The 2017 CSD/Humetrics HR Survey finds overall optimism for the year ahead, but concerns for staffing and turnover.
By Mel Kleiman, President, Humetrics and John Lofstock, Editor
Convenience Store Decisions and Humetrics have collaborated on our ninth annual Convenience Store Industry Human Resources Survey. The results reported here are based on the respondents’ recent experiences and expectations and will give you some industry-wide insight as well as a number of useful benchmarks.
A few of the findings of particular interest are:
• Staffing is perceived as by far the greater challenge than technology, government regulations or the competition;
• Employee turnover is on the rise;
• Staffing levels rose modestly in 2016, but are forecast to stay at current levels for the balance of 2017.
Demographics
This year’s survey asked 53 questions (some about general business conditions and the majority about specific human resource issues). We collected responses over a six-week period from Feb. 1 through mid-March.
Respondents’ employers ranged in size from 25 or fewer employees (22%) with less than $1 million in annual revenue (11%) to more than 500 employees (27%) and $500 million in annual revenue (11%). The majority of respondents (59%) were almost equally divided between the two larger employee ranges while 65% reported revenues between $1 million and $50 million.
Looking at the respondents by job title, 38% were corporate HR personnel; another 38% were “corporate other,” while store managers accounted for nearly all of the remaining 24%.
The Challenges
When asked: “What are the biggest challenges facing your organization today,” the results were:
As for the specifics of the staffing issues, 77% cited recruiting as their most frustrating challenge (as has been the case for each of the survey’s nine years), followed by employee engagement/motivation at 40%. Retention, at 36%, narrowly edged out employee selection at 32%.
To read the full article, click here.