In our 2024 HR Trends & Insights report, we gathered valuable resources and data points to help reshape workforce learning and talent mobility strategies.
Here we have collected the top 5 trends & insights for retail leaders.
Scroll to read or download the infographic as a PDF to read later or share.
Despite reporting a strong belief in employees’ abilities to grow these skills, companies are lagging in providing the opportunity to build them.
Make AI accessible to your entire workforce.
AI is poised to impact the retail industry across job levels — including the frontline. Talent leaders can empower their entire workforces to gain critical skills for the future by ensuring education benefits cover a breadth of AI upskilling programs including those that don’t have prior education requirements.
Overlooking where employees are likely to learn about learning and career growth opportunities plus over-using employer-centric language results in low adoption rates of education benefits and a lack of internal mobility.
Go beyond formal channels to share career growth information.
Informal channels, like conversations with supervisors or coworkers, company reviews, and interviews dominate how career advancement information is communicated.
“I have a team leader who reports to me who I’d talked to about college. He wasn’t considering it before. He came to me one day and said ‘You’re going to be the most excited person in my whole life for this…’ and he showed me the email saying that he was accepted into college. …Being able as a leader to bring that opportunity to my team who I care very much about, and [seeing] them taking advantage of it… it is another level of ‘life changing’ for me.”
— Janice Anglim, HR management learner and Executive Team Leader - Specialty Sales, Target
Silos within HR and people teams can cause companies to miss where internal recruitment and upskilling can significantly impact business ROI.
Provide fully-funded tuition to help employees upskill — and fuel strategic business growth.
Champions rally support for internal mobility when they understand decision-maker’s key areas of concern and are prepared to speak to them.
Address common areas of concern by role:
Expert advice:
“Know what your CFO’s pain points are and what they are responsible for. The more you put yourself in those shoes, the better you are at understanding what they want their HR partner to come and speak with them about. Come in with a bit of a framework and a plan rather than a concept.”
— Sarah King, Chief People & Diversity Officer, Darden
Recognizing skills gained outside of formal degree programs can make opportunity more accessible, and hiring more equitable — but only with the right longer term strategy in place.
Approaching skills-based hiring as a job matching initiative with no on-ramps to skill into other high-demand and destination roles isn’t a long-term skilling strategy.
Access to the right skills — and internal pathways to career growth — helps companies upskill their workforces for the future, and inspires employees to stay.
As organizations listen to HR leaders like never before, HR leaders have an opportunity to improve lives and solve critical business problems like never before.
Download our HR Trends & Insights report to gather valuable resources and data points to help reshape workforce learning and talent mobility strategies.
