1991. Division 1, with headquarters in Edinburgh,This priority is reflected in current training plans for also includes all the Marks & Spencer stores in Scot-the Irish stores as well. land, Northern Ireland and Northern England. The Northern Irish and British stores are all part of Marks Both management and staff agree that manage- & Spencer plc. (Prior to this, Marks & Spencer Ireland ment style in Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd is open, was part of the European division). friendly and participative.Time is taken with staff to ensure that they are working well and that they are Division 1, like all six of the Marks & Spencer divi-comfortable with their task. Problems are generally sions, reports to head office in London. All buying,solved through agreement on action to be taken, selecting, merchandising, distribution, technological often based on a training response. Feedback is con- and product development are centralized in Lon-stantly given to staff and staff feel highly confident don for all stores. London is also home to the train-of their own skills, expertise and development ing and development department which formulates potential. Ability, rather than education, is valued overall training policy for all stores worldwide and and used as the main criteria for promotion. which develops the vast array of training material available to all stores for staff training. 3.1.3 Structure of the firm Figure 1 shows the organization structure from Lon- Within the Republic -4 Ireland there is a unified man-don head office to Ireland head office. In practice, agement structure tor all three stores. This systemMarks & Spencer operate a matrix structure with a was introduced last year as part of an overall dual reporting system across geographic and func- process of management integration aimed at tional lines. For example, the Irish training manager rationalizing structures and ensuring that smallerreports to the personnel manager in Dublin and stores benefit from the expertise and innova-also to the divisional training manager based in tiveness of major stores within particular areas. Edinburgh. He also networks with other training managers in division 1. The Republic of Ireland stores 'network' with the Northern Ireland stores with managers from stores Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd is run by a managing throughout the island of Ireland meeting their coun- committee which includes the general manager in terparts on a regular basis. Ireland and a number of senior executives from division 1 and from head office in London (9 in total). 3.1.2 Business strategy The Marks & Spencer Board develops policy for3.1.4 Human resources the entire Marks & Spencer Group including Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd. Annual objectives,3.1.4.1 Employment goals and targets are set by each division covering Approximately 500 people are employed in Marks sales, staffing, staff costs, food waste, theft and less & Spencer Ireland Ltd(compared to 62,000 in the etc. UK). Sales turnover is around IR255m for Ireland. The division plan provides the context and the priori-3.1.4.2 Gender ties for Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd. However,Seventy nine per cent of staff are female, (com- Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd have discretion in the pared to 83% for the UK). A majority of the super- way in which these priorities are interpreted and visors are female. Marks and Spencer operates on consolidated into a local action plan, within budget the basis of full gender equality. This is reflected in limits, and taking into account local conditions. In the generally prevailing attitude that there are no this way commercial, personnel and training objec-differences between men and women in terms of tives are set for Ireland. These in turn are translated attitude to training, seeking and obtaining promo- into operational plans for each store, again taking tion, etc. into account the local situation. Individual stores have discretion in setting their own objectives for the A general spirit of equality prevails at all levels. year and in introducing new initiatives. The process is neither all top down or bottom up. It is an iterative 3.1.4.3 Part-time employment process aimed at ensuring consistency while at theDue to a union agreement (no longer operating in same time allowing for local variations. Dublin but voted to be maintained in Cork) part- 49 48

A 6:.rtt ' A, -4 Figure 1 - M & S Board Head Office London

Division 1 Executive

Commercial Personnei Financial controller controller controller Audit - Building -Fin. control Soles promotion etc. Div. personnel man. -Security etc. Div. training man. etc.

M & S Ireland Ltd Managing committee

Irish general manager

Commercial Personnel Administration Operation manager 3 manager 1 manager 1 manager 1 (Based in 3 stores)

time workers are limited to 2 for every 3 full-timeUp to this year wages rates were at the same rate employees.This has had the effect of limiting perma-for all unionized employees in the three Irish stores. nent part-timers to thirty-five percent of permanent However following the new agreement on part- employees (compared to 66% in the UK). time working in the two Dublin stores, wages have increased by three per cent. The Cork store remains Managers and supervisors account for eight per at the original rate. No commission is paid on sales cent of total employment. At the non-management in any Marks & Spencer stores. Average wage rates levels approximately two-thirds are sales staff and are higher in Ireland than the UK as are the 'indirect' one-third 'back stage' staff. This proportionis costs of employing staff (PRSI etc.)- thirty per cent in watched constantly, aimed at increasing the ratio of Ireland compared to 24.5 per cent in the other divi- sales to 'back stage' employees. sion 1 stores. As a result, the staff cost/sales ratio is higher in Ireland. Constant efforts are made to 3.1.4.4 Unionization improve efficiency etc. ;n order to counteract this All Irish staff, excluding supervisors and managers,higher cost. Reward for effort is a key philosophy of are unionized and a closed shop operates. None of Marks & Spencer. However to date, union agree- the UK stores are unionized. ments on pay and conditions in the Irish stores have limited the extent to which performance-related 3.1.4.5 Staff turnover pay increases may be given. Staff turnover is also low two per cent per annum. Thus, staff stability is a key issue in determining local 3.1.4.7 Recruitment training priorities. It focuses attention on "topping There is currently limited recruitment of permanent up" staff skills to reach new and higher standards of staff into the Dublin Stores but none in the Cork customer service. Mobility within the Marks & Spen- Store. Temporary part-timers are recruited through cer Group is encouraged particularly to assist in'open nights' which include a general discussion on opening up new branches. However the geographi-terms and conditions, using both group and per- cal remoteness of the Cork store from the other sonal interviews. In Cork such temporary posts have Marks &Spencer stores has had the effect of limiting been advertised internally as a good-will gesture to such mobility. existing staff. 3.1.4.6 Wages Education levels for staff being recruited into Wages rates in Marks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. are Marks & Spencer Ireland are considered to be significantly higher than the agreed trade rates for very good with a very large volume and a high 50 the retail sector. standard of application (7,000 applied for the 100 4J jobs made available by the opening of the Cork product knowledge - keeping this up to date and store). broadening sales staff's knowledge, new technology- ensuring effective use of signifi- 3.2 Training' policy cant investments in technology made in the last two years, 3.2.1 Training strategy health and safety 1992 is health and safety training year. 3.2.1.1 Training objectives The 19921993 objectives for training in Southern All these issues reflect on-going business priorities in Ireland are as follows: a time of low economic growth and generally flat To develop further the commercial growth in the consumer spending. The overall training objective business by introducing advanced selling tech-remains to ensure that all staff perform their task to niques. the agreed high standards expected in all areas of To develop a team of trainers across the region to activity t y m -irks & Spencer. enable greater self- sufficiency. Create greater accountability at section level for The MAST pro' jramme which is about to commence, the development of product and system knowl-represents a niajor initiative to develop supervisors edge. in all Marks 8. Spencer stores. (It should be noted Increase the profile of the Irish Training Team by that supervisors are the equivalent of floor man- enhancing links with the division and establishing agers in other retail stores and have considerable a working partnership with Northern Ireland. responsibility and authority). To develop close links with key local schools. To stringently control the cost effectiveness ofThis programme, which is being developed jointly by training whilst increasing standards. Marks & Spencer and an outside agency, will: agree new job descriptions for supervisors, 3.2.1.2 Training plans set up a working party to manage the process, Continuing training is a key objective in all Marks & identify training needs both general and individ- Spencer stores. Staff training is seen as a long-term ual through means of a lengthy questionnaire to investment bringing long-term returns in increased be completed by the supervisor and their line man- sales and profitability.This training ethos permeates ager, all discussions with Marks & Spencer executives. develop an appropriate training package based There is a deep felt belief in the value and impor- on individual training modules. tance of training for competitiveness and for long term success in the market place. This open style and approach towards developing supervisors is viewed positively by the supervisors This commitment is backed up by a very wide range themselves. of training material aimed at meeting identified training needs in-house. All such training material is 3.2.2 Training structure available free of charge to Marks &Spencer Ireland Ltd.The Marks & Spencer philosophy is that, having 3.2.2.1 Training department structure identified a training need, training material to the In Ireland the training department is structured as highest standard is developed in-house, assisted by follows: outside experts. All such material is piloted ina number of selected stores, then assessed and modified 1 personnel manager before going on general release. It is also regularly based in Dublin updated and reviewed. 1 training manager Training, however, is not something the training based in Cork department 'gives' to staff. Staff are responsible for their own development and supervisors arerespon-3 training co-ordinators sible for ensuring that their staff are adequately trai-based in each store ned. All supervisory and management staff are trained to train their own staff as required.The training 3.2.2.2 Role of training manager department's role is to make sure that no training The Irish training manager, based in Cork, isan assis- needs remain unmet because of a shortage of rele-tant personnel manager, with personnel and indus- vant training material or other resources. The princi-trial relations responsibility in the Cork store. He is ple of individual 'responsibility' and ownership of responsible for agreeing training plans for the three one's own destiny is the key to Marks & Spencer Irish stores and for ensuring that all staff are trained training and development strategy. and developed to meet operational andsucces- sional needs. He is responsible for ensuring that all The aim is to develop a self sufficient4raining team in staff receive regular and effective appraisals with Ireland, encouraging each supervisor to develop constructive follow-up.The actual day to day training their own specialisms and to impart these skills to arrangements are made by the training co-ordinator their staff. in each store who reports to the training manager.

