In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, when businesses must work harder to maintain profitability and staff are simultaneously finding it ever harder to pay the bills, retailers face a challenge: managing the soaring wage bill that is eating into their margins, while giving hardworking staff every opportunity to pay their own rising bills.

For Kay Patel, of multiple Best-one stores in east London, having control of when staff start and end their shifts has become even more important.

“We’ve got a lot stricter about shift overlap because you can have a situation where one member of staff is still working after another has arrived, and then you’re paying double wages,” he says.

“That might only be for half an hour, but over four stores that adds up to a lot – and because staff want as much money as they can right now, it’s something we’ve had to nip in the bud.

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“I’ve told my team they should leave the store after their shift unless there’s an emergency or I have asked them to stay myself.”

Patel is by no means the only one who is facing challenges when it comes to staffing, however.

“Managing our staff overheads is increasingly important,” says Dave Hiscutt, who runs five Londis stores in Dorset. “For us, it’s all about finding lots of little ways to turn the dial up by 1-2%.”

Hiscutt says much of his approach revolves around getting to grips with the numbers, including both his sales figures and his rota.

“We use our sales data and put that against our staff hours using Nebula MSP software. This helps us understand how much money is going through the till per hour and that means we can find more efficient ways to organise our shifts,” he adds.

Retailers are finding new ways to restructure their teams, better utilise their hours and put a limit on one of the fastest-growing overheads facing independent retailers today.