Red Cross Blogs

Develop your retail skills

By Heron Holloway
November 21, 2008 at 1:53 pm

If you were looking to start a career in the retail sector, where would you go? Your local job centre? Your favourite high street shop? How about the Red Cross?

Charity shop NVQs

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Heron: This is Red Cross Radio. I’m Heron Holloway.

If you were looking to start a career in the retail sector, where would you go? Your local job centre? Your favourite high street shop? How about the Red Cross?

Although it might not be the first thing that pops into your mind, with 330 charity shops across the UK, the British Red Cross can be a great place to gain retail experience while also giving back to your community.

Antoinette Hewer is studying for her national vocational qualification, or NVQ, in retail. As part of her studies, she’s also a volunteer at the Red Cross charity shop in Beckenham, Kent.

Antoinette: I’m studying for an NVQ because I’d like to go further in the retail field and basically move forward, progress, and maybe have my own shop later in life. I decided to volunteer to work at a Red Cross charity shop because I was finding it very very difficult to find work, as I left school year three, didn’t get qualifications so the Job Centre found it very difficult for me to find employment. My mum suggested I do a bit of voluntary work just to kill the time. I decided I liked it and then before I knew it they were asking if I wanted to do an NVQ.

The skills that I’ve developed are I am now able to work on a till with no problems, I’m able to work with the customers – finding out what their needs are and helping them accordingly – I’m learning a lot about clothes, which would maybe help me work in a clothes shop later, and patience. Patience is a big thing I’ve learned from working in customer service.

Heron: Not only can the Red Cross help students studying for an NVQ gain practical experience, but it also has its own certificates in retail skills which help people aged 15-26 boost their CVs.

Lekha Klouda, director of the Association of Charity Shops, explains what a difference volunteering at a charity shop can make to a job-seeker’s success.

Lekha: Volunteering whilst working towards an NVQ can help you in a number of ways get a job in the retail sector. Practical experience is valued highly over theoretical knowledge; this is particularly important in a hands-on type of environment that retail is. Therefore experience of working in a shop as a volunteer adds considerable value to the paper qualification of an NVQ. In addition, working as a volunteer indicates that you are motivated and committed to undertake the work as a volunteer without financial payment so a potential employer is learning something valuable about you quite apart from their retail skills, experience and qualifications.

With increasing emphasis on corporate social responsibility, many employers are placing a value on their own employees having volunteering experience as part of their support for charities. This is certainly the case with many large employers in the retailing sector and other corporations who make clear, for example, to potential recruits that a CV with voluntary experience adds value to their applications for employment. They recognise the added value of volunteering within a prospective employee’s experience – both as evidence of a broad awareness of social responsibility but also of commitment to acquire practical experience and skills without necessarily any payment.

Heron: Gaining hands-on experience and impressing potential employers with your voluntary service are clearly very beneficial when looking for a job. But what kind of skills can you develop by volunteering at a charity shop that you can’t gain elsewhere? Lekha Klouda explains.

Lekha: If you work in a charity shop, you can develop a very wide range of skills that can be used in the broader retail sector. Charity retailing is actually a complex sector; charity shops are not only retail outlets, but are also part of a charity and are also involved in reuse and recycling. We not only have customers as do commercial retailers but also donors – without whom charity shops could not exist as they sell around 90 per cent donated goods. Our shops involve a number of activities that are labour intensive and working within teams is a key part of the learning gained in a shop – whether paid or voluntarily. This means developing the soft skills of communication, listening, co-operation and shared responsibility – all of which are vital in the retail sector as a whole. These soft skills are in addition to the retail-specific skills that can be learned such as working on a till, visual merchandising and customer care. If you cut your teeth in a charity shop, this will prepare you well for a career in retailing.

Volunteering in a charity shop, or getting an NVQ through a charity shop, can also be useful for people who already have retail experience because the range of experience may well be much wider than in a commercial retail setting – for example in dealing with a wider range of stakeholders such as dealing with donors and other volunteers who might come from a wide range of backgrounds and ages in addition to customers. The skills developed are likely to add to any existing retail experience and working in a charity shop can also be a useful way of gaining relevant experience and increasing your self-confidence before re-entering paid employment.

Heron: So volunteering at a charity shop can be great for your CV. But charity shop volunteers also make a difference in the lives of vulnerable people in the UK and around the world. Sue Azzopardi, head of trading at the Red Cross, explains.

Sue: Volunteers are the backbone of charity shops, and that’s no different in the Red Cross shops to any others. Volunteers fulfil a variety of tasks, from processing stock to operating the till, doing shop windows and admin – a huge variety of tasks that people do and enjoy doing. And do you know that around 30 per cent of the paid staff that we have in our charity shops started their career as volunteers.

Without the volunteers’ support within the Red Cross – and it amounts to 1.2 million volunteer hours per year – the Red Cross would simply not be able to provide the services that they do to support vulnerable people in communities in the UK and around the world.

Heron: Antoinette Hewar agrees that volunteering at the British Red Cross has been just as important as gaining a qualification.

Antoinette: Volunteering for the Red Cross has been fun, educational and very rewarding. The people I work with are good to work with because they have a sense of fun. The NVQ that I have acquired is going to help me in the long run. If I was to get a retail job, I would still carry on volunteering for the Red Cross.

Heron: Find out how to contact your local Red Cross charity shop atredcross.org.uk/nearyou. To learn more about developing your retail skills with the British Red Cross, go to redcross.org.uk/retailskills.

Thank you for listening to Red Cross Radio. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email us at podcasts@redcross.org.uk.

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Tags: audio, CAR, care, charity shops, clothes, DEC, hero, Heron Holloway, NVQ, People, podcast, red cross, road, run, student, students, team, UK, UN, volunteer, Volunteering, volunteers, vulnerable people, war

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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