3.2.1.3 Future training priorities The training manager 'networks' with other training The key training issues for the future areseen to be: managers in division 1 and liaises with the Training quality service - to be the best in the High Street,Department in head office on a regular basis. 51 The training plan he draws up is based on overall 3.2.3 New technology Marks & Spencer training objectives for the yearA key objective of Marks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. is and training priorities set by division 1 head-to "increase the commercial awareness of all staff quarters. The final contents of this plan are then through: agreed by the Irish management team. increasing knowledge of new technology systems particularly on foods, 3.2.2.3 Identification of :raining needs maximizing the information and documentation & evaluation of ;raining to increase sales and efficiency." Marks & Spencer operates a highly sophisticated In 1991 a series of new technology training pro- and comprehensive method of identifying training grammes was undertaken for all staff in Irish stores needs, relating them to performance, and re-mainly covering new till systems. All staff received viewing achievements. ten hours training in this area.This training was provided by the training co-ordinator in each store who All jobs at all levels have detailed job descrip-in turn had been trained in Dublin by a supervisor. tions which are updated regularly. These form the basis for identifying training needs. Once a year New technology is perceived to have raised the all staff are appraised. This appraisal is a two way skills of staff as it allows them access to a greater process with staff encouraged to give their views.amount of information on their sales area. Staff are thus assessed against their job descriptions using a standards-based assessment system. Any3.2.4 Participation of social partners 'gaps' are addressed in terms of training required As stated above, all staff in Ireland below super- to fill them. Staff are then encouraged to locate visory level are unionized. Generally the union is not the necessary training. When the required training directly involved in setting or reviewing training has been identified a 'briefing' summary is prepared priorities. However, training plans are presented to by the staff member and their line manager.the union house committee, a body elected by the This involves agreeing objectives and expectations staff to represent different areas of the store, for dis- prior to undertaking the training. On completion cussion and comment. of the training,staff are 'debriefed' and an action plan with dates agreed to ensure that the Staff issues are usually dealt with by line managers new skills are put into action on the job. A date is but can be referred to the house committee. Such then set for a three month progressreview at which referrals are then discussed with management, results are reviewed and comments made. Ifand action agreed. A spirit of co-operation rather required, a further action plan is then agreed. Thethan confrontation prevails. The unions are positive overall situation is then reassessed at the nexttowards change and initiative and work well appraisal. with both staff and management. The aim of both sides is to head off problems through discussion Using this tight and highly structured system, Marks rather than letting them develop to confrontation & Spencer ensures that training is relevant and ben-and crisis. eficial to both the individual and the store. 3.2.5 Description of major programmes Staff appraisal is thus undertaken in a very positive way with solutions to possible weaknesses being 3.2.5.1 Training plans immediately discussed and agreed.The strong back-Complementing the 'bottom-up' individually-based, up training material available ensures that such training approach, annual training objectives for plans are not frustrated by lack of available training.each store are set in line with business plans. The Both management and staff view this system verytraining plan for Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd, favourably. agreed by the Irish management team for 1991-92, had the following objectives: Formal cost/ benefit analysis of trainingis not Establish an effective and creative training team attempted in Marks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. Man- within each store. agement view such an evaluation as extremely diffi- Structure training needs on an individual basis cult if not impossible to measure accurately and through job descriptions and appraisals. believe that investment in staff brings long-term Maintain close liaison between the three Irish sto- returns in terms of greater competitiveness, effi- res, whilst developing further associations with ciency and profitability. Northern Ireland and division 1. Establish a training budget for each store and 3.2.2.4 Training budget maintain high training standards, whilst reducing The training budget for Marks & Spencer Ireland unnecessary expenditure. Ltd. in 1991 was £15,000. It must be noted that thisThese training objectives, which are reviewed on a figure only covers expenses incurred in attending six monthly basis, are then translated into a detailed training programmes. It does not cover the costs of training plan. training materials or wages paid to those running and attending training programmes. A more mean-The training plan for each store, reflects the overall ingful figure is the target set by division 1 of two per training priorities set for division 1 as well as individ- cent full time equivalent staffing allocated to training ual training needs. Currently the broad training pri- for each of their stores. This figure is monitored orities for the division are; monthly, based on figures provided by each super- increased commercial awareness of all staff, 52 visor. the highest standard of customer service, .51 the further development of interpersonal and Given the exceptionally high level of training support management skills within supervisory categories available in-company, Marks and Spencer Ireland As well as attending formal training programmes,Ltd. do not generally look for external programmes staff are encouraged to undertake 'attachments' in in Ireland. However they do participate in program- other Marks & Spencer stores in order to broaden mes available through the Federation of Irish Employ- their experience and knowledge. ers (FIE) and the Irish Management Institute (IMO. They have found these programmes useful. Further product/sales related troining takes place on the job, generally involving a fifteen minute ses-3.3 Closer look at a particular store: sion per staff member per week. All training, bothThe cork branch of off-the-job and on-the-job, is recorded for trainingMarks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. record purposes. A spirit of healthy competition is encouraged between stores in relation to the3.3.1 General information amount of training undertaken with monthly com-The Cork branch of Marks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. parisons of each store's training activity being circu-was opened in 1989. It has both a food and non- lated throughout the Division. food department. It is located in the main shopping street of Cork, the Republic of Ireland's second larg- Sales staff who are responsible for a certain section est city. Sales turnover in the Cork Store was 1R£12 of a department are encouraged to take initiatives million in 1992 representing twenty-four per cent of within their own area (eg. in displaying goods) and the total turnover of Mark; and Spencer Ireland Ltd. to broaden their jobs aspuch as possible. Sales staff rotate through differ'ent departments to broadenWithin the Cork store, a number of changes have their experience and to maintain a high level of taken place since its opening in 1989. On the com- interest in their job. Sales staff set their own sales tar- mercial front a conscious effort has been made, due gets within forecasts set by supervisors. They are to poorer than expected sales in the initial year, to encouraged to make suggestions for improvements move the store's image up-market and to change in their department and receive feedback on all sug-the range of products available in the store accord- gestions made. ingly. This strategy has proved successful with a significant increase in sales (from IRam in 1989 to Recently, a new grade of "till controller" was in-1R£12m in 1992 and a forecast level of 1R£14m in troduced with sales floor staff being promoted 1993). As a result, six new deputy supervisors have to this grade. This has had the effect of tightening been appointed and trained in Cork since the store up controls and of releasing both sales and super-opened. visory staff to concentrate more on dealing with customers. Figure 2 shows the structure of the Cork store.

Figure 2 -The Cork store

Commercial Assistant manager 1 personnel manager 1 Additional responsibility for training in Ireland

7 supervisors equivalent to floor managers

4 Commercial 1 Administrator 1 Personnel/Training 1 Operations

5 deputy 1 deputy 3 deputy 1 deputy supervisors supervisor supervisors supervisor personnel stockroom 1 training 3 Till warehousing c-mtrollers co-ordinator 1 catering

Sales staff 50

67 clerical staff 53

"/7 3.3.2 Human resources This training was considered to have been excellent The Cork storecurrently employs 92 people.by both staff and management. Employment has remained stable since the store opened in 1989. Training for temporary staff is normally a week long one and a half days off the floor, the rest of the Employment is distributed as follows: week spent 'shadowing' an experienced staff member. 50 full-time permanent general staff 33 part-time permanent general staff Table 1 outlines the training undertaken in the Cork store 1991/1992. 9 management and supervisors 92 3.3.4 Training structure As outlined in Section 2, each Marks and Spencer An additional nine staff are employed in a tempo-store has a training co-ordinator who reports to the rary part-time capacity. assistant personnel manager. The role of the training co-ordinator in Cork is to: Cork employees by age break down as follows: ensure that training is given a high level of priority within the store, Age identify store training requirements in consultation with supervisors, Under 30 66 plan and arrange the agreed store training pro- 30 - 40 20 gramme, keep all store training material and training rec- over 40 14 ords, 100 ensure that 'general' training needs are met (e.g. new technology training, updating in commercial areas etc.), Years of service are as follows: ensure training is followed up through the briefing system (outlined in section on identification of training needs below), advise on new training material, over 5 years 14 2 -4 years 85 The Cork training co-ordinator, when appointed, less than 2 years 1 undertook a week long 'attachment' in a Scottish 100 store and attended a training of trainers course in Scotland.

Absenteeism is very lowunder three per cent ofTraining records are prepared by line managers in paid staffing. Staff turnover is also low around two the Cork store on a monthly basis and co-ordinated per cent per annum. by the training co-ordinator.

3.3.3 Training strategy The three Irish training co-ordinators meet regularly Prior to the opening of the Cork store, a comprehen-to discuss training and related issues and also sive training programme was implemented based attend divisional training meetings. Inthis way on a clear strategy aimed at ensuring that Marks strong networks are developed and maintained. and Spencer's international standards of service etc. were evident from day 1 in Cork. The Cork training co-ordinator works in this position on a part-time basis (three days per week) combin- Supervisors were recruited a year before opening ing it with commercial responsibilities. date and given a very wide-ranging programme of training.Fiveofthe seven supervisors wereThe training budget for Cork was 1R£5,000 in 1991, recruited locally, one transferred from Dublin andto cover incidental expenses only. one from London. Six months training in the UK was given, all expenses paid, followed up by a two3.3.5 Impact of new technology month period of training in the Dublin stores. Train-All staff in the Cork Store received ten hours of new ed supervisors were then available to ensure thetechnology training during 1991 mainly to cover smooth opening of the new store. the introduction of new tillsystems. Both management and staff viewed this training as benefi- General staff were recruited four months prior tocial and considered that such technology has the store's opening and given training in the Dublin allowed staff to broaden their jobs and to partici- store backed up by a local training programme. pate more in planning for their ar a of responsibility. Given the distance between Dublin, the nearestThere was no resistance to the introduction of this store, and Cork almost all general staff were technology. recruited locally. They therefore had no experience of working in Marks &Spencer and most had no for-3.3.6 Participation of social partners mal training in the retail sector when recruited.Thus As stated above, all staff in Ireland below super- a highly intensive training approach was adopted visory level, are unionized. Generally the union is 54 for these staff. not directly involved in setting or reviewing training Table 1 -Training undertaken by Marks & Spencers, Cork 1991/1992

Course Location No. of staff Length of Programme

Management Courses

Divisional deputy managers conference Scotland 2 3 days Divisional management

development course Bath 1 5 days Disciplinary commercial

workshop Scotland 1 2 days

Assessment centre

training Scotland 1 1 day

Supervision

Sales floor standards & presentation Cork 7 1 day Foods commercial workshop Scotland 2 3 days Textiles commercial workshop Scotland 2 3 days

Managing change course Cork 7 2 days Managing change course (deputy supervisors) Cork 10 1 day (May '92)

Time management Cork 10 1 day Communication & presentation skills Cork 10 1 day Working with assertiveness Cork 10 1 day

Main general staff training

Textiles & food workshops Cork 50-60 half day New technology training Cork 60 1.5 days New commercial documentation Cork 60 1 hr. per person

Sales assistants trained in stockroom Cork 4 2days perperson Till procedure update Cork 50-60 halfhr.per person Health & safety Cork all staff half day

