Does paying salesclerks well pay off? [View all]

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-books-20140209,0,5474913.story

Does paying salesclerks well pay off?
'The Good Jobs Strategy' argues that better salaries and more employee empowerment lead to better returns than Wal-Mart gets.
By Gill Plimmer
February 9, 2014, 5:00 a.m.

When Madonna was on tour in Spain a few years ago, teenage girls turned up at her final performance wearing the very outfit she had worn for her first show. They had bought it from Zara, the Spanish retailer.

While most fashion retailers take months to introduce new product lines, Zara's supply chain can design and deliver new clothes to its 1,500 stores in more than 70 countries within days.

In her book "The Good Jobs Strategy," published by New Harvest, Zeynep Ton argues that Zara's investment in staff is crucial to this speed, together with its ability to collect information from employees on what is popular. Zara's shop assistants, for example, tell managers when customers are requesting a long-sleeved version of a particular shirt.

Ton, an academic at MIT's Sloan School of Management, set out to discover how Zara and other successful retailers treat employees better than their rivals do, yet still deliver healthy profits and shareholder returns.