Retail HR Summit 2025 Review – Powering through the challenges
Despite the undoubted challenges in the retail sector there is an underlying positivity coming from the industry’s HR community about the prospects for the future, increasingly aided by advanced technology solutions that are augmenting the capabilities of HR and the wider workforce.
This was a clear conclusion from the recent The Retail Bulletin Retail HR Summit 2025 in London. For Sam Westwood, People Experience Director at KFC, a key component that retailers can draw on for this positivity is their culture. “There’s a misconception about culture. It’s your competitive advantage. You can copy prices and products but you can’t copy culture. You need to therefore get your hands around it. It’s about combining individual’s behavior in the company and putting the work processes around this,” he says.
Finding the cultural magic
At KFC he says the business has undertaken a study with its employees to find its cultural magic and also its cultural baggage and from these two aspects identify the ideal culture. From this has been developed the North Star for the organisation.
Subscribe to TRBRhianon Plews, Head of HRBPs & Talent at Watches of Switzerland Group, agrees: “Understand what makes your business unique. You can buy jewelry and watches online or you can go into our stores and you’ll enjoy the magic. This is the culture. We make magic happen.”
She suggests one of the roles of HR is “to be on the pitch” identifying what parts of the culture to amplify and what cultural baggage to get rid of. “Be very clear about the data you are using. Not just that which shows you are doing well and tells you the answers you want to hear. When we asked different questions we weren’t then always doing so well,” says Plews.
Valuing the people
As a previous leader of many businesses Mark Fox, Business Consultant & former CEO of Roadchef, is well aware of the importance of data and that senior leadership teams have to work very closely with HR and people throughout the business in order that they can truly run the organisation effectively and with people at the centre.
Although Alyson Fadil, Chief People Officer at Matalan, is at the beginning of the journey of turning around the fortunes of Matalan she says she is helped by the fact the executive team believe people are its biggest asset and that the objective is to create the environment that then creates the desired culture. “We use the Retail Trust to support us on our journey and galvanise the culture and amplify what’s important to our customers,” she says.
Values are an integral part of a company’s culture, according to Sophie Melrose, Global Talent Acquisition Lead at Astrid & Miyu, who says they are “truly the bedrock of our business”. As the company has expanded overseas it has sought to translate them into these other countries including the US, Spain and the Netherlands. It has found a successful way to enter a new market is to send some of the team over ahead of time and partner with local businesses with similar values and host recruitment events.
“We find partners abroad and work together to share ideas. We’ve also started creating ‘hiring videos’ of people in the stores that are about one minute long. People can watch them to gain an insight into who we are. They don’t need to read a job description,” she says.
Tamia Mullaney, Global Talent Acquisition Associate at Astrid & Miyu, adds: “It’s easy to think that if it works in the UK then it will work abroad. It won’t. You need to fall back on your values and immerse yourself in these new markets. Be authentic. We tell people we don’t know everything so grow with us.”
What also contributes to the culture is the way HR creates a sense of belonging, according to Jennie Williams, CEO of Enhance The UK, who highlighted the ‘social model of disability’ that involves identifying the barriers in a working environment. These comprise attitudinal, physical access, organisational and communication. “When a company does these things they are green flags for other people to reveal their disabilities,” she says.
DE&I challenged
Sharlene John, Head of Recruitment & Onboarding at Selfridges, suggests DE&I has become more of a challenge recently as a result of societal and political issues as well as conflicts around the world. “It’s had a huge impact on the conversations around DE&I. It has always been divisive but now we’ve got outside noise that’s contributing to this divisive topic. When people come to work they have different views and they don’t go away when they come to work. How do we bring them all together? We’re leaning into inter-sectionality – involving how we talk to differing groups with opposing views,” she says.
Although a diverse team had been built at Selfridges at the entry-level the problem was they were all then stuck at this point. To address this John created a model for movement and accessibility: “Now we have a rich talent base that are moving around the business. It’s one thing recruiting more black people but it’s not good if they are not then able to move within the business.”