Theft & loss Cork all staff half hr. per staff

Quality service Cork all staff half hr. per staff

Attachments

Fnod supervisor Glasgow %lore 3 weeks

Food deputy supervisor Harrow London 2 weeks

Training co-ordinator Perth 1 week Catering deputy supervision Bristol/Cork 3 days 55 priorities. However, training plans are presented to Such technology was agreed to have upgraded the union house committee in Cork, a body elected skills and to have given sales staff more informa- by the staff to represent different areas of the store, tion on their own area. There was no impact on for discussion and comment. staff numbers or on the balance of part-time working. Staff issues are usually dealt with by line managers but can be referred to the house committee. Such Open learning referrals are then discussed with management, and An open learning week is held each year during action agreed. A spirit of co-operation rather than which all training material can be viewed and confrontation prevails. The unions in Cork are posi- used. Staff are encouraged and given time to tive towards change and initiative and work well avail themselves of the wide range of material with both staff and management. The aim of both available. sides is to head off problems through discussion rather than letting them develop to confrontationAll training programmes followed during the year and crisis. Union representatives interviewed in aimed at bringing all staff up to agreed divisional Cork did not consider it necessary for them to take a standards in each area and at consolidating the skill more active role in training issues. levels of each employee. 3.3.7 Description of major programmes3.4 Evaluation in Cork The major training programmes provided in the 3.4.1 By the firm and employees Cork store in 1991/1992 are described below: Both management and staff in the Irish stores agreed training is very comprehensive and relevant. Managing change course for all supervisors. As referred to above, all staff are encouraged to This course aimed at developing supervisors toberesponsible for their own development and to handle more responsibility, to increase their flexi-avail of training as required. Part-time staff and bility and to ensure that they delegated, as appro-women employees are found to be equally as well priate, to their deputies. It was a two day, off-the-motivated towards training as both full-time and job, course run by an external tutor with a signifi-male employees. cant input from the Irish general manager on company policy, priorities, etc. Union representatives are also very positive about the training and career opportunities available to Intensive development course for deputy supervi-Marks and Spencer staff in the Irish stores. sors. These workshops, which ran over a 6-7 month 3.4.2 By the author period were provided in-house bythe two manag-Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd. have a deep commit- ers, using the Marks & Spencer training materials,ment to training for all staff. Training is seen as an booklets, open learning packages etc. The work- essential investment for long term prosperity. shops covered topics such as assertiveness, managing change, time management etc. In this way, Staff development systems are highly formalized, deputies have been developed to take on more but with increasing responsibility being given to indi- responsibility, allowing supervisors to concentrate vidual staff members to develop to their full poten- more on new developments and initiatives in the tial with all necessary back-up support wovided by store. the store.

Product knowledge workshops for sales staff. Identification of training needs is clearly linked to Half day sessions for all sales staff were given by performance while training is very much standard- supervisors aimed at updating and broadening based. Training review is also clear!;' built into the product knowledge. These programmes also process. aimed at increasing staff mobility across departments (similarly styled workshops are now plan-3.5 Transferability ned for back stage and office staff). Marks & Spencer represents an Irish firm fully committed to training with beneficial results in terms of Education sponsorship staffs growing sense of personal responsibility and Approval was given this year to offer sponsorship general effectiveness, as well as in terms of growing to Irish staff undertaking further education. At the sa:as. It thus represents an admirable example for present time staff are being invited to apply for other Irish retail stores to emulate when developing such sponsorship.The of this programme will their training efforts. depend on staff interest and budgetary conditions. No indications of interest in Cork are avail-Important lessons can be learnt from Marks & Spen- able yet. cer, particularly in relation to the identification of training needs, reviewing training undertaken and New technology training. linking training to performance on the job. However During 1991allsales staff received approxi-Marks and Spencer Ireland Ltd. have access to mately ten hours training on the new tills intro-comprehensive back up support in terms of both duced into the store during that year. Training was training materials and systems, a level of support not given by the Cork training co-ordinator, havingreadily available to other retail establishments in 56 herself been trained by a supervisor in Dublin.Ireland. JJ 3.6 Conclusions The experience of Marks and Spencer in Ireland The arrival of Marks and Spencer in Ireland has has shown that whatever back up support is avail- 2. brought a new and comprehensive approach to able it must be adapted to suit local conditions training to the Irish retail sector. and characteristics - interms of both staff and customers.

Marks and Spencer have shown how an inte- Marks and Spencer clearly demcnstrates how a grated staff training and development system 'virtuous circle' of trainingstaff performance can be operated in the retail sector and the quality- customer servicebusiness performance returns such a system can bring in terms of staff further training can be developed. Both man- performance and, ultimately, business perform- agement and staff in the Irish stores react very ance. positively to the obvious company commitment to their ongoing development. It must be remembered, however, that the training system operated by Marks and Spencer Ireland The Irish Marks and Spencer stores are union- ised Ltd. receives considerable back up support from while those in the United Kingdom are not. While Marks and Spencer plc. in the United Kingdom. management/ union relations are very positive, This support is not available for other Irish retail the presence of a union has been seen to reduce outlets. flexibility in terms of part-time working, reward for performance etc. The question is therefore raised as to how similar support can be provided for other retail outlets in The commitment to training in Marks and Spencer Ireland. The needs and resources of stores in dif- is demonstrated in many ways. For instance a ferent segments of the market and of different training co-ordinator is appointed in each outlet. sizes, also raises issues of transferability and stan- This co-ordinator spends three full days a weekon dardization versus individual requirements and training matters, backed up by line managers, special needs. company training supports, etc., for a staff of ninety-two in the Cork store. In the absence of a strong training tradition in the retail sector in Ireland, agreement must berea- The systems for identifying individual training ched on the type of intervention required from the needs and particularly for following up on train- external education and training system; whether ing received, are comprehensive. Such systems this should be in the form of advice,funding, direct could usefully be emulated in other Irish stores. provision, etc.

57 4. SUPERQUINN

4.1 General description of the firm The Dundalk outlet was small in size, approximately 200 square metres, and had a total staff of eight. It 4.1.1 Major facts about Superquinn was the first self-service grocery shop to be oper- The Superquinn grocery company is one of Ireland's ated in Ireland outside Dublin. Self-servicesuper- leading food retailing compagies. The company, markets were slow to take off in Ireland and the first which is privately owned, operates thirteen stores self-service grocery outlet to operate successfully in the Dublin region with a combined sales area ..nly opened its doors in Dublin in 195Z ofover 30,000 squaremetres.Superquinn employ over 2,000 people and operate the highest The second shop was established in a disused cinema staff to store ratio of any grocery multiple in in Finglas in 1965, a working class suburb on the Ireland. north side of Dublin.The company grew to developa further twelve stores and five shopping centres in the The company specializes in the marketing of fresh greater Dublin area, SOME of which are located in foods particularly fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy working class districts and others in more prosperous products, bread and prepared food. In addition, suburbs of Dublin. Superquinn has a policy of owning each store carries a large range of dry goods, toilet- all its stores and shopping centres. By 1970 thecom- ries and wines and spirits. pany had changed its name from "Quinn's Super- markets" to "Superquinn" and had located its head Superquinn has pioneered the introduction of office in Sutton, the second store opened in Dublin creches in is supermarkets as well as in-store baker- after Finglas. ies and butcher shops. It has also developed a range of specialist food departments in every store suchas Superquinn's share of the Irish grocery market is delicatessens, pizza kitchens, pasta kitchens, salad approximately five per cent nationally but it aver- kitchens and even sausage kitchens. The central ages at around 16 per cent in Dublin where a third theme behind these new developments is that of the population lives with an even greaterpropor- Superquinn wishes to convey the theme of provid- tion of the nation's spending power. Since 1970 it ing fresh foods to its customers. has concentrated in the greater Dublin area, having closed the Dundalk store. Pressure of competition in 4.1.2 Business strategy the Dublin market is causing the company toexam- Superquinn competes on the basis of fresh food and ine the feasibility of opening new stores in urban customer service. It is competitive on price but is areas outside of the capital. In one sense this would considered more expensive than Dunnes Stores, be a radical departure for the company because one of Ireland's largest grocery multiples, whichthe proximity of the stores to each other and head competes solely on the basis of lower prices andoffice allows for close and regular communication restricted product choice. In one of its newer stores all of Superquinn's shops are within forty kilometres Superquinn matched a competitor which specializes of each other. Lines of communication would be in discounting on price for every item it sold. Market stretched if the company was, as anticipated, to research found that despite prices being identicalopen branches in towns eighty or a hundred kilo- with the discounter, Superquinn was perceived by metres away from Dublin. customers as being more expensive. However, few of its competitors can match Superquinn for itsThe company has a very informal style ofmanage- customer service or the range of goods supplied ment; paper is kept to a minimum and written particularly new fresh foods. For example, in recent memos are unheard of. Managers are asked what years Superquinn has spent much time and use they are going to make of non-essential infor- resources in encouraging the sale and consumption mation or statistics: ifitis not needed then they of exotic fruits and vegetables even in stores should not want it. For example, the training depart- located in working class areas. ment does not keep statistics on the hours of training it provides to the stores. Its most important statistic is The founder and owner of the Superquinngrocerythe number of trainees it trained in theyear. From company, Feargal Quinn, established his first shop the company's point of view the most important sta- in Dundalk in the North East of Ireland in 1960 hav- tistics are the weekly performance figures of each ing spent some months previously in Europe study- store which are summarized in a five page docu- ing new self-service retailing methods. His father ment.This information is communicated to the stores had operated a chain of grocery shops called Pay-every week and it provides the management and antake before going into the holiday camp busi-staff of the stores with details of the preceding ness. week's sales, cost of sales, gross margin and contri- bution. The results of each store are discussed each Feargal Quinn is regarded as an innovative food week with staff by the management of the store and retailer both in Ireland and internationally. He is incon- a director of the company. stant demand as a speaker to international food and retailing conferences world-wide. He travels abroad The company's lack of formality and dislike of regularly to Europe, America and the Far East to excessive paperwork, however, have not stopped it research new retailing methods. He has writtena best- from being the first grocery supermarketgroup to selling book entitled "Crowning the Customer: How to be awarded the quality mark by the Irish Quality Become Customer-Driven" which explains hiscus- Association which represents the European Organi- tomer-oriented philosophy. He was born in Dublin in zation for Quality (EOQC) in Ireland. Superquinn 1936 and attended University College Dublin where regard having achieved the quality markas a major he graduated in commerce in 1958. coup for the company and were surprised to 59 57 receive it given the customary requirements of qual- opening of Superquinn's latest store in Lucan near ity control systems for accompanying documenta- Dublin). The store manager reports directly to the tion. area manager. Within the company the area manager has absolute responsibility and the same point A key management philosophy is that managers applies to the store manager though to a lessor should not be office-b ound; the manage 's office in extent. Area managers have the authority to spend each store is by design small and cramped.The com- as much as is needed to provide the level of cus- pany prefers to enot. rage managers to spend their tomer service necessary in the shops for which they time out on the shop floor. This philosophy also have responsibility. If they believe customer stan- extends to executive directors: once a week each dards have slipped there is no limit to the amount of director will visit one of the company's thirteen sto- money they can spend to rectify matters. res to discuss the previous week's trading results and to discuss matters relating to that director's area of The area managers have specialist advisers in responsibility. The managing director,Feargal meat, fruit and vegetables, etc., whose function it is Quinn; makes it his duty to visit each store once a to provide the area managers and stores with infor- week. mation and advice on how best to increase customer services in these specialist areas. 4.1.3 Structure of the firm Superquinn operates a small head office of someThe function departments in the company such as sixty people. Within the company it is not known as finance, training and personnel and marketing are head office but as a "support centre". The training support services to the area managers and store department is located in the Finglas branch which managers. The area managers or store managers was the company's first store in Dublin. The training are not obliged to use the services offered by the department is also regarded as a service depart- functional departments; the shops are required to ment to the stores as are other departments which buy the services of the functional departments. are not directly connected with the operation of the Therefore, if an area or store manager does not shops. favour the services offered by the training and personnel or marketing departments he or she is not The company operates an unusual company struc- required to use them. From the area or store man- tureif it can be called a structure at alland Super- ager's perspective the other departments a -e quinn make no apology for not having a formal expenses which come off his profit figures.The con organizational chart. The company points out that if pany's philosophy is that the functional depart- it had an ideal organizational chart it would be an ments support the area and store managers. inverted triangle and the person at the top would be the customer under which in turn would be salesThe onus is on the functional departments to go out assistant, department chargehand (supervisor), to the area or store managers and sell them services shop management, shop manager, area manager,or programmes. it is rare for an area or store man- the Monday Table (see below) and, final;y, the manager to go to where the functional department is aging director. located. The services or programmes offered bythe functional departments must be relevant to the The basic conventional company structure has theneeds of the area managers of the stores i.e. the managing director, Feargal Quinn, with six execu- services and programmes offered must be worth- tive directors reporting to him. Within the companywhile to the shops. From the staff in the functional this group is known as the board or the Monday department's point of view they often regard them- Table after the practice for all the directors to meet selves as external consultants to the stores. One of every Monday morning for three hours to discuss the challenges that the functional departments will future company policies. Day to day operational have to face in the future will be servicing the needs matters are rarely discussed at the Monday Table.of stores outside the greater Dublin region. The fact This is the only formal meeting where all the direc- that all of Superquinn's stores are all in the Dublin tors meet; ad hoc meetings can be arranged area makes it easier for the functional departments between directors to discuss problems of mutualto interface on a regular basis with the thr'e area interest but these are .always done on an informal managers and thirteen store managers. basis. 4.1.4 Human resources Each director has responsibility for a specific The company employs 2 000 people which includes department: finance, marketing, buying, property, both full and part-time employees. This figure does training and personnel, and operations. The chair- not include casual workers which the company man of Superquinn acts as the head of a separate employs to pack bags at the check-outs. subsidiary company which manages Superquinn's property investment. Prior to 1984 the majority of Superquinn's staff were full-time but with eighty per cent of sales being The most unusual feature of the company's organ- on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the company izational structure is the distribution of authority found that staff were underutilized in the early days and the importance of the area and store managers of the week. During week days peak shopping in the organization. The operations director has hours are between the 10 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. and three area managers reporting to him; each of the after 5.50 p.m. during the late opening nights of area managers are responsible for four shops Thursday and Friday. Rising labour costs forced the 60 -- (though one is now responsible for five with the company to correct the imbalance by reducing the

