Automation in trading: opportunities or threats
According to the World Economic Forum’s report on the future of jobs, by 2025 as many as 50% of all employees will require retraining. Does the retail industry also apply to it and what is the reason for this?
The retail industry, like many others, automates work, which inevitably entails the need to eliminate or reduce some jobs. The number of vacancies for cashiers will be reduced the fastest. We have been observing this trend for some time, but the pandemic has definitely accelerated the whole process. Most supermarket and discount store owners made an immediate decision to equip their stores with self-service checkouts. However, along with them, there was a need to hire new people or retrain the current employees who will watch over the cash registers and help customers make purchases.
Another challenge for the traditional retail industry is the growing e-commerce. The pandemic has strongly affected the shopping habits of Poles. We have been somewhat forced to shop online and I am convinced that many of us have liked this form and will stay with it. E-commerce will certainly absorb some of the employees of the traditional retail industry, who will be good employees after a little retraining.
In my opinion, the total number of available vacancies in the retail industry should not drop drastically, but there will certainly be a reshuffle between positions and tasks. Although Amazon is successfully experimenting with stores that do not have customer service at all, their introduction to the market on a larger scale is still a matter of many years, and supplying such a store also involves human work.
Automation is also progressing in retail in the form of placing self-service checkouts in stores. Can their dissemination seriously threaten cashiers/salespeople?
The position of a cashier has been on the list of those “threatened” with disappearing from the labor market for a long time. Indeed, we are currently recording a decreasing demand for this position, which we observe among customers, but also confirmed by statistics, e.g. a study by Grant Thornton and Element shows that in January 2021, the demand for cashiers fell by 42% compared to January 2020. By far the main reason for this is the popularization of self-checkouts. Automation will be most visible in larger stores, where self-checkouts have an economic raison d’être. Smaller local stores will not decide on such an investment in the near future.
The cashier’s position will evolve towards customer service – support during shopping or contact with the customer in the case of e-commerce. At the moment, however, it is difficult to imagine grocery stores without cashiers. Why? Seniors are much more willing to use traditional cash registers, and cash settlements are still quite popular in Poland.
Not all activities can be replaced by machines. What retail employees should develop key competences to defend their jobs?
The World Economic Forum report presented a list of the most important competences desired in the changing market reality:
1. Analytical thinking and innovation
2. Active learning and learning strategies
3. Solving complex problems
4. Critical thinking and analysis
5. Creativity, originality and ingenuity
6. Leadership and Social Impact
7. Use of technology, monitoring and control
8. Technology Design and Programming
9. Resilience, ability to cope with stress, flexibility
10. Inference, problem-solving and ideation
Manual workers, including cashiers, who will be replaced by automation will have to find their way in the new reality and improve their competences to manage such systems and use their previous experience to support new processes. An alternative solution is to change industries towards professions that have not been so seriously affected by automation, but are related to them, such as customer service.
Has the broadly understood trade already dealt with the shortage of workforce or is there still a shortage of qualified workers?
Taking into account the demographic situation in Poland, the problem of the shortage of workforce will only grow. Although the pandemic period and the closure of other industries caused a temporary influx of people willing to work in trade, it lasted literally several months. Currently, the situation has returned to that before the pandemic – there is a particular shortage of lower-level employees, and companies are struggling with a high turnover. It is therefore not surprising that stores are investing in automation.
People with what qualities/qualifications will work best in trade, e.g. in a grocery store?
Everything depends on the duties of the person. Will she be only a cashier, or will she also be responsible for, for example, putting out goods, taking care of order in the store, collecting deliveries, etc. In many discount stores, these functions are combined by one person. Working in a grocery store certainly requires physical fitness and willingness to work shifts, but soft skills such as openness, patience with the customer, optimism and smile, and often the ability to resolve conflicts, are crucial. Hard qualifications, such as cash register operation, delivery management, etc. You can learn over time, although if a given candidate has knowledge and experience in this area, he or she is certainly more attractive in the eyes of the employer.
Retail, especially FMCG, is not a rewarding and easy job. It is not only automation that makes some people not want to work in retail. What are the biggest concerns of employees related to working in retail and how can an employer remedy this?
In my opinion, the development of automation does not significantly affect the candidate’s decision to look for a job in retail, or more specifically in a store. Employees are mainly afraid of excessive physical exploitation (receiving deliveries, carrying and putting out goods, etc.) and shift work and work on Saturdays. While the employer has no influence on the second factor – this is the specificity of the industry, the first one is significant and significant. The key is to skillfully manage people and tasks, and regularly rotate employees in individual positions. The store manager should take care of all this. Our observations show that the turnover or its in the store depends on his approach.
Doświadczony analityk rynku pracy, specjalizuje się w badaniach nad trendami zatrudnienia i zmianami w strukturze zawodowej. Jego artykuły, publikowane w renomowanych czasopismach branżowych, pomagają czytelnikom zrozumieć dynamikę rynku pracy.
