Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
Empowering Employees to Share Skillsets Enhances Workplace Knowledge
By Dan Kurash
Perhaps the number one service an independent home improvement store can offer a customer is quick, knowledgeable advice in particular categories. When there’s a leak or a light out, you need to offer suggestions, quick. While it is good to have general know-how across all staff, identifying key skillsets within a large staff can increase the chances customers come back again.
The same is true for just about any industry: the auto body shop that can only do oil changes probably isn’t separating itself from the competition; the restaurant chain offering redundant specials without a unique food niche probably will struggle amongst the dozens of other restaurants nearby; the car wash that doesn’t detail might just be considered run-of-the-mill. Having specific expertise to entice a target market helps retain and grow business.
According to a January 2025 Forbes article, whether top-down companies or more siloed operations exist, there has been a strategy for some time to create self-directed teams within organizations to gain greater autonomy and beneficial knowledge sharing. Doing so increases self-determination and therefore tasks get done quicker— about 1.5 times as quick according to Harvard Business Review research— making operations much more efficient and innovative overall.
But anyone in customer service knows smooth operations don’t always happen. Things go wrong, call-offs happen, something doesn’t ship. Daily life in this environment changes all the time, so that is why being adaptable and giving staff members the freedom to “run with it” not only accelerates work getting done, but also reinvigorates the staff overall. The net difference from the original plan to the augmented one now becomes a positive: the customer was served and the problem solved.
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One of the keys the article states is to find colleagues that are strong communicators, collaborate well and feature skillsets that compliment others’ skills well. By investing in the individual as much as the plan, you can significantly increase a team’s workflow.
Using training modules to exercise certain skills and abilities also helps maintain a minimum floor with a very high ceiling for production. With the reciprocal investment into individual’s careers, sales will increase and just as important, the service rendered will benefit customers. The greater the list of specific knowledge skillsets available within a staff, especially for any home improvement business, the greater chance there is you will be remembered as a destination the next time a leak is sprung.
