With so much strength in the middle and upper management ranks, many retailers have convinced themselves that talent acquisition is not a strategic imperative. They could not be more wrong. Just behind those middle managers is a widening talent gap that the industry can no longer afford to ignore.
This retail talent pipeline challenge is the culmination of several factors, including reductions in recruiting and development programs, decreases in enrollments in retail academic programs, massive departures of millennials from the retail industry, and concerns over a looming recession in the United States. These causes were all accelerated during the pandemic and continued in its aftermath.
