Among the first questions on the table Progressive Gifts & Home recent Retailer Round Table was, with a new government in Downing Street, what measures would participants like to see introduced to help retailers?
“I would like to see retail being taken more seriously by the new government,with more help for young people going into the sector,” said Janet Hartree, owner of Ewe & Me in Grantown-on-Spey. “In the past, there were college courses and retail initiatives which all seem to have come to nothing. We are such big employers, yet there’s no longer any funding, with retail largely dismissed, especially as a profession, because it’s not seen as ‘trendy’.”
Janet’s daughter, and Ewe & Me’s co-owner, Sara Baines, felt the government could do more to encourage young people to do work experience in the sector. “It would help to show them different aspects of the retail industry,” she commented.
“The problem with offering retail experience is health and safety and insurance, with pages of red tape and hoops to go through which deters us from saying ‘yes’,” said Tracey Bryant, co-owner of Polkadot in Keynsham; Expressions in Swindon, the Cat’s Whiskers in Bishops Cleeve and The Card Shop in Portishead.“When you’re struggling with time as we are, unfortunately it’s easier to say ‘no’.”
Terry Newton, co-owner of five Jumping Bean stores in South London and the South East, highlighted that in London, giving retail work experience to young people in school years 10 and 13 is quite normal, with co-owner, Nilou Noorbaksh, adding: “a lot of our staff are students who have second jobs, such as actors and musicians. I agree that working in a shop is not seen as a trendy thing to do these days, so I would love to see the new government take retail apprenticeships more seriously giving young adults something to aim for that was really valued as a career. Ideally, they would be able to have apprenticeship work placements that would build into senior sales and managerial positions.”
Priya Aurora-Crowe, co-owner of 19 Lark stores in South London and the South East, said that she would like to see the new government bring back thefully subsidised Kick Start scheme for young people which stopped when Covid hit. “We still have people from that scheme working for us today,” she confirmed.
“I employ students aged 16 and 18, and what worries me is that the Labour government is saying that the16 year olds will be on the same rate of pay of those aged 18 and over,” said Andrea Pinder, owner, of Presentation Cards & Gifts in Barrowford. “How are we meant to sustain that? Students are not qualified to work in retail and you can’t train them in a couple of weeks. When taking on18 year olds in particular, it’s often just a stop gap before school and university. By the time you’ve put the effort into training them, the person leaves and you’re back to square one. Plus, since Covid, the younger generation put down a lot of stipulations about when they will and won’t work. We have to allow it, because if we don’t, we’re not complying with the government’s rules.”
For Mark Rees, owner of nine Henry & Co stores in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire, one of the challenges is on a macro level – how to create a high street environment that makes people want to be in it. “For pockets of London and tourist areas, it’s not so much of a problem, but for great swathes of the country, what can be done to regenerate high streets? How do we make them spaces that people want to be in? Currently, they are fragmented with no cohesive offer, with the added issues of not being able to park and the cost of parking. We need to create the right environment.”
On the question of should there be a Minister of Retail, there was a unanimous ‘yes’ from all round tablers, with everyone agreeing that positive changes can only be possible with help from local councils and central government.
To read the full article, turn to pages 21-27 in the September issue of Progressive Gifts & Home. CLICK HERE.
Top: A lively PG&H Retailer Round Table took place at Home & Gift.
