Few other industries offer such a diverse range of opportunities to excel and progress as retail.

The retail trade employs more than 220,000 people in New Zealand, accounting for around 9% of the nation’s total workforce, according to Stats NZ. With numerous entry points, flexible scheduling, and a controllable work-life balance, a career in retail is an attractive proposition for many.

From the shop floor to the contact centre and distribution, each touchpoint of the retail experience needs to be smooth and seamless to ensure customers are satisfied and return for more, ensuring retail businesses thrive.

To make this happen, employees need to be engaged and motivated. It helps them perform tasks more effectively and confidently as they get more efficient in completing their daily tasks.

While a strong work ethic, can-do attitude, and adaptability goes a long way, as employees gain experience, ongoing training and development becomes the key to progression.

A lack of training opportunities is one of the primary reasons many retail employees don’t stay in the sector for long. Today’s retail workforce want more than just a career path, they want career progression – a rewarding, value-laden journey of structured, on-the-job, and task-oriented learning that helps them move up the career ladder.

In our experience, employees find on-the-job training is the best way for them to learn and evolve. It’s relevant, based on assessments related to the job, and comes with an end product. Furthermore, employees gain a genuine sense that this is the right training for them, that it meets their ambitions within the broader context of the business, and because assessments are usually supervised by a manager, it demonstrates that their employer is genuinely invested in their success. It also puts employees in pole position for the next step on the career ladder and empowers them with the confidence to move quickly if sudden promotion opportunities present themselves.

Training also presents a real opportunity for retailers to increase job satisfaction and retain talent. People who stay in the business longer save firms time and money. However, training must be meaningful, and it must go somewhere. 22% of retail employees feel they get inadequate training, according to Shopify and Axonify found that 43% feel training is vital for personal success.

Employees get frustrated, feel stuck in a role that they believe is going nowhere and, worst of all, they get motivated in all the wrong ways – by looking for better opportunities elsewhere.

To help businesses get the very best out of their people, ServiceIQ takes care of those touchpoints mentioned earlier, from shop floor superstars to supervisory and management marvels, we provide nationally recognised retail qualifications across every step and all levels of the retail experience.

The New Zealand Certificate in Retail (Level 3) is ideal for upskilling in store performance, product knowledge, loss prevention, health and safety and more, and because great leaders are trained, not born, the New Zealand Certificate in Business (Introduction to Team Leadership) Level 3 provides career progression for talented employees with management potential to layer in skills in communication, report writing and legal compliance issues to compliment the already excellent management skills they currently possess.

Behind the scenes, distribution workers can take advantage of the New Zealand Certificate in Distribution – Level 3 and Level 4 to take their careers to the next level and the New Zealand Certificate in Contact Centres – Level 3 is ideal for anyone in a customer service, support, contact centre, or related role.

With so many courses to choose from, whether it’s improving product knowledge and customer service to upskilling in staff performance or stock management, managers and supervisors can pinpoint exactly where knowledge gaps or experience may need supporting to help employees flourish – and employees get to take hold of their careers right now and in the longer term.

On-the-job training also helps businesses get more strategic around how and when they roll out training to their teams. It helps them prepare for busy times and seasonality and they immediately benefit from the investment as they get to see progression first hand.

Take the steps to help your people soar and build a long and successful career in retail or level up your retail career and start your journey today. Grow you and your retail business with affordable on-the-job retail training. ServiceIQ, the workplace training specialist for the hospitality, retail, tourism, aviation, travel, and museums sectors, New Zealand wide.