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Yesterday in Australia was a public holiday. Like most public holidays many of the shops shut, with only the major supermarkets and chain stores opening their doors to make the most of shoppers with time on their hands. This is not a new public holiday – one that has been happening since 1927, so you would think we have the idea down pat by now. Our local Coles at Arana Hills obviously hadn’t thought much about what a public holiday means in terms of shopping.

Decades ago, when I was a retail HR Manager, we would plan our rosters based on sales patterns for the relevant day. We would take into account new trends from other public holidays from the past 12 months, and we would staff accordingly. Public holidays generally meant bumper sales and most checkouts open to cope with the influx. To give you context, one of my stores had a bank of 49 checkouts and turned over $1million on opening day alone (and this was 30 years ago) – so I know a bit about planning and rostering to cope with crowds.

Yesterday, the local Coles had less than half of their checkouts staffed. They were hit with the inevitable holiday crowd, so they pulled all of the team members they could from the speciality areas to pack groceries and operate registers if they knew the technology (most didn’t). It didn’t make a dint in the crowds. So then all of the duty managers jumped on registers. Great concept – except this left no-one to organise price checks, get change, or act as traffic control to the rapidly hostile turning crowd which now snaked their way around the store and down into the frozen aisles.

Customers were yelling abuse at each other, as they jostled trolleys. One customer organised the people into a single queue to fill the checkouts in a turn turnabout way, but as soon as her groceries were processed, the queue failed and people cut in on each other again. Kids were screaming and crying in the bustle and it took over half an hour for any single person to go from the end of the queue through to the register. There were at least 10 abandoned full trolleys in the aisles – full of dairy, frozen and deli foods slowly spoiling (and money disappearing out the door). It was like the ultimate peak hour traffic experience gone wrong.

In all of this melee, the managers doggedly kept their heads down and processed individual customers at their register. When I suggested that they pull one of the packers (or managers) off the register to co-ordinate the crowd, I was met with blank stares and “we are too busy to stop”.

Only one young check out operator (would have been about 14) apologised to each customer about the delay. She was chirpy and full of life – and at her register you could feel each customer relax as they went through.

I suspect the manager on duty in the store was a junior one and had never had to deal with crowds before. She also hadn’t learnt that during a crisis, the role of the manager is to marshall the troops, remain calm and manage the crowds.

So what did I do in these situations? I used to keep a stock of free coffee vouchers on hand, as well as remove a box of Tim Tams from the shelves. I had one manager controlling the queues, apologising to customers, lightening the mood where possible and dispensing coffee vouchers and the odd Tim Tam to the crowd to keep things moving along. We would change the store musac to one a more calming – and not the usual full of energy pieces of music played at lunch time. Yes, one checkout may not have had a packer, but the goodwill and calm generated by having someone visibly in control made all the difference to the shopping experience for people.

The question is – what would your team do in an emergency? How would they cope if things in your business suddenly go wrong? Would they know how to cope, or what to do? If they didn’t know – would they know to call for advice? Most emergencies can be considered and planned for, then all it takes is to put your plan in action. Obviously the Coles Manager yesterday hadn’t experienced this process … yet.

What about you? Any team disasters or successes you want to share?

Ingrid Cliff

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Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter