199: The Changing Role Of Store Colleagues

Store colleagues or associates represent both a major investment and key point of difference. But the role of people in stores had changed significantly in recent times and continues to do so. To help us understand more, Nikki Baird, VP of Strategy for Aptos, joins to explore why it’s critical to understand the role of colleagues and how to get the most from your people.

Listen to this episode to discover:

• Which aspects of the role of the store colleague or store associate are changing?
• The challenges created by these changes which impact store colleagues.
• As Gen Z becomes a greater proportion of customers and colleagues, how does this further change the role of colleagues?

 

Introducing Nikki Baird

Nikki’s is currently the VP of strategy at Aptos, a retail technology company. Aptos work with 1,000 brands and retailers including Mulberry, WH Smith and Pets at Home. In particular, Nikki focuses on helping retailers accelerate their ability to innovate – so you can trust she keeps a close eye on what’s next.

She is recognised as a leading and global retail influencer by Rethink Retail and the Retail Technology Innovation Hub (RTIH). Also, she contributes to Forbes.

Connect with Nikki Baird on LinkedIn.

Find out more about Aptos and their suite of solutions.

Read Nikki Baird’s articles on Forbes. For example, you may enjoy some of these articles: The Retail Workforce Is About To Go Through Some Radical Changes or 2022 Is Critical For The Retail Store.

Additional podcast episodes to listen to next

Firstly, episode 183: Defining The Role Of Your Stores is an obvious partner to this episode. In this one, Oliver Banks explores how physical stores are evolving.

In the episode with Nikki Baird, we touched on store colleagues becoming influencers. So, if you’d like to know more about this, then listen to episode 179: How Influencers Are Changing Retail with Michael LeBlanc.

And finally, there wasn’t enough time to talk about colleague burnout on the frontline. Fortunately, you can listen to Liam O’Meara explore this topic in episode 154: Avoiding Frontline Burnout.