BRC joins Usdaw's Annual Conference to talk retail today and in the future

I joined the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) annual conference in Blackpool this week to give a speech on the retail industry as it is today, and my vision for where we will be in the future.

The conference explored a number of different themes including tackling racism in the workplace, ending sexual harassment and employment conditions.

I set out how retail is, and will remain, an intrinsic part of the UK's socioeconomic fabric; the transformation underway across the industry and how we can work together to make a success of it; the changing nature of retail jobs; and a whole lot more, including retail crime, antisocial behaviour skills and diversity and inclusion.

It was great to speak to so many delegates about our industry and you can find my speech in full below.

People often start speeches saying it’s an honour to be here. But it really is.

Retail is a people business. You and your colleagues are the people that make this industry work. During the pandemic you kept your customers safe, you fed the nation, you kept your businesses trading – even if you weren’t fully open, you ensured the country got the goods we needed.

That intensity hasn’t stopped with what has come after – supply chain problems, the energy crisis, labour shortages, inflation and all its knock on effects into the cost of living of us all. So it really is an honour to be here to talk with you. Thank you.

I’ve worked closely with Paddy and I value that cooperation across various things that are important to you and to the industry. When I think back to the height of the pandemic, how important it was for a unified voice to be heard by government, advocating for colleagues. And, the Freedom from Fear campaign, how we ensured that government heard one loud strong message calling for change.

This industry needs that strong voice because it matters. Retail is an intrinsic part of the social fabric of our country. Retail and wholesale are nearly 10% of our economy, double that when its related manufacturing, warehousing and logistics is taken into account.

Most importantly it's the country’s largest private sector employer. 3 million jobs. Over 1 in 10 of all jobs nationally. But in lots of parts of the country, retail and all that supply into retail account for more than a third of jobs. We – you - are at the very heart of thriving communities everywhere.

Introduction to me and to the BRC

I have been CEO of the BRC for about 10 years and working with the industry for my whole career.

The BRC is the trade association for the retail industry in the UK. We have all the major retail companies as members. In simple terms we do two things – advocating on behalf of the industry to government to try to shape policy so that it supports the industry, its colleagues and customers; and secondly to drive positive change across the industry.

I want to talk to you about retail as I see it today. And then to try to paint a picture of an industry of the future that I think we can all work together to realise.

The retail industry toda

So where are we today? The past year has been challenging. The market backdrop very difficult.

Costs for businesses are going up:

inputs – like animal feed and fertilizer.

commodity prices – corn, wheat and cooking oils.

made worse by the situation in Ukraine.

energy prices might be starting to fall but still high by historic standards – affects farming, logistics, refrigeration, and running stores. It is also a major issue for households.

This is inevitably flowing through to higher prices:

Inflation data out was last week – still over 10%.

Food inflation over 15%.

Retail sales are still rising though – up 5% year on year in March – sounds like good news. But once inflation is accounted for, volumes are down. People are buying less because of high inflation and low confidence in the economy.

So for many retail companies profits are going down and some difficult choices are having to be made.

Also because of that inflation the cost of living has been increasing. Customers are badly affected. Colleagues of course also feeling the effects.

All this comes hot on the heels of the pandemic. That brought major challenges for everyone in the industry. And that followed big shifts over the previous 10 years or so as people’s shopping habits changed with the rise of online and mobile shopping.

This transformation is at the heart of many of the stresses we see today around retail.

We’ve seen a channel shift – people buying more online than before – which has meant businesses rethinking their strategies and closing some stores.

In too many cases we’re seeing this hurting high streets and town centres. Derelict shops and no government plan about what to do to revive these places, and in some cases secure alternative uses for retail space.

But while some stores have closed, stores are not dead. They absolutely will continue to play a vital role in our communities. Yes, we can buy things easily online, but stores still provide local convenience and choice and are evolving to offer experiences, services and acting as brand showrooms, allowing retailers to connect with their customers in new and maybe more meaningful ways.

Almost all retailers which were once only store based now sell online. Online businesses are opening stores. As I see it, the distinction between ‘bricks and clicks’/online and offline/high streets and the internet is no longer relevant.

We are seeing technology and automation play a bigger role. The nature of retail jobs is changing. We’ve seen a lot of restructuring in recent years and role levels removed. I think technology and automation should be an opportunity for us all and part of the answer for our high streets – to better connect digital and physical.

That is starting to happen, if we look right across retail we are seeing more jobs becoming higher skilled, responding to the more digital nature of retailing today. But we must do more to ensure colleagues are getting enough support with retraining and upskilling.

Retail jobs have also been getting better paid. Pay increases in retail have been higher than average increases for the economy in recent years. But it is clear the cost-of-living crisis has had a big impact on retail workers – USDAWs data re-enforces that.

It’s been good to see lots of companies responding with increased hourly rates of pay, and other things such as limiting price rises where they can, offering discounts to vulnerable groups, expanding value ranges. It’s been a tough situation – signs inflation may ease this later year, but prices yet to peak and will remain high for the near future.

Retail is a diverse industry – as the largest employer we must be representative of society. It really is an industry that someone can work their way from the bottom to the top.

There has been some progress in more senior representation of women and of different ethnic groups, but there is still some way to go before the industry can be seen as a truly inclusive employer.

We must do more to address challenges with racism and unconscious bias, to drive better awareness and support for mental health, and to ensure that we broaden the health and safety focus to include menopause.

