I was talking with a newsagent yesterday who was frustrated at the high cost of labour on a Sunday. His comment … all they do is serve … stood out. I asked what stopped him scheduling work to be done on a Sunday, as you would a regular day. He agreed that they had time to get projects completed during the day but was concerned that he would have to train them.
Sunday trading is often seen by newsagents as retail (serving) only. I see it as anther regular day in the work week, getting projects completed, moving the newsagency forward, creating new displays, refreshing old displays, making sure that the business looks different than it did a few days ago.
If you do treat Sundays as a day for serving only then you;re probably not making as much of the premium labour cost as you could. I’d encourage newsagents not engaged in making the most of Sundays to do so. Create some projects or tasks. measure outcomes. See how much time you can save from your busy Monday workload and maybe adjust hours as a result.
Our Sunday Staff process magazine returns, input stock that is not EDI into the system and other such work. My last Sunday manager also downloaded and printed Monday magazine labels but the new one still needs training with this. We were only discussing last week that we need more done on a Sunday and that window displays etc should be created in the future and the shop presentation made ready for the new trading week. The question is do we do this ourselves and have a day off during the week or train our staff to do all this? One to ponder.
Mark a timely reminder. I switched how I use Sundays and have been able to cut six hours from my Monday roster.m Just by using minimum staffing requirements of Sunday better.
We used to get our Monday stock on Sundays (doesn’t happen anymore) and it was great to utilize the Sunday staff as suggested.
We always give them extra jobs to do and at the moment they are stocktaking (cards & stationery and confectionery and books are already completed – PDE is fantastic. One handles the counter while the other one scans (and offers help to browsers I hope) We find it works quite well and the staff know they are being well-paid so we usually get some bang for our buck.