THE HUB RETAIL RECRUITMENT’S MONTHLY NEWSROUND

Tempting though it is, we won’t be including this week’s sports debacle. Instead we’ve got far more interesting stories! It’s been a big month with all sorts of news items – and hopefully you’ve been following these on our Weekly News Snippets. And as it’s the last Wednesday in it’s our Monthly Newsround today. Our stories are: BHS revival; House of Fraser profits plunge; Sainsbury’s sales disappoint; More senior women needed in retail; Pretty women; and All by myself.

BHS revival: It would seem that BHS isn’t after all dead in the water. It’s gasped another breath, and will tomorrow be launching an online shop. The new owners are a Qatari conglomerate called Al Mana Group, which already has links with Zara, Mango, United Colours of Benetton and Reebok. BHS.com is employing the majority of the staff from its original online business – 84 people. We wish the new venture well, and with 75% of the original range on offer, we’re sure that it will be – from small acorns do large oak trees grow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37466514

House of Fraser profits plunge: And plunge they did – down by 46% in the first 6 months of 2016. The retailer says that unseasonable weather and Brexit uncertainty is part of a ‘volatile’ market – although online sales are up by a healthy 18%. And you’ll know from our recent blogs that consumer confidence more generally has been holding up surprisingly well post-Brexit. But other reasons are increased costs in online deliveries and a slump in HoF own brands sales. HoF is fighting back by trying to attract more people into stores by extending its concessions and ranges – so for instance Hamley’s will be appearing in November along with Monsoon. It’s certainly a good time of year to introduce Hamley’s – we’ll see if that helps profits in the next 6 months. It’s interesting to note that HoF is being kept company by John Lewis and Next both of which also reported drops in profits.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/27/house-of-fraser-profits-plunge-46-per-cent-first-half-consumer-uncertainty-brexit

Sainsbury’s sales disappoint: The good news for consumers is that our food is getting cheaper. For Sainsbury’s however, it’s not as it has a detrimental effect on its sales performance. And that’s two consecutive quarters of falling sales. Interestingly, Aldi, which has been going great guns and whilst it has reported record sales, its profits have dropped. Sainsbury’s of course has recently acquired Argos and Habitat – with the express purpose of offering customers not only a wider selection of goods, but also more ways of buying those products. Commentators expect that Sainsbury’s sales will look healthier in the short term because of the Argos acquisition, but that it might not be maintained in the longer term. We’ll watch and see how that unfolds in the next few months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37492812

More senior women needed in retail: So says George Davies. The founder of Next, creator of George at Asda and Per Una at M & S, should know what he’s talking about. It’s his view that more women in senior jobs would boost the High Street. As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of our blog, we’ve been including some of the issues affecting women in the workplace, including the continued yawning pay gap. Mr Davies said on the Radio 4 interview that women work harder and quicker than men! And he really does walk the walk – his board is 51/19 in favour of women! That’s a great example for other retailers to follow.

Next founder George Davies slams fashion industry’s gender divide

Pretty women: A related story that caught our eye is a report that says a quarter of women have been told at some time in their career to dress up to make them ‘prettier’ and ‘more appealing’. Nearly 30% of women had been told that changing the way they looked would be good for business! Remember that story about the woman who was sent home because she wore flat shoes rather than heels? According to this report, 1 in 7 women surveyed had been told by their manager that they preferred women to wear heels as it was more ‘appealing’! And most of these women felt their careers would suffer if they didn’t comply. Has anything changed in the last 50 years? Clearly not as much as we thought.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2016/09/20/quarter-of-women-told-looking-good-is-better-for-business.aspx

All by myself: Wellbeing in the workplace is a high priority for employers these days as so much evidence is available that proves looking after your workforce improves productivity. This survey is a very large, international, survey aimed at finding out what rest means to people, the best ways of resting, whether they get enough of it, and establishing whether there’s a link between rest and wellbeing. Whilst the data is being fully analysed, the top level results are in. And it would appear that of the different ways in which we find rest, the majority of these are things we like to do alone. Interesting. Have a look and see what you think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37444982

Well that’s our eclectic mix for September. We hope you found something of interest. Next week look out for our blog on 6 October. Until then, we wish you a very good week from The Hub Retail Recruitment.