Workstar

3 November 2006

Make Christmas casuals more than just a decoration - make them stars!

The countdown to Christmas is now officially on with many retailers throughout the country recruiting hundreds and in some cases thousands of casuals to join their teams and play a starring role over the peak festive trading period.

As a retailer, the Christmas season is the difference between a mediocre and a great year in sales. In 2005, Australian's spent more than $22 billion in the month leading up to Christmas.

This year Coles Myer is looking to take on more than 34,000 Christmas casuals and David Jones an additional 1,800 staff. Across the board retailers are competing for the best casual workers while maximizing profitability. To do this they must attract a high calibre of casual workers and keep costs of advertising, recruitment and training to a minimum.

According to Gerard Manion, Executive Director at Asia Pacific's largest online recruitment and e-learning company, TodayCorp, to cope with extended Christmas trading hours, many retailers rely on untrained, four hour casuals to handle front line sales at their busiest time of year.

"It continues to amaze me that retailers put the least experienced, least trained and least supported staff in front of customers at the most important sales period of the year," he said.

"The four hour casual is clearly a vital part of managing extended trading hours and increased customer traffic, but without efficiently inducting and training these staff, retailers are letting down their customers, their shareholders and also the new people who may be embarking on their first foray into the retail industry."

"By using TodayCorp's online recruitment and learning solution to recruit and induct Christmas casuals, retailers can reduce recruitment costs by up to 30 percent and ensure all staff are pre-trained and pre-tested before day one on the floor. Casual staff will be more knowledgeable, confident and ready to sell this festive season," he added.

Through eLearning, casual staff can go online at work or at home to access retailer-specific eLearning modules covering induction and product knowledge, enabling Christmas casuals to be ready for the shop floor in less than one week, a 50 percent reduction on typical start up training time.

"Australian retailers are missing a major opportunity to maximise profits by failing to take advantage of the latest development in online recruitment and training. It typically costs retailers around $1,000 to recruit, induct and train every Christmas casual in the first two weeks of employment. Online recruitment and orientation reduces the cost of Christmas casual recruitment by 30 percent and training time and efficiency by 50 percent", said Gerard.

"However, the real benefits of this approach usually go way beyond the HR numbers to a marked increase in profits and productivity. Christmas casuals who are effectively recruited, inducted and trained can become powerful front line brand ambassadors, maximising customer sales and satisfaction while becoming valuable employees."

About TodayCorp

TodayCorp is Asia Pacific's leading integrated online learning, recruitment and communications company, providing web based interactive learning solutions for clients including McDonald's Australia, Pfizer, Repco, Nuance and Rebel Sport.

TodayCorp also provides learning consulting and learning systems integration to clients including Vodafone, Singapore Airlines, Rio Tinto and the Australian Defence Force, and is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) delivering accredited training and short courses in retail, business, hospitality, manufacturing and distribution.

TodayCorp has won multiple industry awards including Best eLearning Strategy Award from Human Resources Magazine. This award recognised Rebel's 10-16% increase in sales and an 80% reduction in training costs. For more information, please visit www.todaycorp.com

For further information or interviews please contact: Kate Gratwicke or Caroline Speight, Growing Daily Communications. Tel: (02) 9949 9566.