Shopping for Talent: IT Staffing Solutions for the Consumer Retail Tech Sector
The consumer retail industry encompasses both brick-and-mortar stores where shoppers come and buy products as well as e-commerce retail shopping on websites. Together, these segments make up over a $30 trillion industry in which technology plays an increasingly important role.
The consumer retail industry has seen many technological advances in recent years that have affected IT recruitment in the industry. The shopping experience has transitioned to being partly online for most consumers, and consumer data has become much more important for companies in both planning their inventories and reaching specific target audiences.
These advances have led to a greater need for tech hiring in the retail sector to provide more specific tech skills required in today’s retail environment. Retail is a top six industry for technology hiring, and with current shortages, retail recruiters need all the help they can get.
Understanding Consumer Tech Talent Needs
Some new technology-focused positions in the consumer retail sector include business analysts, user experience designers, website designers, SEO designers, and IT support managers. Consumer tech talent in demand today deals mainly with either consumer data or online shopping. Additionally, some positions are dedicated to maintaining point-of-sale systems and other company-wide servers.
Some of the skills in demand for these positions include coding, software development, data analytics, website and app design, and SEO best practices. In 2023, more than 15% of all retail sales are now online, and that number is expected to grow.
Challenges in Talent Acquisition
Competition in the retail sector can be fierce when products are similar and require much effort to make a sale. Furthermore, staffing has been reduced in many physical stores, leaving consumers to rely more on technology when making a purchase.
Additionally, the retail consumer industry has suffered a stigma as providing lower-paying, unskilled jobs to workers, leading to a lack of interest in the industry by many tech workers.
This is unfounded though, with tech roles in retail remaining competitive in the industry. Whether working on creating apps and websites, maintaining hardware, or troubleshooting systems, today’s retail tech workers need skills and they are well compensated for those.
To combat the stigma, employers should focus on specific skills needed to fill particular roles. Perks like employee discounts can also be attractive for some workers if they buy products from the company in question. Finally, recruiters and staffing companies can be a help in filling consumer retail tech jobs when companies struggle in this area.
Innovative IT Staffing Solutions
Retail companies are some of the most well-known companies and brands in existence, making hiring challenges far more difficult to resolve. Fortunately, there are innovative staffing solutions that can help.
Flexible staffing models–These are important because retail staffing needs can fluctuate seasonally, requiring more staff at certain times of the year. Some companies deal with these needs by offering or requiring overtime at certain times of the year while restricting vacations at busier times, but these strategies can lead to burnout and an exodus from the industry. A better strategy is to offer employees flexible schedules and scale up by adding temporary workers when needed.
Talent pools–Staffing solutions providers like GDH Inc. build talent pools of qualified workers who are ready for immediate employment. Companies can also build their own talent pools when they find candidates but don’t have a position for them yet, but they are labor intensive at the company level. Having access to a talent pool can mean hiring in days or weeks instead of months or years, helping companies meet their specific needs successfully and with minimal effort to find candidates.
Outsourcing–For some companies, it makes a lot more sense to outsource hiring to a staffing company such as GDH rather than trying to add it to their Human Resources team’s responsibilities or bringing on their own dedicated hiring team. Smaller and growing companies can save time, effort and money outsourcing their hiring as they grow in other areas.
Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
To attract top IT talent in the retail sector, competitive compensation is always a good place to start. Pay for these retail tech roles needs to be not only competitive within the retail sector, but also among other tech roles.
Having a positive company culture is also important for retail tech jobs. Employee engagement programs are a must in order to retain top talent and show that the job is a good fit and can provide interesting work over time.
One thing many retail tech jobs have that other tech jobs may not is career growth opportunities. Retail companies typically have many layers of administration to which workers can be promoted, and larger retailers have developed the employment infrastructure to offer professional development opportunities so workers can advance within the company.
The Future of IT Staffing in Consumer Tech
There’s no question that the consumer tech field will continue to evolve and change in the future. AI and automation will both have a greater impact on the way consumers shop, making shopper experiences ultra-personalized and untangling supply chain issues to get products into consumers’ hands faster and easier.
Adaptability and strategic planning will become even more important as the industry evolves. Tech workers whose skills have grown along with their career will be in high demand to ensure a smooth shopping experience for the consumers of the future.
Using strategies that emphasize career development, competitive compensation, and the specific needs of the consumer tech sector will yield the best results for companies that need skilled technology workers now and in the future to maximize their market share and reach their target market most effectively.
