As brick-and-mortar retail sales continue to decline, employers are struggling more and more to fill their scheduling needs with less and less employees and hours.  As a result, it becomes difficult to keep from scheduling people in a way that makes them happy and/or productive.    Laws are now being introduced to minimize what we in retail know as the “Clopen”, which is closing until 10 or 11 one night and then having to come back and open at 5 or 6.    Depending on an employees commute this can give them less than 4 hours of sleep before having to return to work.

With jobs more readily available right now, retailers are being forced to compete for workers, which is a good thing.  The recent minimum wage increase for Walmart employees is one way this is happening and laws to make schedules better for retail employees would be another one if it happens.   You can argue that this will lead to higher prices for consumers which will result in more lost sales, but I believe that higher paid, happy workers will lead to higher SALES and will be worth the investment for the companies that invest in them.  You need only look at Costco and Trader Joe’s to see two companies that have already figured that out.

Here’s more about retail workers forced to work tough schedules and what’s being done about it.

More about Clopening is here.