Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2018 - 34

IDEAS
THE SOLUTION OF OFFERING EMPLOYEES A BUMP
IN PAY IS MORE COMPLEX
THAN IT APPEARS ON THE
SURFACE.
er's ability to provide staff with a living wage.
Forty percent of readers in our survey say
that housing poses more of a challenge when
it comes to staffing now than it did five years
ago. That makes sense given that S&P/Case-
Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (essentially a national average of housing prices)
has risen 35 percent since 2012.

RESEARCH

Where's the Workforce?

We surveyed a wide sample of readers to get a grasp on exactly why
it's harder to find reliable staff for independent specialty retail
shops than it was five years ago. By Carol Kauder
IF STAFFING FEELS LIKE A BIGGER PROBLEM
than it used to be at your shop, you aren't
alone. Becca Gerber, the marketing director of Aloha Ski and Snowboard Rentals in
Park City, Utah, feels your pain. Aloha operates with a skeleton staff across its eight
locations in the summer, and the annual
autumn task of hiring 55 winter employees
grows more daunting for her each year.
Only 15 percent of the Park City workforce
lives within the city limits, thanks to skyrocketing housing values, compounded by traditional seasonal rentals converting to Airbnb
lodging. Gerber says she has some adult employees commuting 90 minutes from homes
where they still live with their parents.
"A lot of them really enjoy being up at the
resort and enjoy the ski industry lifestyle, but
they can't afford to live here," she says. It's not

34 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Winter 2018

the same as when she was a ski instructor in
the early 2000s, when she and a few friends
could share a house-not a room-and go out
after work to local bars and feel like part of the
fabric of the community.
And it's not just resort towns that are feeling the staffing pinch. In our reader survey,
45 percent of outdoor retailers say hiring and
retaining staff is a cause for greater concern
today than it was five years ago. And no particular region or setting is immune-staffing
issues are on the rise east, west, north, and
south, in urban, suburban, rural, and resort
town locations. There's a lot going on that
could be contributing to that.

RISING COST OF HOUSING
Staffing issues are intensifying for those in areas where rising housing costs erode a retail-

LOW UNEMPLOYMENT
Nationally, unemployment has been below
five percent for more than a year, and all
summer long it hovered around 4.3 percent, a 16-year low. That's a good sign for the
economy but can have some negative impacts on retail employers. Our readers tell us
they are feeling the effects. Fifty-five percent
say it's taking longer to fill open positions, 58
percent say the number of applicants for a
position has decreased, and 62 percent perceive the quality of applicants has decreased.
Fifty-two percent say they are experiencing
more staff leaving for higher-paying jobs.
COMPETITIVE WAGES
The solution of offering employees a bump
in pay is more complex than it appears on the
surface. Readers say it's hard to raise wages
while also trying to stay competitive with internet pricing, and 83 percent are already paying more than minimum wage. Meanwhile,
political battles swarm over whether or not
to raise the minimum wage, with 21 states
doing just that in 2017. That, too, has downsides for outdoor retailers. If a local government increases the minimum wage to what
an outdoor retailer was already paying (or
more), the shop must contend with the stigma
of paying minimum wage, something that
many job applicants with an expertise in the
outdoors feel is beneath them. "My town just
raised minimum wage to $11/hr, and now staff
feel ashamed of making 'minimum wage' even

Andrew Kornylak

HELPING HANDS
The floor of Great
Outdoor Provision
Company in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina (this
page). Autumn Callison,
store manager
(oppostie page, left),
and Charlie Callison,
distribution center
manager (opposite
page, right), at Half
Moon Outfitters in
South Carolina.

Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2018

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