Shop ‘til who drops? exploring retail jobs this holidays – the aspen institute

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Concerning the Event

The holiday season is a vital here we are at retail companies and workers. The Nation’s Retail Federation anticipates that holiday sales this season can make up roughly 19 percent from the retail industry’s annual sales of $3.2 trillion. Holiday spending also impacts the paychecks, schedules, and work-existence balance from the 15 million retail workers within the U . s . States, who constitute greater than 10 % of total US employment. Of these workers, the holiday season frequently amplify year-round job stress they previously face, including stress brought on by unpredictable and altering work schedules, on-call shifts that won’t materialize, and unpredicted early dismissals. Unstable schedules — coupled with other common workplace conditions like insufficient compensated leave, low wages, and little purchase of workforce training — reduce worker engagement and lead to high turnover and job instability. Recent reports also discover that this kind of unstable employment has negative implications for workers’ health — as well as for healthcare costs — but for the well-being of workers’ children. Lately, however, more retailers have started searching at just how business models could include better jobs for retail workers. We invite you to definitely take some time from your busy holidays to understand more about retail workers’ jobs and schedules, better business models, policy remedies, and concepts for jobs that can make happy holidays for everybody.

Featured loudspeakers

Susan J. Lambert, Affiliate Professor, School of Social Service Administration, College of Chicago

Susan Lambert is definitely an Affiliate Professor within the School of Social Service Administration in the College of Chicago. She’s a number one expert on employer practices and employment conditions in low-level hourly jobs and just how employers’ scheduling practices matter for worker well-being and family economic security. The websites for Susan’s research span many industries, including retail, hospitality, financial services, transportation, and manufacturing, and both openly-held and family-owned companies. Her research includes comparative business situation-studies, randomized workplace experiments, and analyses of national data. Susan received a BA summa cum laude in Psychology from Eastern Michigan College, a MSW (Social Program Evaluation) along with a PhD in Social Work and Social Science (Business Psychology) in the College of Michigan.

William Tompkins, Senior V . P . for Human Sources, Macy’s Corporation.

William Tompkins may be the senior v . p . for Human Sources & Total Rewards at Macy’s Corporation., where he leads human sources for that headquarters and shared services organizations, worker and labor relations, Human Sources Technology, and Compensation and Benefits. Formerly, he labored in the Coca-Cola Company and it was accountable for its Total Rewards strategies such as the design and governance from the company’s global compensation, benefits, and global mobility programs they are driving the lengthy-term development of the business. William has held similar leadership positions at Gap Corporation., American Express, Citigroup and Hitachi. He’s an energetic person in the Conference Board’s Council on Compensation. He received his BA from Queens College in Psychology.

Jodie Levin-Epstein, Deputy Director, CLASP

Jodie Levin-Epstein is CLASP’s deputy director. She plays a vital role in national advocacy which has brought towards the re-emergence of poverty within the public discourse. Jodie also concentrates on the result of workforce policies, for example workplace versatility and compensated leave, on low-earnings people. She’s trying to mobilize companies to aid new labor standards. She’s printed numerous publications in this region, including Getting Punched: The Task and Family Clock. Jodie produced and is constantly on the manage and host CLASP’s broadly acclaimed national audio conferences on low-earnings issues. She graduated from Grinnell College that she received an honorary doctoral of laws and regulations.

Moderator

Teresa Tritch, Editorial Board Member, New You are able to Occasions

Teresa Tritch serves around the editorial board from the New You are able to Occasions, concentrating on economic issues and tax policy. Before joining the editorial board in 2004, Teresa spent 12 years at Money magazine, like a staff author, Washington, D.C., bureau chief and senior editor, covering politics, finance and taxes. She has additionally been a adding editor for that Stanford Social Innovation Review, covering nonprofits, but for the Gallup Management Journal, covering workplace issues. Teresa, a La native, holds a BA the german language from UCLA as well as an MS in Journalism from Columbia College. In 2000, she would be a Dark night-Bagehot fellow running a business and Financial aspects Journalism at Columbia.

Related sources

Booklet on Retail Workforce, Employment and Job Quality

Giving Retail Workers the present of Standards for Job Schedules, by Jodie Levin-Epstein within the Aspen Journal of Ideas

Listen Longer: Societal Reflection, By Aspen Institute Staff within the Aspen Idea Blog

“Job Schedules & Public Policy in 2015 and 2016” (October 2015)

“Job Schedules: The Details Conference Call” (September 17, 2014)

CLASP’s National Repository on Job Scheduling

The wedding belongs to the Employed in America series, a continuing discussion series located through the Aspen Institute Economic Possibilities Program that highlights a range of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-earnings workers within the U . s . States and concepts for improving and expanding economic possibilities for employees. To learn more, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.