New Hires Need A Merchant’s Mind

Situation:

Toys “R” Us planned to expand into children’s clothing and start up a new chain. They had successfully tested the idea in 13 prototypical stores. The new chain would use different approaches – higher service levels, better merchandising, cross-merchandising, and better inventory balance. Charles Lazarus, the company’s founder, stated the challenge, “How do we take inexperienced new hires and convert them into merchants who can manage a six million dollar inventory?”

Solution:

We designed start-up strategy to solve several problems.  How to develop a merchant’s mind?  How to get new hires to understand their role?  How to teach the 156 jobs tasks for a store manager?  How to turn out trainees fast enough to meet the store opening schedule?  Whew!

We designed a blended learning solution to include classroom training and in store assignments where they applied and mastered the skills. As well as learning, new hires were quickly serving as assistant store managers. Two weeks classroom; one week application. One week classroom; one week application.

We created an innovative approach to role clarification; one that was consistent with the Toys “R” Us culture – The Six Million Dollar Game!  The Game consisted of a series of business questions where answers either added or subtracted from the store’s balance. Make the wrong hiring decision or put new inventory in the wrong location in the store – you lose money.  If you did a good job with cross-merchandise or implement security procedures – you added to your bottom line.  The game host was either the CEO or the Kids “R” Us president who signaled the importance of learning how to run the stores.  And they got a good look at their new managers.

Classroom training provided skills-based learning and exercises.  Participants worked through business problems until they got them right – just like the store’s culture.  No manager can leave a store if he can’t do the Daily Deposit Record.

Results:

Toys “R” Us managers were trained well enough to run the stores with minimal glitches. And there were enough managers to keep stores staffed as they were ramped up across the country. The Six Million Game was so popular with the c-suite that the two executives both wanted to be the game host.