58 percentage of full-time staff and bringing in part- are committed to serving the customer no matter time empioyees to cater for peak shopping hours. how difficult the customer is or the situation in which Superquinn stores are open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the employee finds him or herself. The manner in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday and which an applicant handles the interview situation is from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. Finish- a key factor in determining whether they will be ing time for staff is fifteen minutes after closing time. selected. If the applicant can behave in a friendly Employees work a basic 39 hours a week, five days fashion during a tense situation like an interview over six, Monday to Saturday. then he or she is likely to behave in a friendly fashion to customers on the shop floor. Having the right per- Superquinn is fully unionized and relations with the sonality is the key criteria from Superquinn's point of union are generally good.The wages of Superquinn view and is more important than having previous employees generally regarded as being 5 6 perexperience in retailing or having studied a course cent higher than their equivalent in competing com- relating to retailing. Superquinn believe that if a panies. The staff/store ratio is twice that of Super-recruit has the right personality then they can be quinn's competitors. The company also provides trained in the necessary techniques. Only one in generous holiday and compassionate leave allow- thirty of those interviewed by Superquinnare ances compared to its rivals. offered employment.

Many of Superquinn's employees have the basic The majority of new employees in the shop assistant minimum education and joined the companycategory undergo a three day induction pro- straight from leaving school. In some of these cases gramme before they are allowed on the shop floor. the employee already had worked for Superquinn During the induction programme they are given an on a casual basis after school hours packing bags at introduction to the company and its emphasison the check-out or assisting in the store room. One of marketing fresh foods and customer service. During the problems facing the training and personnelthe early part of the 1980s the emphasis of the department is that some employees had a very induction programme was on explaining thecom- poor experience of education which made them pany's rules and then an introduction to the compa- reluctant to attend training courses provided by the ny's specialization in fresh foods and serving the company. For this reason the department had to customer better than any other retailer. Following a ensure that training programmes were not seen by review, the company decided to reverse the com- participants as being overformal. ponents of the programme giving the company's philosophy of providing a high level of customer The company operates in a very competitivegro- service as the main part of the programme with the cery market in Dublin which is considered to be latter part of the programme being devoted to rules over-supplied in terms of grocery outlets particu- and conditions of employment. Each new employee larly large supermarkets. Superquinn's next largest is given a copy of Superquinn's 'A Question of Team- competitor is four times the company's size and the work" publication whici. outlines the company's his- next largest is six times the size. Pressure on market tory, philosophy, rules and terms of conditions. The share is not only coming from other multiple chains company believes that the induction programme is but also from symbol groups e.g. Spar, Mace, etc., essential for instilling the Superquinn's philosophy to which have regained some of the market share they its new employees and maintain that employees lost to the multiples. who do not go on the course are notas good as employees who do. 4.2 Training policy In a new departure for Superquinn which training 4.2.1 Training strategy executives believe will be commercially significant in The company firmly believes in the importance of the future, recruits for the company's new store in training particularly in the achievement ofcompany Lucan in West Dublin were given training in hygiene. objectives of being specialists in the marketing fresh Superquinn believe that in future all employees of food and providing the highest level of customer etail outlets handling fresh food will have to service. Underpinning the company's training poli- receive training in hygiene. The trainer on this cy is that staff must understand the need to react to course is a qualified hygienist and as mentioned customers in the Superquinn way that is serving the above the training centre has its own laboratory customer better than anyone else in the market with the capability for undertaking simple hygiene place. Management believe that the function of tests. training is to ensure that employees are allowed to look after the customer. According to the trainingThe company plans to extend the hygienecompo- and personnel department, the environment for the nent to all induction programmes in the future and provision of the high level of customer service in addition to other non-induction trainingpro- desired by Superquinn from its employees is created grammes. in the training department. 4.2.2 Training structlre Central to Superquinn's policy of continuingvoca- The training and personnel departmentcame for- tional education is the role of the selection andmally into existence within Superquinn in 1979 with induction training process in obtaining the right the appointment of a full-time personnelmanager. calibre of personnel to provide good customer The appointment of a personnel officerwas largely service to customers. The company believes that the as a result of the introduction of new employment selection process is crucial in finding employees wholegislation such as the Unfair Dismissals Act and of 61

59 the opening of new stores by Superquinn. Prior to The in-store department sub-section has responsi- this date there was no formal personnel manager. bility for the training of personnel in the in-store This was followed a year later by the recruitment ofdepartments such as bakery, meat or fruit and a training officer who is now the head of the training vegetables. The skills sub-section handles the train- section within the department. She had previously ing in relation to computerization, check-outs, cash worked on the shop floor as a check-out operatoroffice administration and other store support and in the cash and wages department. She had no operations. The introduction/customer relations previous work experience apart from Superquinn sub-section has a staff of four including the section and in common with many of people working in the head. Its duties include the three day induction Irish grocery trade saw her ob in Superquinn as a course which all new employees must do and cus- temporary one until she could find something bet- tomer service courses. The remaining sub-section ter. Prior to joining Superquinn she never considered management training as its name implies caters for a career in retailing_ the training needs of people in management grades throughout the company. A number of outside trainers were recruited into the organization in 1981 to assist in the training effort. One of the trainers in the training section has re- However, there were difficulties with these newceived training in hygiene and Superquinn has people because though they were well qualified established a small hygiene laboratory in the train- they did not come from a retailing background.The ing department. The laboratory is being used pres- new trainers themselves found the long working ently for simple hygiene tests on behalf of the thir- hours and working week of Superquinn much dif- teen stores and it is hoped to further develop this ferent from what they previously were used to. facility in the future. Superquinn believe that having a training officer skilled in hygiene will be a vital External consultants were employed during the competitive asset in the future.This will be discussed beginning of the 1980s to assist with the training in more detail later in the case study. of new employees for new store openings. How- ever, Superquinn does not presently use external The training and personnel department is based at consultants to the same extent as it has done in the Superquinn's store in Finglas in North Dublin. Super- past. quinn has made considerable investment in recent years in improving both the size and facilities of the Within the training and personnel departmenttraining and personnel department. The depart- there are fourteen people including the director. ment has a number of offices for senior executives, a The director has only been with the company sincetwo room interview area, a number of large room 1986 and previously worked with an American devoted entirely for training. One training room is computer accessory company. By contrast his dep- equipped with check-out terminals of both the old uty has been with Superquinn all her working lifeand current makes of machinery used in Super- having started as a check-out operator. Since his quinn. A second room has computer terminals arrival in the company, the training and personnel where users are trained in Superquinn's information department has become more structured and technologysystems.The department also has stand- objectives have been defined for the department. A ard audio-visual, television and video equipment. complete and thorough review has taken place ofThe department has also invested heavily in training all Superquinn's training programmes. packages and videos. The centre also has its own bright and attractive canteen serving food freshly The director has responsibility for training and per- prepared from the adjoining store. onnel policies in Superquinn. There are three sections within the department: recruitment, training 4.2.3 Impact of new technologies and administration.The recruitment section has one Superquinn has been to the fore in the introduction of person whose full-time activity is the recruiting and scanning technology. The majority of the company's selection of full and part-time employees from sales stores now have scanners at the checkouts.The com- assistant grade up. Superquinn has established a pany is already planning the next part of the intro- scale of 1 10 for the recruitment of new employees duction of scanning facilities in the storage area of and selects one person for every thirty interviewed. each store. In this way details on consignments of a The recruitment of casual staff for packing bags at particular item delivered into the storage area of the check-out in each store is undertaken by spe- each store or directly on to the shelves by a supplier cially trained interviewers in each store. The bag will be fed into a computer. This information will be packers in each store are known as Super Servicethen matched with the sales records of the item pro- People and are mainly young people still at school duced by the check-out scanners. The analysis will or in some cases mature people.There are four peo- help management determine which products are ple in the Administration section who look after per- profitable and which products should be deleted. sonnel records. New recruits to Superquinn are given a five day The training section is the largest in the department course in operating check-out machines. In the com- with eight staff. The head of the training section acts pany's training centre there is one room which is as the deputy head in the director's absence. The equipped with both the old and existing make of training section is divided into four sub-sections check-out machines. Trainees are also taught to each dealing with the training needs of a particularoperate Superquinn's price look-up (PLU) system part of the company: In-store departments, skills, whereby check-out operators memorize prices of 62 Introduction/ customer relations and management. goods which do not have bar codes such as bread,

