Retail Case Study Lifestyle and Home Centre

Lifestyle is international private limited company, it is a part of the prestigious Dubai based landmark group, started their operations in India with the launch of the first Lifestyle store in Chennai in 1999. Lifestyle has established itself amongst the leading retail companies in India. Positioned as a youthful, stylish and a vibrant brand, Lifestyle offers its customers not just the ease of shopping but also an enjoyable shopping experience. Each Lifestyle store brings together five concepts under one roof – Apparel, Footwear, Children’s Wear & Toys, Furniture & Home Furnishings, Personal Grooming – offering a convenience of a one-stop shop and a wide choice of national & international brands.

Home Centre by Lifestyle is a one stop destination for Furniture, Home Décor and Soft Furnishings that truly represent style, comfort and individuality. Home Centre uses a unique ‘Concept Room’ display model to give customers a practical idea of how each piece of furniture would look in a particular room.

In keeping with the Group’s tradition of making every shopping experience rewarding and memorable, The Inner Circle – Landmark Group’s Loyalty program allows members, to enjoy exclusive benefits and privileges such as reward points and exciting offers. The Inner Circle is today recognized amongst the leading Loyalty Program in the country with an ever increasing base of customers. The card is accepted across all Landmark Group Stores in India including Lifestyle, Home Centre by Lifestyle, Max Fashion, Splash, Bossini, SPAR Hypermarket, Polynation Food Court, Gloria Jean’s Coffees & The Yellow Chilli chain of restaurants.

Lifestyle and Home Centre offer a truly international shopping experience, a fact borne by numerous accolades:

Most Admired Large Format Fashion Retailer- Images Fashion Awards 2011

Most Admired Retailer of the Year – Home & Interiors Category for Home Centre by Lifestyle from Images Retail for two consecutive years, 2009 & 2010

‘Most Respected Company in the Retail Sector’ by Business World – IMRB in 2003 and 2004.

‘ICICI – KSA Technopak Award for Retail Excellence’ in 2005

Lycra Images Fashion Awards for the ‘Most Admired Large Format Retailer of the Year’ in 2006.

‘Reid and Taylor’ Retailer of the Year award for the year 2006

Most Admired Retailer of the Year – Department Store’ from Images Retail in 2008

HR POLICIES & RULES:

Promotion Policy & Rules:

Promotion Policy and rules are applied to employees depending upon on their ability of performing work, managing their skills and the level of experience.

Wage structure:

Every Job has awarded different wages depending upon the position of the employee and the responsibility levels which the employees take over. This enables the company to:

1. Provide competitive salaries for each job taking into account market rates.

2. Reward everyone according to their contribution.

The Salary allocated ranges depends upon the employees position type for employees performing the standard duties of their jobs. Set up maximum and minimum levels within those ranges to account for variations in experience and skill levels. The pay defers from Store Administered employee to Head Office Administered employee. The payment of the employees is directly by the manager or it is deposited into the savings account which the employee holds. The Company reserves the right to suspend pay where an employee fails to notify about absence from work.

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND WELFARE SCHEMES:

Lifestyle motivates their employees

Lifestyle stores share their profit with the employees and they offer wide range of benefits to the employees which are service related.

Lifestyle maintains their profit record and individual employee record make it available to employee whenever they want it to see.

Lifestyle offers healthcare options to their employees based on private health insurance or gratuity scheme

Performance appraisal is applied in lifestyle after completion of first 90days of employment.

Lifestyle offers travel expenses to their employees within the city.

They are awarded and rewarded for their work by their rankings based on their performance.

Lifestyle providing general and common national holidays for their employees it is not giving normal Sundays and Saturdays to their employees.

Customer grievance is reported to the managers in lifestyle.

Discipline in lifestyle is extremely good like restricted to smoke or drinking on the job and avoiding mobile phones.

First aid course is given to all employees in case of any injury or accidents.

To motivate the employees complimentary coupons are given in advance according to their availability.

Employees feel it like lifestyle family it is shown by personalized badges.

