Top-sharing could be the solution to the youth crisis in the retail sector
The retail trade is under double pressure in terms of employment: On the one hand, due to the high proportion of mainly female part-time employees who cannot return to managerial positions after starting a family. On the other hand, training to become a junior manager is held in low esteem. Michèle Aschwanden dealt with these problems in her thesis for the Bachelor of Business Administration HWZ. She sees top-sharing as a solution to the junior staff crisis.
With her thesis, Michèle Aschwanden, graduate of the Bachelor of Business Administration HWZ, won the UBS Sustainability Award for outstanding Bachelor theses of the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich. In her thesis, she sheds light on the challenges facing the retail trade as one of the most important employment sectors in the Swiss economy, particularly in terms of the next generation of female managers.
Worse career opportunities for women
"In 2016, the Tages-Anzeiger titled its results of a large-scale evaluation "This is how women's career opportunities stand in the retail trade. Although there is a high quota of women among supermarket staff, the stores are mostly run by men. Trade unionist Priscilla Imboden explained the low quota of women at management level with the fact that alternative working and part-time models are little accepted in the retail trade at management level. As a result, after the birth of their first child, most women in the retail trade can no longer perform their previous management function and have to take on another one.
Top sharing as a solution
Top sharing, in which two executives share a managerial function and share tasks and management responsibility, could provide a remedy. The results from the comprehensive qualitative study conducted by Michèle Aschwanden, a graduate in Bachelor of Business Administration, show that the introduction of top-sharing can create a whole new perspective for female junior staff in the retail sector, which could motivate them to work in the food industry for the longer term. The decisive factor is to show them that top sharing makes it possible to optimally combine family, career and leisure activities.
Prevent fallow knowledge
The fact that most women in the retail trade cannot return to their previous management function after the birth of their first child means that valuable know-how remains unused and it becomes difficult for them to return later. Some retail companies have already recognized the potential of part-time management positions for women with children and allow them to return to their management roles. In this way, the companies continue to use the existing know-how and the female managers can optimally reconcile their family with their career through part-time leadership.
Michèle Aschwanden conducted 22 interviews with four different groups of people. The diversity among the interviewees is impressive: female branch managers of all ages, with and without families and with or without top-sharing experience, young female junior managers, company owners, sales managers, HR managers, experts on women's work and diversity. This diversity gives the empirical results a special significance, according to the jury of the UBS Sustainability Award.
Source: www.fh-hwz.ch