6O vegetables, etc. Superquinn believes that its check- ing and personnel department for short, specialist out operations training course for sales assistants is courses. The Irish Management Institute in Dublin is unique in Ireland and possibly elsewhere. an example of an external provider of training that Superquinn has used in the past particularly for The induction course up to now had been exclu- supervisory management courses. sively for full-time and part-time sales assistant grades. The company also employs a large number Since the formation of the training function within of casual staff who are principally school children the company in 1980 most of the training courses who work a few hours every week after school provided by the company were developed inter packing bags at the check-out, collecting trolleys, nally. The main reason for this has been the fact that etc.The casual staff are known as the Super Service Superquinn has not been able to outsource training People. They are selected at store level and receive programmes which focus specifically on the retail on-the-job training. However, Superquinn isnow sector. Many of the training courses and program- planning to send all recruits to the Super Service mes which the trainers have inspected are manufac- People on a one day induction course in order thatturing-oriented and thus unsuitable for use ina gro- they understand the Superquinn way of retailing. In cery retail environment. taking this policy decision Superquinnare following in the steps of McDonalds and Disneyworld that no Since 1990 however a number of courses have employee should serve customers withoutsome been outsourced. A key criteria of the effectiveness initial training. The Super Service Peopleare the first of the training and personnel department is that it people customers meet in the stores and the training provides courses that are relevant to the needs of and personnel department wants to makesure that the stores. In recent years a growingconcern of the the first impressions made by customers of Super- area managers and the store managers has been quinn staff are positive ones.As an illustration of this the standards of presentation in the shops both in attitude, Superquinn found that customers appreci- terms of appearance and customers relations. The ated having more mature Super Service Peopleview was expressed that standards had fallen from packing their bags at the check-out becausea what Superquinn had a right to expect from both housewife with two children is likely to havemore in the shops and staff. Following consultations with the common with an older person packing her shopping area and store managers the training and person- than a sixteen year old school girl which is thenorm nel department outsourced a UK training package in many supermarkets. since it could not be developed internally and it was not available from Irish sources. The course was Superquinn believe that legislation will be intro- entitled "Customer care: what is it?"and Superquinn duced in the next few years which will make itman- sought the permission of the producer to customize datory for employees in retail outlets who handle it to make it relevant to Irish conditions. This permis- food to have training in hygiene. For thisreason the sion was granted by the UK company and Super- company has started providing training in hygiene quinn now run this two day course in all of its stores. and it hopes that by the time the legislation isThe company also purchased another UK package enactedallSuperquinn employeeswillhave "Leadership and Coaching" which emphasized received the required training. team building skills for use with management and chargehands (supervisors). 4.2.4 Participation of social partners Training policy in Superquinn is decided byman- In the few situations were Superquinn have bought agement alone. Employees or their representa- external continuing education programmesa com- tives are not formally involved in the formulation mon feature to all has been the adaptations that the and implementation of training policy andpro- company has made to make the material relevant grammes. to retailing. In other cases the company will add modules to the training material to relate themate- However, the training and personnel department rial to the Superquinn way of doing things. which is responsible for training policy in thecom- pany is in regular contact with all stores and the per- With the increased competition within the Irishgro- sonnel director makes an in-depth visit toone store cery retail sector both area and shop managers are a week to discuss training with the staff. under greater competitive pressures. A review of management policy in the shops found that shop 4.2.5 Description of major programmes managers were trying to do every thing themselves Prior the formation of the training and personneland that there was a need for them to delegate department in 1980 employees had limited options more responsibility to the next level down of man- available to them in terms of training. A number of agement most notably the department chargehand employees attended external courses in retailing (supervisory) level. The intention was to have the most notably the two year diploma in the principles store manager deal with issues relating to overall of retailing course provided by the College of Mar- store management and the department charge- keting and Design in Dublin. Attendance at this hands were to take over the responsibility ofrun- course was purely voluntary at the time but since ning their departments. Store managers, therefore, 1980 Superquinn has recognized thiscourse and had to be trained in management techniques actively encourage employees to attend it. particularly in delegation. Similarly, the departmental chargehands had to receive training in Other external providers of trainingwere used by supervisory management that allowed them to take Superquinn prior to the establishment of the train- responsibility for managing their departments. A 63 key element for the supervisors was to developMarketing and Design in Dublin. Superquinn has leadership skills. provided considerable inputs into the course design and contents. The course is limited to those who are The task facing the training and personnel depart- working in supermarkets though there is a full-time ment was a formidable one. They had to change day course for those aspiring to a career in retail store managers from handling a very-wide range ofmanagement. The principles of management and activities to concentrating on real management merchandising are the major study areas.Merchan- problems and they had to nurture the capability ofdising includes not only the grocery/provisions chargehands to look after the running of their area but also specialized areas such as fruit/veget- departments. In addition to this they also had to ables, meat, bacon, dairy, delicatessen and off face a problem which is not unique to Irish retailing licence. Also covered are security, business law for - that many of Superquinn'semployees had joined the food trade and elementary accounting. There the company having completed the minimum com-are currently nine Superquinn employees on this pulsory secondary level education. Many of these diploma course and all despite being early school early school leavers had unsatisfactory school leavers have achieved high grades in examinations experiences or had not undertaken anyformal edu- to date. cation for a number of years and therefore viewed training somewhat with trepidation and suspicion. For shop managers the company has started enroll- The training and personnel department also recog- ing a small number of executives on a Master of nized that the training had to have regard for the Business Administration course inretailing and grocery retailing sector in general and Superquinn wholesaling in Strathclyde University in Scotland. in particular. The provision of such continuing edu- Again, the reason that Superquinn selected an cation courses for management and supervisorsexternal course was thatit was beyond the was outside the capability of the trainingand per- resources of the training and personnel department sonnel department and Superquinn examined a to provide such a course and the Strathclyde Uni- number of training options including open learning. versity MBA course was chosen because there was no suitable course available in Ireland. Superquinn In researching the open learning option the deputyhave selected six managers for this course which manager of the department undertook adistance involves a substantial time commitment between learning course in supervisory management from travelling to the course in Scotland and studying. Plassey Management and Technology Centre in The University provides a tutor but this input is lim- Limerick University. The manager found that while ited to providing academic assistance. Superquinn's the structure and materials were excellent the training and personnel department organizes course was not suited toretailing conditions. weekly meetings in Dublin for the MBA students to Changes were made following receipt of permis-revise the course material together and to applythe sion from the course developers to make the course theory to actual Superquinn situations. Superquinn more relevant to the retail sector. The experience is pleased with the progress of the MBA students to gained by the manager undertaking the course was date most of whom have gained high grades in invaluable. The training and personnel departmentexaminations.The course has aroused considerable realized that if Superquinn was to maximize theinterest among other managers and Superquinn benefits of open learning particularly to employeeswill be sending more managers when the course who left school early or who had an unsatisfactory starts again later in the year. experience at school it would have to provide a support structure for trainees in order to overcome theContinuing vocational education courses for sales disadvantage of the ease in which people can opt assistants and grades below chargehand (super- out of open learning courses. As part of their duties, visor) is virtually all provided internally by Super- the trainers assigned to chargehands undertakingquinn. The chargehand in each department is the distance learning supervisory management responsible for the smooth running of t',-.:part- course provide support in terms of organizing ment and for the training of all staff members in the meetings to encourage the trainees to undertake department. The training provided by the charge- the exercises and assignments. The department hands is very much unstructured and informal and organizes a session once a week in the training cen- very often will depend on the chargehand's own tre for the chargehands undertaking the supervi- style of management. Some prefer group training sory management course so that the individual sessions while others prefer one-to-one coaching trainees do not feel isolated or believe that only sessions. The training and personnel department they are having problems with the course material. provides the support and documentation to enable The presence of a trainer in the weekly sessions not the chargehands to provide training to department only encourages the trainees to do the assignments staff. but he or she also acts as a facilitator to help the trainees to relate the course material to their every Because of Superquinn's emphasis on fresh foods day needs. Presently there are eleven store staff and its continuing ende6vours to promote the con- members on the course plus one trainer from the sumption of exotic fruits and vegetables, it became training and personnel department. apparent to the training and personnel department that material would have to be developed to assist The same support mechanisms are available to staff the chargehands in the fruit and vegetable depart- members who are studying for the diploma in prin-ments in all the stores in training staff. As a major ciples of supermarket management. This is a two project the department developed a manual illus- 64 year part-time course organized by the College of trating each of the exotic fruits and vegetables 62 stocked by the company and providing informationAs an aid to the career planning process the training on how such products were to be prepared and and personnel department organizes personality consumed by the customer.The assistance of suppli- testing for employees. This is intended to show staff ers was enlisted in preparing the manual which is members whether they are introvert/extrovert now regularly used not only as a training aid for personalities, etc. It may also indicate whether they Superquinn employees but also as an aid to con- prefer working on their own or with customers. If the sumers who wish to try new fruits and vegetables. Ittest shows that they are best working on their own is also known that a competitor of Superquinn has the company will try to accommodate that as far as managed to obtain a copy of the manual! It is the possible believing that if staff are unhappy in one responsibility of the chargehands to ensure that position this will be communicated to the customer department staff are up-to-date with productwho will not enjoy her shopping experience as a knowledge and if there are weaknesses in this area result. he or she can point the staff member to the manual. The training and personnel department has also In terms of future training needs the training and organized films and videos as well as tasting personnel department are conscious of a number of sessions for staffinthefruit and vegetable needs within the company. The level of competition departments in all Superquinn stores to ensure in the grocery supermarket in Ireland has intensified that their product knowledge is at the required dramatically. It is generally accepted that the Great- level. er Dublin area is over supplied in terms of shopping sales space: there is just too many supermarkets. The training and personnel department also pro- Some of these will undoubtedly fail in the coming vide courses in customer service for sales assistants years. The objective of the training and personnel and chargehands which would cover topics includ- department is to geared to ensuring that Super- ing merchandising, quality control, documentation, quinn stays in business. This means focusing on pro- hygiene and, most importantly of all, customer care. viding a consistently high level of customer service These courses are generally held in the training cen- and quality in terms of product range and availa- tre in Finglas and are generally two days in dura- bility, appearance and presentation. The impor- tion. All training sessions regardless of their aim will tance of achieving a satisfactory financial result, have a component on the importance of customerwhile always important, is now receiving greater care and how customer service can be improved in prominence among senior management. The tech- the stores. nical aspects of making money will be a concern of the training and personnel department particularly It is important to note that while the training and obtaining the best use of the company's information personnel department provide support and assis- technology. The training of staff in the use of com- tance to the store managers and chargehands in puters to calculate Direct Product Profitability (DPP) respect of the continuing vocational education of which attempts to specify how the highest return to sales assistants the responsibility for assessing the the company can be obtained from a given amount training needs of individual employees rests with of shelf space.The department will also be devoting the store manager and chargehand concerned.The its attention to achieving ways of making money normal practice is that each sales assistant will sit work harder for Superquinn. down with his or her manager/ supervisor to discuss their career plan. This is not a formal process but in The department would like though to see a balance keeping with Superquinn policy and with the fact maintained between the technical and people skills that many employees left school early is kept infor- of continuing vocational educational training in the mal. The normal progression route is for each sales company i.e. that the generation of profit maximi- assistant to work on the check-out initially and then zation will not take precedence of the personal move to general duties on the shop floor. If the development of staff. It is also hoped that Super- employee shows ability he or she is moved to one of quinn will continue to be an informal organization the departments such as the meat, bakery, fish, wine and the high levels of communications between and fruit and vegetable departments and can ulti- staff and management will continue. mately advance to becoming the chargehand for that department. Once the employee has reached The department also believes that it has made the chargehand level he or she is eligible for formal, right strategic decision to start training staff in food structured courses organized internally or exter- hygiene. All of the staff recruited for its new store in nally. The level above department chargehand is Lucan have received training in hygiene and Super- store management and the next level above that is quinn will gradually extend this over the next three the area manager grade. In discussing each sales years to the rest of the stores. The company believes assistants' career plan the manager will outline what that it will be legally mandatory for all employees in qualities and training the employee will need to retail outlets handling food will have to have train- advance to the next higher grade. Employees are ing in hygiene. By starting now Superquinn believes encouraged to take their own initiative in furthering it will gain a competitive advantage over its grocery their continuing vocational education. Employees rivals. who, for example, undertake the certificate and diploma course in the principles of supermarket The department also recognizes the substantial retailinginDublin's College of Marketing and investment it has made over the years in continuing Design will be seen by management as underlining vocational education within the company particu- their commitment to the company and a career in larly those courses which it has developed itself and retailing. which specifically relate to Irish retailing conditions. 65