Employees are trained at different levels from time to time and they also taught to deal with safety problems like accidents, armed robbery and bomb threat.

lifestyle teaches its employees to be patient, enthusiastic, cheerful and courteous to its co-workers, helpful, polite and courteous to all patrons.

Well kept rooms are given to their employees.

Nature of all employees in lifestyle is very cheerful, informed, very friendly, soothing and reliable.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT:

Lifestyle mainly focused on employee training program they develop employee skills by advance technology of e-learning system that is helpful to develop employee skills. Lifestyle always thinks that human resource is the integral part of its mission. Lifestyle training plan is based upon identifying the specific criteria set for each position in the company. Its main objective is that training to their employees should provide lifestyle with Professional staff and skilled workers. According to the lifestyle training policy all the staff members are financially supported by company to take the professional training programs.

Performance appraisal is applied in lifestyle after completion of first 90days of employment. Line managers review performance continually in order to assess how a particular employee is doing. It helps employee in assessing themselves and look for further development.

HEALTH AND SAFETY RULES:

In the training first aid course is given to all employees in case of any injury or accident

Health check up and health scheme or organized in lifestyle itself to its employees.

Safety measures like fire alarms and fire extinguisher has been taken.

Well training on the customer guidance

IDENTIFICATION OF JOBS AND THEIR ANALYSIS:

Lifestyle as above mentioned it has around 30,000 employees who are working under different roles depending upon their qualifications. This means there is diversity in the Company distribution of work load as per the qualifications of the persons applying in. There are three levels of Jobs in any company viz. Entry Level, Middle Level, Senior Level. These levels have their own Job description, Job Specification and the Recruitment and Selection procedure etc these are briefly discussed below

JOB DESCRIPITION:

There should be Effective Recruitments and Time Bound at Regional Level.

There should be responsibility for the end-to-end Human Resource Operations and they should ensure that there is complete adherence of HR process.

They should be responsible for implementing the statutory compliances.

Planning, managing attrition, implementing consequence management and new structure roll out.

There should be 100% norms and timeline along with implementation of HR policies and procedures.

They should be very responsible for operation activities like monthly reports, Leave Management System, attrition analysis, separation, HRMIS and transfer in and out cases.

Standardized & processes & sustainable systems

Process perspective-build & implement scalable.

Overview of timely salary inputs and also ensures that salary related issues like pending reimbursements or flexible components are closed in time.

As a part of annual appraisal process there should be implementation of I incremental proposals, end to end appraisal system for the respective regions.

They should be responsible for payroll management system and HR operation process system.

There should be patience to handle the customers.

They should be responsible for implementing statutory compliances.

JOB SPECIFICATION:

There should be people management skills and there should be high level interpersonal skills.

There should be good knowledge of the statutory compliances.

There should be influencing skills, counseling and collaboration.

There should be good communication skills.

There should be excellent presentation skills.

The candidate should be proficient in MS Excel and numerically inclined.

The candidate should have good problem solving skills.

They should be high on integrity.

They should be well organized, able to work independently, detailed and meticulous to meet the deadlines.

DETAILED RECRUITMENT AND STAFFING PROCEDURE:

The employee should have communication skill in three regional languages.

For Manager Compliance the work experience should be 6 to 9 years, educational qualification should be Post Graduate – MBA in HR/Industrial Relations, Industry type is media or entertainment or dotcom, his or her role is HR manager, functional area is HR or Administration or IR.

For ESP (Enterprise Security Platform) should have 0 to 1 year experience, education qualification should be 10 to 10+2, age should be 18 to 23 years, industry type is media or entertainment or dotcom, there should be good communication skills.

At all levels it checks the communication skills of employee.

Normal staff that who collect money and give bill to its customers should have work experience of about 0 to 1 year and he or she should have computer skills and perfect in using MS Excel, there should be good communication skills and should be customer friendly.

Staffing procedure in lifestyle is from higher level to lower level that is from Manager, HR manager, Administrator, ESP, Normal staff, Janitors and security guards.

There will be three levels of interview to employees that is checking the communication skills, customer relationship and employee relations, sincerity in the work.

LEVELS OF JOB DESCRIPTION

Entry level: the entry level jobs at lifestyle are supply chain management, stock and others.

