Amy Troost Shoots GAP 2018 SS Ad Campaign | Gap Inc. Study Turns Store Labor Practices Upside Down
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Fashion photographer Amy Troost is in the studio, capturing models Hoyeon Jung, Katerina Tannerbaum, Mayowa Nicholas, Adil Haddaoui, Roberto Sipos, and Tre Samuels for GAP's Spring Summer 2018 campaign, styled by Beth Fenton. / Hair by Tina Outen; makeup by Kanako Takase
Reflecting on the dire problems of an overabundance of American retail stores, I googled the state of GAP, to better understand the financial state of what was once America's hottest brand.
“As goes Middle America, so goes the middle-American mall,” says Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail. The result is the latest wave of retail Darwinism: the classic American shopping emporiums that put downtown Main Streets out of business in the 1960s are now themselves on their way to extinction.
This trend of wage and salary instability, coupled with lack of predictability in even part-time scheduling in retail, are reflected in Gap Inc.'s own labor practices in stores. "The conventional wisdom is that lean, unstable scheduling is inevitable in today's fast-paced, low-profit brick-and-mortar environment," researchers reported in Harvard Business Review.
An astounding study conducted by researchers working with Gap stores just uncovered a major productivity boon, writes Inc.
The 28-store study pitted "control" stores against stores that intentionally provided employees with consistent work schedules. This included:
- Eliminating store managers' ability to cancel a shift on an employee up to two hours before the shift started
- Requiring employee schedules to be posted two weeks in advance (and keeping consistent schedules in general)
- Guaranteeing a core group of employees 20 hours a week
- Setting consistent start and end times for shifts
- Increasing staffing during surge times
The results of the study were jaw-dropping.
The stores that embraced the concept of consistency saw an astounding 7 percent increase in store revenue. A $30,000 investment in labor hours yielded almost $3 million in incremental sales.
The stores also saw theft decrease, and dramatic decreases in time for managers spent on scheduling, and improved stock organization. Better organization meant fewer "false out-of-stocks" (in which employees mistakenly believe they don't have a requested item in the midst of a disorganized stock room). On-time arrival improved among employees because they could catch the same bus on the same schedule, for example. Read on.
