Warehouse boss backing retail careers

Mark Powell wants to change Warehouse work from summer job to a career. Photo / Dean Purcell

The Warehouse and Massey offer degree course to show working in shops is worthwhile.

Higher wages and a specialised degree are among the initiatives helping change the perception of retail from a boring job to a high-flying career, says Warehouse chief Mark Powell.

Powell said the view of retail was often negative, dismissed as boring or just a summer job, but through a number of initiatives this was slowly changing.

"We're definitely seeing the change [in the perception of retail] but it's just the start.

"It's about changing perception and that takes time," Powell said.

The chief executive has just helped to found a retail degree with Massey University - the first degree in New Zealand to focus solely on the retail sector, according to the university.

The degree will be launched in February, with papers focused on buying, merchandising and operations as well as finance, strategy and HR.

The Warehouse Group is sponsoring 30 scholarships for students looking to take the course.

Powell has also matched the living wage scheme, increasing pay among long-term committed staff to an initial $18.50 an hour.

Powell said this had reversed the usual method of companies putting what money was left over into wage rises, and instead looked at what the company could pay its staff first.

Almost 60 per cent of the 10,000 employees across the group are now under the pay scheme.

"We adopted [the wage initiative] because we want to present retail as a great career," Powell said.

"I think companies should be challenged to say, for your long-term employees, fully committed to the business, how much could you afford to pay.

"It's cost us $6 million a year but I think it's had a major impact on the mindset about retail as a career."

Powell said that while he did not think legislation was needed on getting companies to follow suit, he hoped other businesses would also adopt the programme where they could.

He said he was not too concerned about the impact online sales were having on the company.

"It's like a lot of things in life, you can either be frightened or fearful and try and ignore it, or you can embrace it and say, 'Well, what change does this mean?'

"Ultimately, if you set strategies over a one, two, three-year period, you can achieve a lot and you can keep up with things. You don't have to be leading edge but you can't be left behind."

In the past three years, the Warehouse Group has increased its spending on digital marketing from 7 to 17 per cent of revenue, and Powell said the strategies the company had implemented in the past few years had contributed strongly to the increased staff retention rate of 70 to 80 per cent from 50 per cent a few years ago.