How Retail Leaders Should Be Thinking About Labor Now

Retail leaders aren’t struggling because they don’t care. They’re struggling because the game changed and the operating model didn’t. In this episode of the Storefront Science Podcast, Ryan Whitfield and Ben Hinshaw sit down with Brian Kilcourse, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at RSR, to unpack what’s really happening inside today’s stores. This conversation is grounded in data from the State of the Retail Workforce report, but it goes well beyond the numbers. It gets into the tension every retailer is feeling right now. Customers walk in more informed than ever. Employees are expected to keep up without the tools, training, or support to do it well. And leadership teams are trying to solve it all while working within some of the tightest margins in any industry. Brian brings decades of perspective to a simple but uncomfortable truth. Retail hasn’t kept pace with how people shop or how employees expect to work. That gap is where the breakdown is happening. You’ll hear why nearly 75% of store associates feel overworked and underpaid, how mobile technology reshaped the in-store experience long before most retailers adapted, and why treating labor as a cost continues to hold the industry back. The most important part of this conversation is what comes next. The retailers pulling ahead right now are not the ones chasing every new piece of technology. They’re the ones making smarter decisions about how to support the people inside their stores. Better tools. Clearer priorities. Real investment in the employee experience. Because at the end of the day, the store is still the brand. And the people inside it decide whether that experience works or falls apart.