Rs 63 It is considering the possibility of making some of recruitment process would serve as a valuable pub- 2 these courses commercially available to other lic relations exercise as they would continue to have organizations. a good impression of Superquinn.

The training and personnel department would like to The manager of the store personally met each see further courses being made available to the applicant in the beginning.Then each applicant was chargehand grades within the company given that the interviewed for a further one or two times by a two store managers are delegating an increasing amount person team from the training and personnel of responsibility to the department chargehands. It department. Emphasis was put on selecting people would like to see the chargehands taking a greater who would most likely fit into the Superquinn way of responsibility for training in their departments. retailing (i.e. those who would enjoy serving customers) and who would work best as part of a team. The department recognizes that the level of training Notes were compared on each applicant and the it provides in the some in-store departments such as team began the process of selecting the final num- the cosmetics and toiletries department where bers. high margins are possiblecould be improved and is considering the possibility of producing a manualThe manager of the store had established a number on cosmetics and toiletries similar to the one it has of objectives he wanted the training.which followed developed for exotic fruit and vegetables. the selection process to achieve. His major objective was to ensure the new employees got to know and 4.3 Closer look at a particular store participate in the culture of the company. He also In November 1991 Superquinn opened a new store viewed the training as educating the new staff in in Lucan on the west side of Dublin. As with its previ- their roles in the store. ous developments, Superquinn's property subsidiary was responsible for developing both the store The successful recruits were then invited to Super- and the shopping centre in which it is located. The quinn's Training Centre in Finglas for the start of shopping centre has a pharmacist, newsagent andtheir training. In keeping with Superquinn's experi- hairdressing salon, etc., as tenants and there is also ence that many of its employees did not have a office space for small businesses. good experience of school and therefore would be suspicious of formal education, the new recruits The store was the first for Superquinn for somewere not told that they were going on a training years as the company had experienced two set- course. All new entrants were personally welcomed backs when fire had destroyed its combined store and congratulated on their appointment by the and head office in Sutton and damaged another store manager.The emphasis on the first day was on store in Blanchardstown. breaking the ice with music, company videos and slide shows being played. The store management The training and personnel department was active team mingled with the new recruits during coffee in the preparation programme for the opening of breaks and at meal times to make the atmosphere the new store. It played a major role in the recruit- feel relaxed and informal. Management felt that ment process and later in the training of staff prior it was important to meet the new employees on to the opening of Lucan. the first day to create a sense of importance that the store manager had taken time off his Out of the 183 staff working in the new store, some busy schedule leading up to the store opening to 150 were completely new to the company and the welcome them. remainder came from existingpositions within Superquinn. The company could have filled all the The new employees were divided into three teams permanent positions from within Superquinn but for the three week training period. The teams were management decided from an early stage that newthen further sub-divided according to the type of staff should be recruited were possible.It waswork the staff would be doing in the new store, decided that the new enthusiasm of staff allied with chargehands, checkout operators, store people, training could lead to the Lucan store setting new etc. A comprehensive programme of training and standards within Superquinn which the other stores store visits was arranged. Each participant depend- would then have to emulate. ing on his or her appointed position in the new store received training appropriate to that position and In keeping with Superquinn policy, the manager of visited existing stores to see how the work was car- the store considered that the recruitment of staff ried out in practice. The classroom sessions were was an important part of the training process. The kept as informal as possible and the emphasis was recruitment programme gave the manager and the on allowing participants to discuss what they had recruitment team an opportunity to initially screen learnt. The highlight of the training programme for applicants who could form part of the team at many of the new recruits was the visit to the Lucan Lucan.Both manager andrecruitment team store two weeks prior to its opening. endeavoured to make the interview process as relaxed and friendly as possible. The intention was The training process leading up to the opening of to portray Superquinn as a company where it would the Lucan store was also an educational process for be fun to work and where team spirit was encour- the training and personnel department because aged. The manager believed that applicants should thirty three of the total came from existing Super- enjoy applying for a job in Superquinn. Even if job quinn stores. While these were also included in the 66 seekers were unsuccessful in their application the training programme the nature of their programme 6.1 was more on refreshing them on what they hadselection and induction training process. Super- learnt on previous training courses. Their presence quinn believe strongly that personality not qualifi- 2. on these courses allowed trainers to ask them what cations or previous experience is the most important they had learnt from previous courses and what attribute among new recruits. The role of the train- they had applied since. The participants' comments ing and personnel department is providing the con- proved useful in helping the training and personnelditions in which employees can serve the customer department to evaluate existing courses and to to a level better than any of Superquinn's competi- determine where changes should be made. tors can provide.

It is Superquinn's style of management that the store The training and personnel department supports managers are considered to be "customers" of the the stores with a wide range of induction and con- staff departments such as the training and person-tinuing educafion courses for both management nel department.The manager of the Lucan store did and shop floor grades. Even casual employees who not use a traditional way of evaluating the training work in the stores fora small number of hours every his new staff had received from the training and week sweeping the floors or packing bags at the personnel department such as the money spent ofcheck-out must now undergo a one day induction training. His measure of the performance of the course. trainers was that his staff, when the store opened in November 1991, wanted to do their work profes- Many of the courses provided by the Department sionally and wanted to it with enthusiasm. For him have been developed internally. Where a contin- enthusiasm was a key word. He also felt that staff uing vocational education course cannot be pro- should enjoy themselves, that there should be a fun vided internally by the company, the training and element to work. The manager did not believe that personnel department endeavour to have the the outcome of training could be or should be meas- course material re-developed to suit the retailing ured in terms of cost or numbers. He was entirely industry in general and to Superquinn's method of satisfied with the training that had been provided to retailing in particular.The department also supports his staff in the period prior to the opening of thethe trainees on external courses by providing them store. with weekly sessions with a trainer from the training centre to help them relate the course content to their The manager believed that it was important for the actual working situation. training and personnel department to have a very close working relationship with the store. Sucha The company believes that its recent policy decision partnership would work best if the training person- to extend training in hygiene to all employees han- nel regularly met with him and his staff toassess the dling food will enable it to gain a competitive training programme that had been put in place foradvantage in the future as forthcoming legislation the opening of the store. He particularly welcomed will make it mandatory for all people handling food the fact that the training and personnel departmentin retail outlets to have basic training in retailing. had provided a full-time trainer to the store fora number of weeks after the opening. Providingcon- 4.4.2 By the employees and their tinuing support was as important to the manager as representatives the initial training. The employees of Superquinn have expressed their satisfaction with the training programmes provided 4.4 Evaluation by management. Though employees or their.representatives do not have direct influence in the forma- 4.4.1 By the management tion of training policy within the company because Superquinn is a company which believes in the of the close relationship that exists between staff importance of continuing vocational education inand management, employees are encouraged to assisting the company to survive in a very competi- make suggestions regarding future training policies tive Irish grocery marketplace. Training hasan and programmes. important role within the company in helping Super- quinn to maintain its competitive advantage in fresh There is a recognition among Superquinn employ- food retailing and in providing a superior level of ees of the high standards of continuing vocational customer service than its competitors. training which they receive and of the fact that such training is not available in the majority of other com- The training and personnel department within the panies operating in the Irish grocery market. company plays a supporting role to each of the company's thirteen shops. Within Superquinn the 4.4.3 By the author store manager has absolute responsibility for the Superquinn is an example of a company whose performance of the store. Store managersare not method of conducting business is dominated by the required to use the services of the training andper- very individual philosophy of its founder, Feargal sonnel department: when they do so they mustpay Quinn. His view of customers and the way in which a fee to the department. This puts an onus on the Superquinn employees should treat customers is training and personnel department and other sup- evident in the company s training policy. His view porting service organizations to "market" a service that unless potential employees have theperson- which is relevant to the needs of the stores. ality to serve customers in the Superquinnway then they can't be trained to do so is one thatsome pro- The company believes strongly that continuing fessionals within the training sector will disagree vocational education is strongly linked with the with. However, Si iperquinn is confident that its 67