For Maggie Arthur, Senior People Partner for Travel Head Office at WHSmith, authenticity is a vital contributor to having a more diverse organisation particularly when it is the leaders who are sharing their stories and vulnerabilities: “Authentic leaders are useful. We can understand their personal stories and it allows people to relate to them and they’ll then open up more.”
Sense of belonging
Creating a sense of belonging is one challenge but another major one for retail is overcoming the perception of the industry as a place of temporary roles and not a sector in which to build a rewarding career. Paige Jordan, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager at Charles Tyrwhitt, says: “I saw it as a stop-gap when I was at University but there are so many skills in it that are underestimated. It’s more complex and not stop-gap anymore. As HR how do we showcase examples of how this narrative has been challenged?”
Sophey Layton, Human Resources Director UKI at Shiseido UKI, agrees: “Not many people proudly say they work on a sales counter. It’s very different to working in head office but we want to teach people that they’ll get so much out of it. It would convince people to stay longer. HR’s are part of the problem because of our metrics that include money spent at the agency and turnover rates. We should be looking at things like internal promotion numbers. We need to change what we’re looking at.”
Hannah Govier, Retail Recruiter for UK & Europe at Alo Yoga, says: “There’s no other business where you get exposure to so much including customer-facing [roles] and problem solving…I think we could be more strategic about developing people. Do we have structures in place for people to move into new roles? It could be better.”
Retention remains an issue
Retaining employees – at all stages of their careers – continues to be an issue for the sector. David Anderson, Head of People for the UK at Rough Trade, says: “People want to work for us because they are engaged in the product but maintaining it through working in the retail stores is the challenge. It’s not about chatting about records all day. The trick is to drive longevity of people and surveys of store employees have shown they crave recognition. This could be just a thank-you. We are in the unique position that we can offer them free entry tickets [to music performances], which doesn’t cost us anything.”
For Jacy Stanhope, Leadership & Learning Lead at B&Q, an audit of 5,000 employees included observing high-performance teams and she identified that their achievements went hand-in-hand with being engaged because their roles had meaning, purpose and empowerment. Stanhope suggests those characteristics within a company and a specific role will then lead to strong levels of retention.
Another powerful driver of retention is having a succession/promotion path in place to move into new roles. Clara Sancho, HR Director at LVMH, found there was often a succession gap in the company and so introduced a training programme for next-level jobs. “It’s been super successful, with great impact on confidence, internal promotions and retention. People feel valued and we keep them in retail and they go on to become leaders,” she says.
Worries on the shop floor
Adding to the issue of retention of people on the shop floor is the ongoing issue of violence and abusive behavior against front-line employees by customers. Chris Brook-Carter, Chief Executive at The Retail Trust, says research shows 90% of all colleagues have suffered abuse at some point over the past year while for 30% it is a weekly occurrence. For these people as many as 60% say they would leave the business if they were not heard by management compared with 16% if their concerns are simply brushed aside by their managers. If these affected people were to leave their positions within the next 12 months then the cost of this heavy level of churn on the industry would be £7.8 billion.
This is understood by Katie Baker-Shaw, HR Business Partner at Sweaty Betty, who says: “People want to feel heard. We’ve so many different generations in the business that it’s not one-size-fits-all. If we can create an environment where employees feel safe and there’s engagement then we can withstand these challenging times.”
Managing the situation
One of the solutions being increasingly seen on the shop floor to engender a feeling of safety is body-worn cameras. Dinesh de Silva, Head of Sales for UK Retail at Reveal Media, says they reduce violent incidents by as much as 93%: “There is an epidemic of violence that retailers can’t control so give employees the tools for de-escalation alongside additional training. It gives them a sense of safety and builds an environment of trust. Employees can then go to work feeling energised.”
Jennifer Stewart, Senior Manager – Global HR Operations at Jimmy Choo, says leadership teams have to be very careful during these tough times and not make the mistake of simply seeing one incident in a store and jumping on it. The data is paramount and should be looked at to see if it was simply a single incident.
