Strong leadership and motivated employees are the backbone of any successful retailer.

But delivering both in today’s landscape is no easy feat – whether it’s developing sustainable, high-performance working cultures, delivering pay and perks packages that resonate from the shop floor to the boardroom, or incorporating AI into business operations.

Where should retailers be prioritising their focus to recruit, retain and develop exceptional employees from the shopfloor to the boardroom?

Retail Week’s People and Leadership Summit will delve into the most pertinent challenges for retail’s people divisions today – and how best to tackle them.

Register for your free place to join us on February 11 from 8.30am to 12.30pm at the Soho Hotel, London, to be a part of the conversation.

At this half-day summit, we will cover:

• How to create a perks and pay structure that incentivises staff without breaking budgets
• The building blocks of creating a high-performance retail culture
• How to effectively build an employer brand
• How to roll out AI-enabled tools in a way that encourages staff to use them

Agenda

8.30am-9.10am: Refreshments and networking

9.10am-9.15am: Retail Week welcome from Laura Heywood, head of commercial product operations

9:15am-9:45am: The dos and don’ts of building a TikTok-worthy employer brand

TikTok and Instagram have revolutionised and humanised how retailers present their brands and employees to customers.

But as the UK’s biggest private sector employer, is retail doing enough to take its reputation as an industry to join and build a career in into its own hands?

This panel will look at standout stories from retailers and brands that have successfully built an employer brand on their own terms, the results it has driven, and what other retailers can learn.

This panel will explore:

• Examples from retailers who have invested in innovative ways of bolstering their identity and values as an employer, and the results it has delivered
• How retail can present itself as a career of choice against the backdrop of rising crime
• How to create an employer brand strategy that resonates across different seniority and experience levels

Speakers include:

• Barry Grainger, senior talent attraction and employer brand partner, Currys
• Holly Straker-Humphreys, senior colleague experience manager, Currys
• Matt Eyre, employer branding and colleague value proposition lead, Co-op
• Megan Dunsby, head of commercial content, Retail Week

9.45am-10.15am: ‘Am I going to lose my job?’ – how to balance AI and employee morale

The potential of AI and its impact on retail is enormous, and will only scale more quickly in the years to come.

But for many, the benefits of this technology are overshadowed by concerns about its impact.

Against this backdrop, how can retail’s people teams ensure AI is presented as an opportunity, not a threat – and how can they embed and communicate its deployment to staff in a way that fosters real engagement?

In this session, Retail Week will be joined by Workday, The Very Group and Timpson to examine:

• The ethical implications of rolling out AI tools for employees – and the benefits and challenges of doing so
• The frontline effect - how to embed AI to empower your store staff and generate greater loyalty as a result
• Communication and training strategies that promote buy-in from colleagues around new AI tools
• How to allow employee concerns around AI to be heard without undermining team morale

Speakers include:

• Robyn Richards, people director, The Very Group
• Rebecca Taylor, commercial content editor, Retail Week
• Laurent Homeyer, strategic industry advisor for retail, hospitality and technology, Workday
• Daniel Jenkins, head of colleague development, Timpson Group

10.15am-10.40am: The road less travelled – lessons from the leadership frontline

While gender diversity across retail boardrooms is improving, the demographics of those in the number one and two positions – CEO and CFO – remain statistically majority male and white. Against this backdrop, this session will spotlight a woman leading a major organisation, digging into her career journey, high and low points, and the lessons learnt along the way.

Speakers include:

• Alison Dolan, chief financial officer, Marks & Spencer
• Megan Dunsby, head of commercial content, Retail Week

10.40am-11.10am: Networking break

11.10am-11.40am: Show me the money? Innovative approaches to retail perks and pay

Blanket pay rises for shopfloor workers are becoming increasingly common for major retailers in a bid to drive employee satisfaction and recruitment. But for many smaller operators, upping pay for all store staff is not sustainable.

This panel will examine how retailers are building pay structures that incentivise development beyond blanket pay rises, as well as thinking about perks and pay creatively to drive staff recruitment, retention and employee engagement.

This panel will look into:

• Creative pay structures that incentivise staff engagement and development
• The perks beyond pay that make the biggest impact with colleagues – and why
• How to balance employee expectations around salary with budget constraints

Speakers include:

• Carrie Westwell, chief people officer, Bensons for Beds
• Jennifer Stewart, global HR operations senior manager, Jimmy Choo
• Jade O’Donoghue, head of content – events, Retail Week

11.40am-12.10pm: How to cultivate a high-performance culture alongside employee wellbeing

High-performance cultures are increasingly sought after across retail boardrooms amid changing ways of working, rapidly evolving technology and increased competition. But for people leaders, establishing what this looks like in practical terms, as well as how to introduce and scale it across an organisation, can be challenging. This panel will discuss how to develop an organisational structure that ensures teams are aligned on and hitting business goals, while also fostering a culture of support and development.

Topics explored will include:

• Developing a playbook to build and scale a high-performance culture
• Lessons from retailers that have effectively balanced employee development and engagement with business efficiency and growth
• The leadership styles that best foster resilience and agility throughout the workforce

Speakers include:

• Alex Didymiotis, chief people officer, AllSaints
• Megan Robinson, senior reporter, Retail Week
• Specsavers (speaker TBA)

12.10pm-12.20pm: Retail Week closing remarks