sf approach is correct and point to its continuing suc- environment in which Superquinn operate, the cess and growth in the very competitive grocery training and personnel department have devel- market in Ireland where many other firms, both oped a training programme which could help the native and foreign, have failed. company to achieve a possible competitive cost advantage over its rivals. The company also has a very unusualif somewhat unorthodoxapproach to the measurement of the Superquinn in common with many other retailers effectiveness of training. Superquinn is not a paper have found that there is a shortage of qualitytraining organization: few statistics are kept by the training programmes specifically for the retail sector which and personnel department on the cost of training. can be purchased externally.Superquinn's solution to As far as con be gauged Superquinn do not engage this has been to develop its own training materials in cost-benefit analysis of its training programmes. most of which are of a very high quality or to adapt The most important statistic retained by the depart- existing external material to its own needs. The train- ment is the number of staff members who have par- ing and personnel department are considering the ticipated on its training programmes during the possibility of marketing this material. This is an option financial year. which other retail companies which have invested heavily in training might consider. From an industry 4.5 Transferability point of view it would help solve the problem of lack Superquinn prides itself on being a customer-ori- of quality training materials on the market. From the ented company: this attitude is reflected in the struc- company's point of view the sale of the material ture of the company. The most important people would help recoup the cost of producing the material in the company are the area managers and the and would perhaps help overcome the perception store managers. Head office and other staff units that training departments are not just cost centres but exist to support the area and store managers. they can also generate revenues from their lwn As with other support departments, the training activities. and personnel department must go out to the stores and "sell" their services to the store managers. The 4.6 Conclusion area and store managers are not obliged to "buy" Superquinn is a very interesting grocery company to from the training and personnel department par- study because of its policies and structure.The com- ticularly if they think by doing so the stores' profits pany is very customer-oriented and it has been first for which they are responsiblewill be reduced. in Irelandand in many other European countries The training and personnel department is forcedto introduce radical new innovations such as therefore to spend considerable time ascertaining creches in shops and pizza counters. From the point the needs of store managers and devising training of view of continuing vocational education this cus- programmes which will suit their needs and require- tomer-oriented attitude is reflected in the work of ments. Trainers spend a considerable amount of the training and personnel department.The depart- their time discussing training programmes with ment must market its services to all of Superquinn's their "customers". Superquinn believe thatthis retail outletsthe store managers are not obliged to approach ensures that the department's policiesuse its services. The department must, therefore, and programmes reflect what the users want. undertake market research among the store man- This user-oriented approach could serve as a model agers to ascertain what training programmes are for other companies and not only in the retailrequired and then develop programmes to meet sector who wish to devise training policies for the needs of the individual stores. This process helps employee.; and managers consistent with actual as to ensure that the training and personnel depart- opposed to perceived needs. ment are in constant communication and training programmes are developed which meet the real Another element of Superquinn's training policy needs of the stores. which is worthy of consideration is to achieve a competitive advantage through training. In Super- Superquinn believes in the importance of linking quinn's case, the training and personnel depart- recruitment to continuing vocational training and ment has developed a hygiene course for its the company also emphasises the importance of its employees and it plans to have all its employees go induction training programme. A basic tenet of through this course over the next three years. Superquinn's approach is that if a new recruit has Superquinn believe that future legislation will make the right personality to serve customers he or she it mandatory for all retail sector employees han- can be trained in the necessary techniques. For a dling food to undertake this training. By starting potential employee to have the right personality is now Superquinn hope to achieve a competitive more important to Superquinn then having previ- advantage over their rivals in Ireland in having all ous experience in the retail sector. their employees go on the course before the legislation is enacted. Their rivals who have not yet devel- The Service Industries Research Centre would like to oped such a course will then be forced to use thethank the management and staff of Superquinn for expen:ve option of having to train all their employ- their support and assistance in the preparation of ees in a very short period. By scanning the legal this case study.

68 66 PART 3:

CONCLUSIONS

v1. Selection of case studies 1. SELECTION OF CASE STUDIES

The four Irish case studies were selected from a list formal system for assessing staff training needs; ESB of ten Irish retail companies submitted by the Ser- is pilot-testing a programme to assess individual vice Industries Research Centre. One of the compa-training requirements. nies selected, Marks & Spencer, was studied as part of a three nation study. The social partners are not involved in training at the level of the enterprise. Employees or their repre- The companies submitted to the central team had sentatives are not involved in establishing company been chosen on the basis of criteria relating to their training policies or in drawing up annual training continuing vocational education programmes. The plans. The development of training policies and companies were interviewed by the Service Indus- objectives is the prerogative of management. In two tries Research Centre and during the interview of the companies profiled in the case studies, Marks process a questionnaire designed by the central &Spencer and ESB, structures existed in wF.ich train- team was completed. ing could be discussed between management and staff. In the case of the ESB these structures are One of the difficulties faced by the Service Indus- chiefly used to discuss pay and conditions. Negotia- tries Research Centre was the small number of Irishtions between management and trade unions retail companies which met the criteria set down for rarely focus on training, the predominant concerns inclusion in the list of candidates from which the being traditional industrial relation issues of pay companies to be investigated in the case studiesand conditions. As mentioned above, the training were to be selected. Training within the Irish retail manager is often also the personnel manager. This industry is almost exclusively found in large compa- can cause difficulties in negotiations between man- nies. Another related feature of the Irish retail indus- agement and trade unions because there have try which restricted the list of candidates is that it is been instances in the recent past where training largely dominated in terms of numbers of enter- was introduced at a time of redundancy: this has prises by SMEs and in terms of turnover by a small not helped to create a positive attitude for training number of very large companies. in these firms among staff or their representatives. Some trade unionists believe thatit would be 1.1 Planning and conception of training beneficial to separate training from industrial rela- Systematic training of staff within the retail sector in tions. Ireland is a relatively new development. For example in one of the four Irish case studies, Clerys, oneThe objectives of training vary from company, to of the largest department stores in Dublin employ- company but as a general principle, training is ing 320 people, there was no training departmentgeared towards enabling sales staff to improve and no formalized training system up until two and their selling skills and relations with customers and a half years ago. Similarly, the training function in to increase product knowledge levels. At the super- Superquinn was not formally established until 1979. visory level, training is aimed at allowing supervis- The recession in Ireland coupled with the arrival ofors to develop their interpersonal and managerial UK-owned retail companies in the Irish retail sector skills. Training for new technology is becoming have combined to make a very difficult trading increasingly relevant with the introduction of EPOS environment and have underlined the necessity for technology. companies to develop staff to meet the changing market conditions. The large UK firms which have Training plans within large organizations are gen- established in Ireland have long traditions of train- erally integrated into overall corporate business ing and a good example of this is Marks & Spencer. plans. In the case of the ESB, however, this is a recent The higher level of professionalism of the staff in the introduction. In the case of the vast majority of firms UK-owned stores has been a contributing factor to in the Irish retail sector particularly SMEs, neither a indigenous companies realizing the need to raise formal business plan or training plan is likely to exist. staff standards in their stores. Training plans tend to reflect overall corporate Formal planning of training within companies in-needs rather than individual needs. However, as volved in the Irish retail sector is largely tF e preserve indicated in the Marks & Spencer case study, staff in of large companies. The four case stucies under- the company are encouraged to assess their own taken in Ireland indicated that the enterprises pro-training requirements and to take responsibility for filed undertook formal planning of training. Thistheir own personal development. practice, however, is not found in smaller companies as training in these companies is undertaken on an 1.2 Type of personnel concerned with ad hoc basis if at all. training Training for new entrants into the company is a very Formal planning of training within companies is the important part of training within the Irish retail sec- responsibility of the training manager who is often tor. Because of the absence of a nationally rec- the personnel manager. The training programmes ognized retail skills training course for new entrants are directed principally at two categories, sales to the sector, the onus on providing training lies with staff and supervisors/ middle managers. Formal management. In the larger companies there are assessment of staff training needs is still in its infancy formal induction training programmes, and the in Ireland; the majority of firms rely on subjective Superquinn case study is a good example of a estimates of staff training needs as perceived by company which provides induction training both supervisors and management. Marks & Spencer is for full-time and part-time staff. In the smaller retail an exception as the company has a detailed and enterprise training is provided on an informal basis 69 66 to new entrants and islargely on-the-job in-given the number of female employees in most struction. retail organizations.