Retail Trust research shows that the top three factors impacting on colleague wellbeing are the cost-of-living crisis, the post-pandemic fallout where people are exhausted and abuse from customers.

Violence and abuse is far far too often part of the job. No one should go to work fearing for their safety. We – the BRC, USDAW, our members, others – have made progress – between us we got the law changed.

But 850 incidents of violence or abuse each day – our latest figures – is a shocking tally. We must do more.

Poor employee wellbeing costs employers money. £22bn is the estimated cost of staff turnover to UK employers across the economy as a result of poor mental health.

And within retail the Retail Trust’s latest health of retail report found that 83% of employees have experienced a deterioration in mental health and 54% of managers felt unequipped to deal with their team’s mental health issues. We must do more.

So we must do more to transform our high streets. We must do more to retrain and upskill our workforce. We must do more on violence and abuse. And we must do more on wellbeing, mental heath and inclusion.

Vision for the future of retail

But despite the challenging backdrop and despite these issues where we need to do more, I am still proud to work in retail. There are many reasons to be proud. We are making progress on many of these areas. But we can do better together. We can do more.

My vision for the future sees a vibrant industry, delivering for customers, colleagues and society more broadly. It needs collective action and a strong response from the government.

I see retail continue to play an important role in high streets, providing diverse, flexible jobs in communities. And high streets of the future offering a greater mix of uses, beyond retail, more homes, more care in the community as the population ages, more hospitality and leisure.

To get there, we need to see more meaningful business rates reform from government that ends the high fixed costs of running stores. Otherwise, we’ll just see more stores closing.

To get there, we need to see better local leadership, more effective partnerships between local government, national government, and local businesses to drive change and ensure high streets’ long-term vitality.

To get there, planning laws must be reformed to speed up the planning process. So that empty shops can be repurposed to meet the needs of people in local communities.

All of this needs to be underpinned by the right infrastructure. Public transport, digital connectivity, investment in the public realm.

In my vision for the future high streets are safer, anti-social behaviour that contributes to a feeling of insecurity and decline is being dealt with. violence and abuse faced by retail workers is the exception rather than the rule.

To get there, we need to see PCCs prioritise tackling violence and abuse, and an improved response to incidents by local police forces.

And we need to see local partnerships between police and businesses to improve local safety and security. And continued investment by businesses in measures to protect and support colleagues, and more reporting of incidents.

To get there, government also needs to go further. Yes, we got the government to amend its Bill last year, creating tougher sentences for assaults on public facing workers. But this fell short of what we wanted – a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker – which USDAW championed, and the Labour Party supported in parliament. We must keep fighting for that goal.

My vision for the future sees the industry transformed by new technologies. AI, IOT, VR, blockchain, robotics all improving the customer experience, benefitting businesses and people retrained with new skills and for different jobs.

To get there, retail faces a challenge to compete for tech talent and it will need to grow its own talent. It needs to be a leader in upskilling and retraining its workforce, investing more in that retraining.

Action is needed by government to reform the Apprenticeship Levy to help retailers achieve this for their colleagues.

We need flexibility to use the levy to fund high-quality pre-employment courses to help apprentices into roles. The ability to fund short courses – building digital skills for example – where a full apprenticeship isn’t needed. These reforms will help support retail workers’ future skills needs.

Although the nature of retail jobs is changing, I believe that what makes retail special – giving people from all walks of life gainful employment and career progression, in all parts of the country – will remain in the future.

My vision for the future sees the retail industry as a truly progressive and inclusive employer. With 3 million people, the retail population is as diverse as any. To get there, more needs to be done for the industry to be truly inclusive for that population.

In 2021, the BRC launched our D&I Charter, to help retailers challenge their culture and biases and to embed D&I into every aspect of their company. The charter focuses on oversight, recruitment, progression, and reporting. It has 84 major retail brands as signatories.

Many retailers are taking steps to challenge racism and harassment in the workplace and to bring more diverse representation to the senior levels. So, we’re now measuring progress, gathering data, and holding ourselves accountable for making positive change.

The charter companies identified menopause as an area of focus and we’re helping them share the challenges they’re encountering and the ways they are trying to support their workforces. The charter will help us drive further and faster this, ensuring its taken more seriously in the future.

To get there, to that inclusive future, we must also address the deterioration in mental health. The Retail Trust does amazing work on this supporting colleagues impacted. We’ve been working with them to help amplify their messages of the support available to colleagues across the industry.

I think this is an area where we could collaborate further with USDAW, explore how we can share our expertise and resources. But again, this issue is firmly on the agenda, as we all want any stigma surrounding mental health to be eradicated.

And in my vision for the future, retail is part of the solution to climate change. We re-use, repair, more sustainably made products and the carbon emissions currently standing at about 200m tonnes of carbon equivalent, a third of each of our households impact to a big fat net zero.

To get there, would be a whole another speech.

Summary / conclusions / asks

So to conclude, I am hugely proud of our industry – of the work you do. And because of the efforts of all of you in this room, and your colleagues across the country, we have faced into significant challenges in recent years, and been resilient in our response.

I am positive about the future. There are opportunities to be seized. Yes there is more work to be done, but we are getting on with the job.

I am also very proud of the work the BRC has done with USDAW and hope this can continue. Sometimes we have different ideas about the best route to secure change, but that is more often the exception, not the rule.

We are working to achieve the same outcomes. Advocating for change means all of us pulling together where we can.

Thank you for listening.