Key Findings
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Scores Appear Low
On a scale of 100, the average retailer in NAPCO’s study scored a 48.61% with the mean score at 45. While these scores appear shockingly low, it’s a great reminder that stores are being asked to do a lot more than ever before and are, in most cases, working with fewer resources.
summary
Retailers have a way to go before their stores are fully compliant. But with some insight into where execution is lacking, we expect to see improvement.
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Tools Help
Retailers that use communication and task management software outperform their peers in all the execution categories including signage, safety messaging and traffic.
We looked at how our customers performed against non-Zipline customers and our competitors’ customers. We found that tools users outperform non-tools users and Zipline customers outperform both.
summary
Retailers that put software solutions in place to communicate better and manage store execution are better equipped to handle the additional work resulting from the pandemic. But all tools are not created equal.
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Safety Can Sidetrack Retailers
Retailers are primarily focused on safety today but with so much focus on one category, other areas of compliance suffer. When we isolate retailers that scored higher than 60% in safety, we find that they don’t do as well across the other categories because they’re singularly focused.
summary
Zipline customers, who scored 63% in safety, maintain high scores across categories, which shows that with the right task management solution, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.
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Non-Essential Businesses Outperform Essential Businesses
Non-essential businesses appear to perform better, on average, than their essential counterparts. Essential businesses scored, on average, 40% and non-essential businesses scored, on average, 48%.
summary
When the pandemic shut down non-essential businesses, many used that time to prepare for changes to stores. We surmise that essential businesses were too busy keeping up with customer demand to focus the appropriate amount of effort on health and safety.
Customer Spotlight
Zipline customer, Sephora, which came in 4th in NAPCO’s study, launched the Sephora @ Home campaign for field employees. The campaign capitalized on the time that employees were home due to the shutdown to get them trained and educated and ready for the changes that were to come.
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Performance varies by retail segment
Just as essential and non-essential businesses had a big difference in performance, so too did retail segments. We grouped the companies in the study by NAICS code and found that the top performers were beauty, apparel and department stores. The bottom performers were health and specialty auto stores.
The Business Case for Compliance
Chief Executive recently reported that more than 460 employment, labor and consumer
lawsuits involving coronavirus safety claims were filed by the end of July. Regardless of how
mindful
you
are about safety, any company that exposes its people to others is at risk of being sued. Retailers
with
store associates are most exposed since it's a challenge to communicate and control desk-less
workers.
To
prepare for the wave of lawsuits on the horizon, Chief Executive provided CEOs (and their boards)
with
some simple tips to get ahead of the problem. When combined with an automated communication, task
management and compliance solution like Retail Zipline, these strategies could mean tens of millions
of
dollars in cost savings.
Chief Executive advises
Maintain detailed written policies and procedures regarding worker safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, as they will help companies fare far better than those that don’t have them. Explaining what steps should be taken if an outbreak occurs will also show the company has acted in “good faith” with the employees’ best interest in mind.
Zipline's Resource Library functions as your one source of truth
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The resource library in Retail Zipline is purpose made for ensuring that store associates have instant access to the latest policies and procedures, at all times, without having to sift through reams of information they don’t need.
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Zipline’s resource library is search-primary, so teams don’t need to memorize a complicated hierarchy to find what they’re looking for. Rather, they can pull up information in seconds.
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We know your stores are geographically diverse, so library contents are targeted by location and role – there’s no risk of employees looking at (and executing) the wrong direction.
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In Zipline, there is just one source of truth; As changes are made to policies and procedures, you can immediately let the field know that documents have been updated.
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When you need to confirm that teams have read and understood new policies or directions, you can require that employees sign off using the Surveys solution. With Surveys, you can get to a 100% response rate faster than ever before: DMs can see which of their stores hasn’t completed a live survey in real time, so they can remind them while it's still in progress. And, HQ teams can access results directly so there’s no bottleneck.
Chief Executive advises
Involve frontline workers in the development of the health and safety protocols to keep workers safe. Survey workers to find out areas that they feel are unsafe and ask them for suggestions on what can be done to ease their fears. Document these interactions—it is much harder to argue that the company has been negligent when the workers have participated in developing the safety protocols. It’ll also help your managers see the gaps and, perhaps, help you avoid being sued in the first place.
Retail Zipline provides effective feedback loops
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Retail Zipline provides effective feedback loops that improve execution in stores, drive employee engagement, give a line of sight throughout the organization and protect companies by ensuring that employees are part of safety discussions and have the opportunity to provide input.
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Surveys in Zipline are a lightweight tool that makes it easy to gather information from store teams. With Surveys, you can easily poll the field in a targeted and personalized way, which helps to improve the number and accuracy of responses.
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HQ partners and Upper Field teams have immediate access to the answers they need with the ability to view and download survey results. This promotes alignment, shared knowledge, a faster feedback loop and the ability to show employee involvement in safety protocols.
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For more in-the moment conversations, Zipline’s Groups is a chat module that’s built for dialogue, discussion, and debate - but is still trackable down to the individual comment.
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Teams in the field can connect in real-time with HQ business partners to share best practices, ask questions, and raise concerns. Every interaction is searchable, so teams can quickly hop into pertinent discussions, and every message is securely stored for records retention purposes.
Ask The Experts
Learn how leading retailers are tackling health
and safety compliance
jessica ringena
Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Officer - Hy-Vee
Hy-Vee, Inc. deployed Retail Zipline’s communication platform across its entire company in an effort to directly communicate with its more than 85,000 employees amid the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The platform will also be used beyond this current crisis and continue as the primary communication method to ensure all stores are delivering to brand standards.
“All of our employees play a crucial role in how we are responding to COVID-19, which is why it’s imperative we invest in them and provide them with the necessary resources to do their jobs in the best way possible,” said Jessica Ringena, Hy-Vee’s senior vice president, finance and business strategy. “Retail Zipline allows our corporate team to communicate with every single employee to make sure everyone receives the same message and executes new protocols or receives the latest company news in a timely fashion.”
Corey Bouyea
Director, Store Operations L.L.Bean
Freeport, Maine-based L.L.Bean is utilizing compliance features of the Retail Zipline communication platform in all 54 stores across 18 U.S. states.
“The health and safety of our customers and employees is our top priority,” said Corey Bouyea, senior manager of store operations at L.L. Bean. “Retail Zipline has given us a seamless way to communicate new processes, policies and protocols to our stores as they reopen. In addition, we’ve been able to launch a robust store reboot certification process that leverages Zipline’s surveys functionality, allowing us to track compliance, capture photos and ‘certify’ our stores for reopening from our home office in Maine. As a result, our ability to communicate, educate our teams and track what’s actually been done in stores has improved tenfold – ensuring record high compliance.”
