What to tell employees and how to keep your staff in place when closing a business?
When a retailer embarks on a wall-to-wall business closing sale one of the main concerns he or she has is this.
How to keep the staff in place throughout the duration of the liquidation sale and what to tell them all along.
A lot of employees will leave once they find out a store is closing, because they don’t want to be out of a job when the business owner locks the doors for the final time.
While this is understandable, the owner of the closing business needs to keep employees in the store to assist customers while the store conducts its closing sale.
Once a retailer has made the decision to go out of business and conduct a liquidation sale he or she will want to keep plans quiet until the sales preparations have all been completed.
Of course the concerns would be what to tell employees and what happens to the staff when the business closes or liquidates.
Letting employees and others know about it too early can result in a flood of employees leaving for other jobs before the sale is over, and in some cases, before it even starts.
The idea of keeping these plans to yourself should always apply, regardless of whether you are planning on holding the sale yourself or are thinking of hiring a retail consulting firm to conduct your sale for you.
How does a store closing work?
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By keeping these plans to yourself, you give yourself plenty of time for careful development of a good action plan that will allow you to keep your staff in place throughout the duration of the liquidation sale.
Once you have your plans in order and all of the preparations are almost finished, it’s time to tell your employees.
This doesn’t need to be a big, fancy event, but offering them incentives to remain during the sale is very important.
Best way to tell is by holding a store meeting with all employees and bringing to their notice that the store will be closing.
At that time, you also want to make it clear that you will be offering a severance package.
This type of package doesn’t need to be elaborate.
It only needs to be some kind of incentive that the employees want and need.
For example, a retailer that is closing the store could offer a full week’s pay to any employee that stays on through the official store closing date.
This would be payable to the employee at the end of the sale.
Most employees, even if they do start looking for another job, will schedule that new job to start after the official store closing date of their current employer, so that they can receive the benefit of the extra pay.
Naturally, however, even monetary incentives will not keep all employees on board until the close of the business.
Expect to lose some of your workers starting shortly after the liquidation sale announcement is made and continuing throughout the sale itself.
Be prepared for the possibility of employees quitting without notice, especially if they haven’t been working for you that long.
Make a list as part of your plan of which employees you can rely on to cover other shifts or work extra hours if need be.
- Also, be prepared to put in more hours and more work yourself to help make the liquidation sale a success, especially if you plan on doing this on your own.
- Many owners prefer to hire someone to run the sale for them, so that they can focus on details like this and running their business.
- The key to keeping your staff in place for a liquidation sale is being fully prepared and being up-front and honest with your employees once the decision has been made and the preparations are in order.
This is essential for a successful liquidation sale and store closing with a minimum of personnel hassle.
You will also keep the respect of the individuals that work for you, and your reputation in place in the community which is a large concern for many owners that decide to shut their doors.
Treating your employees fairly and encouraging them to work with you through this process with you will go a long way toward keeping them working for you in an enthusiastic and productive manner until the doors of the business are closed for the final time.