Change Has Come Knocking. Is Your Team Listening?

Retail Innovation Changes

Change is defined by new processes, procedures and effective rewards. Managers would love it if they could simply say, “Hey, listen up! We have a new way of doing business and here’s how it works…” A manager might proclaim a change, but would each employee internalize the message and modify their behavior? Probably not. We humans have a strong inclination to resist change and lean on that terrible motto, “We’ve always done it this way.” As such, creating meaningful, measurable change takes a lot more than a proclamation. This is where we need Retail Innovation Changes.

Significant changes in business usually require a crisis, either manufactured or real, before people drop that terrible change-adverse mindset and move to a new way of behaving. With Covid-19, we are undeniably in the midst of a crisis now. Organizations have had to address this opportunity by crafting and communicating a clear vision of where they want to go from here. Visions are fleeting and require detailed plans, consistently presented, and continually reinforced. 

How Do You Lead?

Change is a tall order. How does a leader reach an audience of hundreds or thousands of frontline employees with such consistent and continuous messaging? Frontline people are busy and frequently distracted with tasks, shoppers, and in-the-moment issues. Compounding the problem, budgeting is tougher than ever, schedules are tight, and now is not the time to call employees into meetings about processes and brand behaviors. We also know that busy people don’t read long documents, and written messages seldom drive impact at the floor-level, even for the most menial of tasks. Success can be unlocked only by constant nudging, leading and coordination of activities at the right time and right place for each person on staff.

Enabling agility and change at the ground level is exactly why we founded Theatro eight years ago. Our mission is making the life of a frontline employee a richer experience with knowledge sharing, kudos, peer support, information in-the-ear at the right time/place, plus analytics assuring recognition for productivity and behavioral compliance. These founding objectives are exactly the same elements used for rapidly adopting new ways of doing business and driving customer satisfaction in constantly evolving environments. It all starts with heads up, hands free, always-on messaging in the ear.

Realizing Retail Innovation Changes are Here to Stay

Using a computer-mediated, in-ear engagement system facilitates concise communication between individuals, groups, departments, districts, regions, and headquarters; effectively creating chain of stores-without-walls and a mobile management platform for constant verbal reminders, integration with external systems, and detailed analytics of adopted actions for measuring the change.  This practical in-ear technology enables the real objective of creating the future state once the organization can embrace change and react with agility to surprises. It’s been said that we’ve adopted 3 years’ worth of innovation in the last 6 months and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. Is your team ready for that future?

If you’re interested in learning more about Theatro’s approach to change management and agility at the front line, join us for a live discussion September 24^th: Agility & Flexibility in Retail Operations: How to Prepare Your Team for the Next Big Change.