Hey Retail, It's Time to Bring the Area Manager Back
Stop overworking your district managers. They do enough.
Twenty-five years ago, I was new to retail leadership. The industry had a common position: area manager. The area manager was a support to stores and to the district manager (DM). It was a stepping-stone position.
Store managers who excelled in their positions could be promoted to area manager. They’d get experience running a few stores. They’d alleviate some of the work the district manager had to do. They’d get practice. That practice meant that, when promoted to district manager, they'd step in seamlessly.
Not anymore.
Like most resources for stores, the area manager position was cut. The stores they helped oversee were plopped on the district manager’s plate. This has caused more than a few issues.
So, we’re not training anyone to run multiple doors anymore. We’re also not showing people a clear path of how to move up.
We get into a catch-22 situation here.
You can’t get a district manager position without multi-unit experience. You can’t work in multi-unit unless you’re a district manager. Right. Seems logical.
Man, the retail industry has made some terrible decisions.
My friend runs a retail store. He wanted multi-unit experience. A store near him had a store manager position open. “Give it to me.” He said. “Let me run both and get the experience.”
His company was unsure. He’s got decades of experience, by the way.
He resourced all the financial reports for the second store, poured over them, and made his case. He answered questions his leaders didn’t even know they had. It took them weeks to agree on pay and to give him a chance.
He’s killing it.
He now has multi-unit experience. But why is it this hard?
Oh yeah, because area managers don’t exist anymore, and everyone forgot how that worked.
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DMs are burnt
The other issue here is how overworked district managers are.
I mainly speak about store leaders. But I've started writing about DMs. They are used and abused like no other retail position. I was in line to be a DM. It would’ve been the next step for me. I decided I didn’t want it. Here’s why.
DMs work all the time. They’re usually a salaried position, so overtime is not a thing. They spend their days during the week visiting their stores. They work the floor, they put out fires, and then they try to get some office time.
They usually have more stores than they can physically visit every week. Stores don’t get the attention they need because DMs are given 10+ stores to manage. So, DMs are left with only one choice: visit the stores with the most problems most often.
Visiting problem stores is draining. It also means the top-performing stores get left out. One person overseeing 10+ doors can only do so much.
One DM told me that she gets in bed with her laptop to finish her work after she puts her kids to bed every night. There is never enough time in the day to get it all done.
Does this job sound like one you would want?
Exactly.
Essential positions are not valued
But here we are because middle manager jobs are not valued. They’re essential but not valued—which sucks.
If you’re a DM, think about what an area manager could do for you. Visit problem stores, help you recruit and hire, approve schedules, lead conference calls, and help on heavy shipment days. The list is endless.
Area managers are like assistant DMs. They also inspire other leaders to move up and make retail a career—which is needed. Tenured leaders are fleeing the industry because they’re overworked and underpaid.
Retail companies threw out area managers and visual managers to save money. They piled all that work on DMs.
Now, stores are uninspired hallways that mimic Amazon shopping, and there are no leaders ready to move into executive positions. And DMs are burnt to a crisp.
It’s not a good look, retail.
Let’s create future leaders
Area managers were essential building blocks in the retail leadership career path. Now, they’re gone and so are a lot of people who would’ve made retail a career.
If the retail industry wants people to work in it and move up, area managers are the answer. Figure it out. Find the money for it. Your leaders will be more invested, your stores will be more supported, and your DMs won’t have to work 70 hours a week.
“They’ll never do it, Kit!”
I know, I hear that all the time. But if we don’t talk about it, it won’t happen for sure.
Let’s talk about it. Let’s create future leaders. Let’s support the DMs and give them a freaking break. It’s either that or you close your stores. Because if you can’t operate without breaking everyone who works for you, you shouldn't be in business.
Kit Campoy is an author and retail expert with two decades of experience leading retail teams. Today, she freelance writes for world-class SaaS Retail Tech companies.
omg I cheered when I read this. I'm making it required reading for every one of our product managers at Zipline because the DM ROLE IS SO BROKEN and everybody forgets this. there's virtually no ladder up to it, running 10+ stores is VERY different than running 1... so then you get a bunch of DMs who are wholly unprepared and end up being incredibly ineffective .. AND home office leadership has zero clue how to hold them accountable or what good looks like. MAN! It gets me FIRED UP! LOL. Thanks for the post. :)
It would cost them so LITTLE and help s MUCH to put that position back in place. And you are right. It will never happen if we don't keep talking about it and bringing it up.