“After undertaking surveys we have listening groups that means we have tangible examples to share with the leadership team. It puts a person behind the data. Numbers are good but we’re a people business and leadership teams understand this,” she says.
The fact retail is a people business will be understood even more acutely by management’s with the impending Employment Rights Bill. Elaine Huttley, Business Employment Partner at Irwin Mitchell, says it is the biggest thing she has encountered in her career to date. And although she believes some of the low hour worker provisions might be dropped because they are very complicated to implement the Bill will ultimately come into force – probably in 2027, having encountered various delays.
Huttley says the planned Day One Rights for workers will undoubtedly increase tribunal claims and that retailers will have to look at ways of mitigating this by analysing their data to identify how many people typically exit the business during the probation period and if there is a spike just before the two year time-frame is reached when employees under the current laws would be given workers’ rights.
Embracing technology
Amid such challenges there is at least the increasing ability for technology to be used by HR, which represents a change from recent years, according to Liz Jewitt-Cross, Founder of Future HR, who says: “Three years ago 70% of the HR audience were frustrated that they were at the back of the queue for tech investment. We knew that if we had more investment then we could do things. Now, 70% [of HR departments] are to implement tech or have already done so and it’s driving a fundamental change in the role of HR.”
She suggests there are great opportunities to leverage the capabilities of tech and that even a 1% reduction in payroll can result in a big difference in profits. Likewise, a streamlining of paperwork could mean 10% more HR time given over to concentrating on more value-added growth opportunities.
This is very much the domain of Matthew Corner, Head of Portfolio at SD Worx – that provides payroll solutions, who says that as the workplace has become more digitised the expectation from all employees is to see their schedule, payments and holidays booked on their mobile devices. “The idea is to take [effortful] steps away from the employee. Are they able to have a say and make changes. It’s more power to the people by empowering them through technology,” he suggests.
Corner says it is about streamlining business processes and that retailers should not be afraid of change. He cites Costco as implementing a payroll system that included employee’s payroll slip details being made available on their phones, which resulted in an 80% reduction in calls to the payroll team with questions. “It’s very simple but it’s had a massive impact,” he says.
Lucy Melling, Director of People Services at Pets at Home, says the biggest impact from the company’s new HR system is having all the data in one place. “It’s enabled a more people-based strategy. Absences and colleague turnover etcetera can be accessed by line managers and decisions can be made on the back of it. The colleague experience has been incredible. They’ve been able to get hold of data and dashboards and see absences going up and then being able to consider what to do about it.”
AI is a turning point
For Ritu Dhawan-Foster, Interim HR Director for UK&I at L’Occitane Group, it is still very early days and a plan is currently being put together so that the technology will be able to address the critical issues in the company. As these considerations are made Dhawan-Foster is aware that AI is a turning point for HR and wider retail.
“It’s a tool we’ll all have to get used to. We’re setting up foundation courses across all teams to understand it. We’re creating the time, space and investment to understand it and are working with the right suppliers,” she says.
Even though he is running a small independent retailer Benedict Selvaratnam, Managing Director at Freshfields Market, says he is already using AI to predict trends and optimise inventory. “Tech should never replace people but is there to serve them. It’s there to make life easier for employees and improve customer service. AI allows us to have the same intelligence as the large chains.”
Previously the company had so many reports being produced that Selvaratnam says it was unable to digest them all but now with AI and tools like ChatGPT he says it is possible to ask what should be done next and what are the useful insights to take from the data? Freshfields has also used visual AI for movement recognition in order to identify suspicious activity in-store among shoppers.
Another strong advocate of AI is Marcus Robbins, chief digital advisor at Fujitsu UK, who is particularly excited about AI impacting shop floor workers. “Most tech waves have focused on office workers and not got to the shop floor. When AI gets onto the shop floor there will be incredible benefits and job creation.”
But he warns retailers to avoid being seduced by technology vendors as he says many of the tech solutions retailers already use will have AI capabilities and he recommends “the starting point should be to go where your tech is now”. “Data and integrations are the big challenges so go with using AI in your existing technology. It won’t change the world but it will start to drive value for the business,” says Robbins.
