Management Training and Its Effect on Sales Force in Retail Sector

Various factors associated with the ‘Retail’ industry have influenced it over the past few years in India-increase in young working population, hefty pay-packets, nuclear families in urban areas, increasing working-women, increase in disposable income, customer aspiration, inclination towards luxury items, etc. are the major ones among them. The ultimate aim of any retail store would be to enhance customer relation and the profits arising out of it. Front line sales employees play a major role in achieving this aim. Training positively effects job performance of sales staff and their contribution to revenue generation and is also seen as a useful means for dealing with changes of all kind; be it technological innovation, market competition or organizational structuring. Job of sales force in retail sector may appear simple, but is one of high importance since this is the company's interface with its consumers. The current study aims to find the contribution of trained staff to overall profitability of retail business. The study also intends to understand the perception of trained employees on footfall, product knowledge and maintaining goodwill. Knowledge and skills of employees is extremely crucial to maintain a competitive edge and training is an effective way to accomplish this as it improves employee productivity. In practice, however, organizations generally face the challenge of cost control even when it comes to training.

This study also attempts to evaluate the aspect of cost on various points constituting performance in retail business. Some other factors such as customer service have also been evaluated from the point of view of trained and untrained staff. Finally, the study aims to present the difference between trained and untrained employees’ performance in retail trade in India. Sample size consisted of 40 managers and 300 employees working in retail malls. Convenience sampling was used for this purpose. Data was collected by way of a structured questionnaire, which contained close ended questions. Analysis was done by segregating the respondents into trained and untrained categories and various parameters of sales performance. Further, these parameters are studied on the basis of frequency of training.