Retailers need to invest in improving staff skills, according to retail recruiters.

High street retailers are increasingly investing in staff training to combat the threat posed by online shopping, according to latest research by a national training provider Protocol Skills.

Stephen Selby, managing director at Success Appointments, told Recruiter: “Not enough money has been invested in retailing for the past 10 years. You can get a degree in retail management. There has been a lack of training in the field. People are not developing their own people so they go outside. There is not enough talent on the market to make it a flexible working market.

“You can’t blame clients because it is all about making a buck and it is really easy to lose sight of investment.”

Louise Wright, director at Oyster Retail Recruitment, adds: “Nowadays, you can get help from various local bodies. Because we are in this recession and because people are trying to cut costs, you have not got the people in the stores as they used to have so the logical idea is to go ahead and train because a team of multi-skilled staff is going to be far more important to that business trading. You can have one person doing two people’s jobs. If everyone is willing to be multiskilled, then those stores can be trading in terms of their KPIs.

“We have found a lot of our clients are training their staff so they are not recruiting for certain levels of position.”