As the world becomes a global village, ‘Tesco is my world’ sounds like a contradiction in terms. It’s the phrase I use to describe the growing phenomenon that everything you might need or want can be found at the end of the road, under the glowing neon sign of ANO supermarket.
While we are happy to jump on planes in the manner of buses to foreign climes, a recent survey showed that 18% of us now bypass the high street altogether. Supermarkets are no longer content with being the purveyor of the weekly groceries, they embrace clothes, electrical and audio equipment, music, dry cleaning, flowers, insurance and financial services.
Of course it’s all very convenient, but it’s also very homogenised. And while it offers undoubted advantages to shoppers, for employers I think it is not such good news.
Why? Because they are a natural magnet for the labour force with their clean, comfortable, and brightly lit four walls. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, but attracting and retaining good staff in the face of this competition is a theme I think many in the timber industry will recognise.
How precisely does a timber merchant compete against the benefits of staff discounts and enhanced loyalty points? It is increasingly difficult to recruit manual labour to perform the core skills within our businesses. Foreign labour is an option and undoubtedly they bring a first class work ethic, but language differences often present barriers to real integration into the workforce.
If we cannot attract the right labour here, then the flip side is that the work goes to where the labour is – to countries with a low-cost manufacturing base and an abundance of manual, trained workers. It’s a problem that I am convinced is only going to get bigger. How we all address it, now that really is the Big Question.