Induction training is intended to provide newcom- Part-time working in the retail sector is increasing ers with basic skills and to introduce the newthough the exact numbers are difficult to quantify. It employee to the culture of the company. As indi- is estimated that part time employment accounts for cated in the sectoral report many employers actu- 20 per cent of total persons employed in the retail ally prefer to recruit employees without any prior industry in Ireland. Rising labour costs and competi- training or experience in the retail sector. Theytive market pressures are likely to result in more believe it will be easier to train such newcomers in part- time labour being employed. Changing con- their methods and philosophy of retailing. sumer expenditure patterns have also influenced the use of part-time employment particularly in the Training for existing staff is also an important part of food sector where shopping peaks during Thursday the work of training departments of firms within the to Saturday and in the department store sector retail sector. The introduction of new technology,where Christmas is a peak shopping time.There are such as EPOS, means that cashiers require training conflicting views about the impact of part time to use the new scanning and point of salesemployees on training. Trade unions feor that the machines.The recession and the increased competi- increased use of part-time employees willii1C1"it tion between retail outlets has created the need for less likely for employers to offer formal training increased training in better selling methods and courses because part-time employees willbe increased emphasis on customer service. Enter- regarded as being more transient than full-time prises have also put emphasis on developing ne employees and therefore investment in training of skills to allow them to take advantage of profitable part-time employees will be wasted. Superquinn, market niches. For example, Superquinn invest a hog. Ewer, takes the opposite view and has started to considerable amount of training on staff in special-put all part-time employees through an induction ist food areas such as bakeries and meat counterscourse. The company takes the view that part-time where it is possible to earn higher margins than with employees are often the first employees that cus- food products supplied by manufacturers. Producttomers see and it is therefore important that they knowledge courses are very important as was illus- receive training in customer service as any full-time trated in the case of ESB where products sold in the employee would. stores are constantly changing. With respect to conditions of access of different Retail organizations are now beginning to put groups to continuing vocational training the main increased importance on training for supervisor point to be noted is that the main barrier is that in and management grades. ComprAtion has resulted small and medium-sized firms there is often little or in the need for managers to take greater responsi-no formal training whereas employees in larger bility for the strategic management of their stores firms are more likely to have access to a wider range with the result that a greater part of their former of formal and informal training opportunities. This tactical management duties are now being dele- barrier is a function of a number of factors including gated to supervisors. While the larger retail organi- the lack of a nationally available training courses zations still continue to train supervise, and man- for the retail sector and the predominantly small size agers internally there is an increasing trend towards of most retail firms most of whom are not able to the use of outside courses particularly degree cour- afford training programmes. ses. At present there are no degree courses in retail management being offered in Ireland and retail 1.3 Contents, methods and organizations must send their managers to the UK.ow-iznization Superquinn, for example, has a number of mangersA salient feature of the Irish retail sector is that there attending an MBA course in Strathclyde Universityare no industry-wide training programmes specifi- in Scotland. However, the College of Marketing in cally for the sector. There are no requirements for Dublin is having discussions with Trinity Collegeowners to have a qualification in retail manage- Dublin about the possibility of offering a degree ment prior to establishing a retail business as is the court 3 in distribution marketing management. case in other EC countries. Similarly, entrants to the retail sector do not need to have a qualification in As noted in the sectoral report women account for retailing prior to working in the sector. As has been the largest percentage of persons engaged in the indicated above and in the sectoral report, it is not retail sector in Ireland. While women employees are regarded as being to the advantage of a job seeker concentrated in the lower grades the trend is forto have prior training or experience in the retail women to increasingly hold management positions. sector when applying for employment in the retail In the case of Clerys,women account for 56 per centindustry in Ireland. of all employees but account for 64 and 73 per cent of buyer and department manager positions. Few Because of the absence of nationally available retail organizations offer training courses specifi- training courses for the retail sector the onus is on cally for women employees though ESB has a retail companies to develop their own training pro- Career Development programme specifically togrammes. For small to medium-sized companies assist female employees in identifying and develop-training is provided on an informal basis, if at all. ing their own abilities, personality characteristicsIn the larger companies training is provided on a and occupational interests. It is likely that other retail mixture of formal and informal basis. Both internal organizations will follow ESB's example in the future and external training programmes are used in lar- 68 ger enterprises; the lack of available external train- UK retail industry the new arrivals have brought ing courses and materials suitable forthe retail trade their UK training practices to their Irish operations in Ireland has meant that many of the larger retail and have forced indigenous Irish companies to operators have had to develop their own internal make training a higher priority. The UK-owned training expertise and materials. Much of the inter- stores operating in Ireland have access to their par- nally developed material is of very high quality as is ent's training programmes and materials which the case with Marks & Spencer and Superquinn. gives them a substantial advantage over their Irish rivals. In Marks & Spencer all the training material The practice of integrating general training subjects available to its Irish subsidiary was free of charge such as customer service and specific skills training and the subsidiary's training budget of IRE 15,000, varies quite widely. With SMEs the emphasis is likely with IRE 5000 allocated for Cork in 1991 was to to be on general training in customer relations and cover incidental expenses. in the operation of check-out machines. Training in specific skills is¶ likely in small to medium-sized Companiesparticularly large progressive compa- retail operations because of the cost of using exter- niesare increasingly conscious of the impact that nal trainers. Large retail companies provide both training can make in gaining competitive advan- general and specific skills training. In most cases the tage over their rivals. In some cases this takes the two types are kept separate. Some of the compa- form of training in new technology as in the case of nies profiled in the case studies are now thinking of Marks &Spencer or as in the case of Superquinn, the incorporating the two in their training courses. company is in the process of providing training in Superquinn provides modules on customer service hygiene to all its employees. Superquinn manage- in some of the company's specific training courses to ment believe that forthcoming legislation will make refresh participants on customer service training it mandatory for all employees in the retail business _courses attended previously. who handle food to have this training. By starting now, Superquinn management hopes to gain an The workplace is used quite widely in the Irish retail advantage over their competitors who have not yet sector as a training plac., : in small to medium-sized started this kind of training. companies the work place is often the only training place. In the larger organization the workplace will The vocational education system only plays a small be used in conjunction with classroom training. ESB role in continuing vocational education. In the main, and Superquinn use both workplace and class- only one vocational educational institufion, the Col- room as training places. lege of Marketing in Dublin, provides courses for the retail sector. The College provides courses at Only the larger organizations have invested intrainee/apprenticeship, management and propri- training facilities and only the larger organizations etorship levels. Its Dublin location, however, creates can afford to do so. It is only these companies which difficulties for retailers and students wishing to study have internal training departments and have devel- retailing outside the capital to attend courses. FAS, oped their own customized training materials.the national training and employment authority, Many of the training departments are of recent ori- provides training courses in retailing to unemployed gin as is the case of Clerys where the training people to help them find positions within the retail department did not exist two and a half years ago. sector. The authority is presently examining the The training department as a rule is part of the per- requirements of training within the retail sector and sonnel and industrial relations department. Again considering its own role within the sector. as in the case of Clerys, the training manger is also the industrial relations manager. The research both in the case studies and the sectoral study has shown that the social partners are The issue of transferability is one which varies not involved in training at an enterprise level. from company to company. In some cases the train- Training policy and implementation is solely the ing is geared to informing the employee on how the discretion of management. In some organizations company operates, its specific culture and what is such as ESB and Marks & Spencers in the case stud- expected of employees. This obviously cannot be iesthere are structures which allow management transferred and the same point applies to product and employees to discuss matters of mutual interest. knowledge training that is specific to a particular However, training is not high on the agenda and the sector of the retail industry. However, other ele-matters most frequently discussed are pay and ments of the training programmes of the largerconditions. At national level the same situation companies such as custorrr. relations training applies:discussionsbetweenemployersand could be used in smaller companies which pres- trade unions focus on pay and conditions with the ently do not have access to this type of training. result that other issues are rarely covered in detail Certain training need identification procedures, if at all. such as those used in Marks & Spencer, could be used in a wide variety of both small and large 1.4 Cost, financing and evolution organizations. The case studies and interviews with trade experts indicate that there is little in-depth assessment of Reference has been made in the sectoral report thattraining in terms of its cost to companies. What there are many UK-owned companies operating in assessment takes place is not based on quantitative the Irish retail sector. These companies have had the measures but rather on qualitative measures. Even effect of increasing competition in the market place. with UK-owned stores in Ireland such as Marks & Because of the longer tradition of training within the Spencer, cost/benefit analysisisnot attempted 70 because management view such an evaluation as ces would like to see a training programme which 3. extremely difficultif not impossible to measure has both on-the-job and off-the-job components. accurately. The management of Marks & Spencer in Such a programme would benefit both large and Ireland believe that investment in staff brings long-small companies. It would benefit the large compa- term returns in terms of greater competitiveness,nies because it would largely replace their induction . efficiency and profitability. programmes and allow them to devote more resources to training in advanced skills. For SMEs A similar view of training assessments is held in especially, such a course would fill the vacuum which Superquinn which, being a "no paper" organization, exists currently in relation to the availability of rel- does not believe in keeping detailed records on evant training courses. training.The most important statistic kept is the number of people trained by the training and personnel One of the most contentious issues in relation to the department during the year. development and provision of a national course for the retail industry is finance. In the manufacturing The trend in the future is likely to be that more sector, a training levy is collected from medium to systematic assessments of training will become a large-sized companies and this is used to fund train- feature of the large retail companies which provide ing programmes in the sector. This method of col- training to employees. The factors which are likely to lecting funds for training is being opposed by the influence this trend are rising staff remuneration and larger retail companies who object to paying for the training costs, declining margins and static sales vol- training of their smaller competitors. Another meth- umes which wil! combine to force management to od of financing being considered is that all compa- scrutinize expenditure in all areas of their business. nies, regardless of their size, will pay a percentage of their salary bill into a fund which will be used to A debate is taking place within the retail industry on pay for the development and provision of a training the issue of a national training programme for the programme for the retail sector. Financial assistance industry. Thee are a number of proposals from from the EC could help to with the development of employers, trade unions and state agencies cur- such a programme. The availability of a national rently being considered. To be effective, a training training programme would in particular benefit course for the industry would have to be nationally SMEs within the retail industry who presently do not available and ideally should be certified by a recog- have access to such training or do not have the re- nized vocational educational authority. Trade sour- sources to pay for external trainers.

72 71 APPENDIX: INTERVIEWS

Mr. John Long, Department of Labour Mr. Denis Ryan, Ms. Irene Butler, Mr. Brian Lawless, Ms. Paula Bristow, Mr.Paddy Murray, Clery's Ireland Mr. Eamonn Ward, Arnotts Department Store Limited

Mr. Jim Goulding, Irish Hardware Association Mr. Derry O'Reilly, Ms. Margaret Quinn, Mr. Joe Connolly,Ms.Siobhan Cahill, tvir.John Foy, Superquinn Mr. Liam Doherty, Ms. Kea lin Ireland, Federation of Irish Employers Mr. Jim Cushen, Mr. Brendan Burke, Mr. Michael Duff, Mr. Maurice Hogan, Ms. Ann Downes, E.S.B. Mr. John Douglas, Irish National Union of Vintners, Grocers and Allied Trades Association Mr. Pat McKeown, Irish Retail Newsagents Association

Mr. John Kane, Mr. Liam Peppard, Services, Indus- Mr. Seamus O'Donnell, Irish Distributive and Admin- trial, Professional and Technical Union (SiPTU) istrative Trade Union

Mr. Michael Campbell, Retail Grocery, Dairy and Mr. Ray Burke, Musgraves Limited Allied Trades Association Mr. Paul Ryan, L & N Limited Mr. Joe Holmes, National Federation of Retail Newsagents Mr. David McMahon, Shaws Department Stores

Ms. Anne Stack, National Federation of Trade Ms. Mary Cryan, Brown Thomas/ Switzers Group Associations Mr. Brian Rafferty, BWG Foods Mr. Tony O'Connor, Mr. Pat O'Neill, Mr. John Ryan, College of Marketing Mr. Jim Duggan, Easons Limited

Mr. William Gibbon, Ms. Alison Houston, Ms. Julie Mr. Mel Clifford, Quinnsworth Byrne, Ms. Patricia Hegarty, Mr. Co Im O'Leary, Ms. Mary Whelan, Marks & Spencer Ireland Limited Mr. Eugene Hanley, Roches Stores

73 CEDEFOP European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training

Training in the retail trade in Ireland (FORCE Programme)

Service industries Research Centre, University College Dublin

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 1994 - 73 pp. - 21.0 x 29.7 cm

ISBN 92-826-7830-X

Price (excluding VAT) in Luxembourg: ECU 8

Vents y suscripclones Sa Ig og abonnement Verkauf and Abonnement ftwAnocis kal ouvapoptc Sales and subscriptions Vente et abonnements Vendita e abbonamenti Verkoop en abonnementen Venda a assinaturas

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