Career and Succession Management for Retail
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
What this looks like in retail
The parts of career and succession management that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
From Shop Floor to Store Manager
The most under-communicated ladder in the sector.
What this coversHide
From Shop Floor to Store Manager
The most under-communicated ladder in the sector.
What this coversHideRetail promotes internally more than almost any sector and advertises it least. Frontline staff commonly believe store management is recruited externally, because nobody has told them otherwise.
- Sales associate
- Senior associate
- Department or section lead
- Assistant store manager
- Store manager
- Ladder communicated at joining and repeated
- Criteria for each step stated in observable terms
- Supervisor capability built before the role is given
- Routes into buying, visual merchandising and operations
- Store manager succession named per store
- Area management as the next horizon, made visible
Store manager succession is the operational priority. A store without an identified successor is one resignation away from being run by whoever is available, and store performance follows the manager closely.
The general method — what career and succession management covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the succession and leadership development page. What is above is the part that differs for retail.
Other HR topics for retail
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for retail, or another industry.