If you've spent any time in the Mid-Atlantic U.S., chances are you've filled up and grabbed a bite to eat at Sheetz, the near-ubiquitous gas station-restaurant chain. And if you frequent the same Sheetz more than a few times, you're likely to see familiar faces behind the counter.
That's because Sheetz, along with some other retail and restaurant chains, is shifting its workforce balance toward full-time hires. More than half of its 17,000 workers are full-timers, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
Leaders at the convenience store-and-gas-station chain say having full-time workers behind the register results in better customer service, lower turnover and a more engaged workforce—all of which, executives say, will lead to higher sales and profits.
Nearly 5.7 million workers said they were working part-time last year because they couldn’t get more hours or find full-time work, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics survey data. About 65% of store employees in the retail sector work part-time, according to an analysis by search and consulting firm Korn Ferry Hay Group. Companies reason that keeping staff to 30 hours or fewer a week curbs labor costs and allows firms to act nimbly, adjusting staffing to match customer demand.
Sheetz, and others like beauty retailer Bluemercury Inc., acknowledge that full-timers might cost more at first, but say they are more reliable—27% of full-time hourly workers leave their jobs per year, versus 68.7% of part-timers, according to the Korn Ferry report. Lower employee turnover saves on training and hiring costs, those employers say, and some report their customers spend more when full-timers take orders and ring up purchases.
For customers, a full-time employee “gives them the same face every day. It builds a different feeling than the robot behind the counter,” says Sheetz Chief Executive Joe Sheetz.
Analysis: Labor Is Your Differentiator
Sheetz's turnover numbers actually outpace those in the Korn Ferry research. Fewer than 25 percent of full-timers there leave their jobs each year, while a whopping 83 percent of part-timers do, according to the Journal.
Overall, the trend toward full-time hires reflects an important truth for companies with public-facing staff in today's business climate, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Guy-Frederic Courtin.
"It reinforces the notion then when it comes to labor, they're your biggest brand ambassadors," Courtin says. "They're no longer a faceless asset you bring in whenever you need and dispose of when you want."
Take a clothing store with five salespeople on the floor. If a high-end customer that requires white glove treatment walks in, ideally the store manager would have the savvy or information required to place an experienced rep with the customer, not a rookie, Courtin says.
Today, call centers have the ability to do pretty much this by rerouting calls to certain reps based on a customer's history of calls and the reason for them.
For retailers, a crucial task moving forward centers on bolstering their systems to not only determine the right workers to hire, but how to train and retain them, Courtin says.
"It puts even more strain on your labor force when they have to be flexible in their handling of customers," Courtin says. "You cannot take a cookie-cutter attitude toward customer service."
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