Job description:

The purpose of job is receives, stores and stock materials, equipment, supplies or merchandise. Compiles stock records. Requisitions standard items to replenish stock. Incumbents typically work in the university bookstore or similar retail operations

Job specification:

Knowledge of cataloging and inventory techniques.

Knowledge of shipping and receiving practices.

Skill in basic arithmetic.

Ability to effectively communicate.

Detailed recruitment and staffing:

Counts , sorts and checks in incoming articles, verifies against requisitions, shipping notices or invoices , places articles on sales floor shelves or in storeroom.

Replenishes merchandises on shelves from storeroom stock, rotates merchandise and keeps it orderly and neat in appearance.

Checks inventory periodically to determine reordering needs and verify with records, requisitions standards stock items, supplies or materials within established limits, notifies designation staff of fast moving items.

Contact vendors to obtain information regarding shipping status of orders or special orders placed by departments

Places or changes price tags on merchandise , places tags, markers or labels on shelves to identify stock.

Packs and ships packages according to instruction using boxes, packing materials and sealing tape.

Records or documents changes in inventory, mark-ups or mark-downs of merchandises according to established procedures.

Gathers requisition supplies, merchandise or materials and prepares for delivery or pick-up.

Assists customers or others in locating needed merchandise, materials or supplies.

Trains and assists part-time or student help.

Middle level:

The middle level job is of a store manager who is supposed to be responsible for both the functioning of the firm in maintaining the store and the management of the entry level people.

Job description:

Retail managers are responsible for running stores or departments to meet company’s targets and policies. The aim of any retail manager is to maximize profit and minimize costs. Retail managers ensure promotions are accurate and merchandise to the company’s standards , staff are fully versed on the target for the day and excellent customer care standards are met.

Job specification:

Excellent communication is required.

Knowledge of business processes & their interdependencies.

Ability to give short-term solutions to business problem from a business continuity point of view.

Develop report and review on all the operations which are taking place under his control.

Ability to develop long term solutions for business problems with a view on repercussions on the whole business.

Leadership skills required.

An experience of minimum 5+ years is required

Detailed recruitment and staffing:

Managing and motivating a team to increase sales and ensure efficiency,

Managing stock levels and making key decisions about stock control.

Analyzing sales figures and forecasting future sales volumes to maximize profits,

Analyzing and interpreting trends to facilitate planning.

Using informational technology to record sales figures, for data analysis and forward planning,

Dealing with staffing issues such as interviewing potential staff, conducting appraisals and performance reviews, as well as providing or organization training and development

Ensuring standards for quality, customer services and health and safety are met.

Resolving health and safety, legal and securities issues.

Responding to customer complaints and comments.

Promoting the organization locally by liaising with local schools, newspapers and community in general.

Organizing special promotions, displays and events.

Attending and chairing meetings

Updating colleagues on business performance, new initiative and other pertinent issues.

Touring the sales floor regularly , talking to colleagues and customers, and identifying or resolving urgent issues.

Maintaining awareness of market trends in the retail industry, understanding forthcoming customer initiative and monitoring what local competitors are doing

Initiate changes to improve the business, example: revising opening hours to ensure the store can compete effectively in the local market

Dealing with sales, as and when required.

Senior Level:

Job description: retail operations manager is another way of describing a sales worker Supervisor. These managers perform all of the supervisory duties of a manager, such as recruiting training, evaluating, letting go and assigning tasks to retail workers. They also have various other duties, such as working the sales floor when the store has many customers.

Job specification:

Retail operations managers usually need high school diplomas and are often promoted to the position of operations manager after several years of experience nd a demonstrated aptitude for leadership. Some retail operations managers transfer to different stores outside of their company to find better work.

Detailed recruitment and staffing:

The work that the operations manger oversees can vary depending on the store.

The manager want to focus on the customer services, inventory, store cleanliness, store displays, product stocking, customer complaints and returns.

The retail operations manager is also responsible for tracking the progress of the store to determine if the store is meeting revenue goals. The retail operations manager must make sure that costs are minimized and also that inventory is always available so there are never shortages. Stores that are a part of a larger company must report all activities to upper management.