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Westfield – retail’s chance to show off
When the immense Westfield London shopping centre opens its doors this autumn, customers will find it packed with sparkling new concept and flagship stores...just so long as retailers can find the staff in time. Calum MacLeod takes another look inside the £1.6 billion retail revolutionary.
Slowly but surely, as the grand opening of Westfield London approaches, the related hype is being ratcheted up. Although there are still three months until its doors swing open, the £1.6 billion retail and leisure development in White City has already forced its way into the capital's consciousness. From now until October you can firmly expect the drum roll to get louder and louder as promotional and recruitment activity reach crescendo.
Any doubt about this was entirely blown away when a trio of minor luminaries prepared lunch for the army of construction workers currently on site at Westfield London on this year's (surprisingly gripping) Celebrity MasterChef. As Andi Peters, Atomic Kitten Liz McClarnon and Holby's Mark Moraghan whipped up a culinary storm for legions of builders, a few miles across town plans for Westfield's next massive retail project - Stratford City - at the 2012 Olympic site were being officially unveiled amidst another media circus.
But while the Stratford development will be fractionally larger than its White City counterpart when it opens in 2011, there is little danger of Westfield London being over-shadowed. It is a massive stage for its retail tenants upon which to showcase the very latest and best that they have to offer. Put more simply, Westfield London affords its retailers the perfect venue to show off.
Looking at the size and range of stores that will open, it is an opportunity that has been firmly grasped by many. Consider, for example, Debenhams's incarnation at Westfield London: a 110,000 sq ft 'next generation' concept store extending over four floors. According to the company it will include the new 20/20 Home concept, which has been developed to build on the existing homeware offering, and will provide higher fashion and design content, feature more product ranges from Designers at Debenhams and an easier shopping experience for customers throughout its layout. The Westfield London Debenhams will also include a Service Hall - the first time all the available services will be brought together in one offering - that will include new customer facing technology with multi-function kiosks offering what Debenhams hopes will be an enhanced customer experience. Just for good measure, the store will also offer a staffed reception, an on-site fashion alteration service and an all year round gift-wrapping service...Oh, and it will be fully WiFi enabled.
Hopefully, you get the picture. The high profile of the White City centre, its size and luxurious specification have attracted top-name retail tenants while simultaneously ensuring that they really up their game when it comes to store-fit, stock and service offering. "[Westfield London] will be the epitome of luxury, and that describes Kurt Geiger", says Melanie Conaty, recruitment manager at the upmarket footwear brand, for example. "We have always placed ourselves in the best shopping sites and we think Westfield London is the perfect place for us." And of course, she continues, "We will have a new and exciting shop fit for our new free-standing store." Likewise Waitrose's 20,000 sq ft edifice will incorporate the retailer's new design standard for its food shop following successful trials of the format at its London shops in Marylebone and John Barnes in Finchley Road last year. In fact, stick a pin in a floorplan of Westfield London and almost any retailer you land on would tell a similar story; a flagship store here, a new concept there; with this sort of retail showcase everyone is pressured to keep up with the competition and produce a store commensurate with the environment.
But this isn't the only form of competition that Westfield London's retail tenants are facing right now: with the clock well and truly ticking, the race is on to find staff to fill the estimated 7,000 positions the new centre is creating. Recruiting in the Capital is not what one might describe as a doddle at the best of times, what with so many organisations fishing from the same talent pool, but with the opening of something like Westfield London there comes an added element of difficulty - namely that everybody else, all 300 retailers or restaurants, is seeking to recruit the same sorts of people for the same place at the same time. "[It's] a really big challenge", agrees Kurt Geiger's Melanie Conaty, who is tasked with staffing two retail units in Westfield London (a free-standing store and a concession in House of Fraser), "even though we have a great brand profile and presence in London particularly, the competition to get the best sales staff is stiff."
But if the recruitment professionals are under added pressure they are doing a good job of concealing it. "We are opening five newly built stores this year, including Westfield, so we are well practiced in ensuring we recruit a team that is going to deliver the service our existing customers now expect", says Anglie Johns, Waitrose recruitment services manager, "Our challenge is ensuring we meet those expectations."
Here Ms Johns highlights the real crux of the matter: it is not just about getting people into jobs and onto the salesfloor, it's about getting in the right people in time to train them in time for the opening - a difficult task even for businesses such as these with clear recruitment processes in place. In Waitrose's case, the retailer is looking for 170 store 'partners' for Westfield London, comprising both full and part-time supermarket assistant roles, and food specialists, who are trained to offer its customers expertise in specific fields such as wines, cheese, meat and fish. "Recruiting more food and drink specialists forms an integral part of forming our new customers' shopping experience", says Anglie. And there's the rub; finding the right ambassadors for their brands, people able to shape the customer experience appropriately, particularly in such a prestigious retail showcase, is where a great many recruitment professionals will really earn their corn in the next three months.
As each week passes and opening day approaches the battle for retail talent is going to become more intense and while the recruiters observe swan-like calm on the surface you can be sure that they will be paddling like crazy to get the job done beneath it. Traditionally the summer months are quieter for retail recruitment but, in London at least, it will be interesting to see if the Westfield factor alters this at all.
