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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat

We take a look at May’s retail and economic signals, where the mood stays low but the sales numbers finally lift. We tease out how heat, online shopping, and where people choose to spend time reshape the outlook for high streets, retail parks, and seaside towns.
• Consumer confidence stuck at minus 23 on the GfK index
• Unemployment improving slightly to 4.8%
• Retail sales rising year on year across BRC and ONS measures
• Online spending driving much of the uplift, especially in non-food
• Fashion outperforming food on value growth, with different online shares
• Footfall declining overall, with retail parks holding up better than high streets and shopping centres
• How extreme heat changes destination choice and town centre comfort
• Lessons from the US out-of-town, climate-controlled shopping model
• Hospitality and fast fashion adapting quickly to weather-driven demand
• Summer trading patterns by location, with seaside towns relying on August like Christmas

📅 Save the Date! Join us live at the Productivity Forum on 10th September in Birmingham.

🎟️ Secure your spot: ReThink Forum 2026

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What separates guesswork from actual, sustainable efficiency? Professional training.

In this episode, our resident experts—Sue, Simon & James—are joined by special guest Phil to break down why credible productivity work must start with the right foundations.

 They dive into how the ReThink Academy is shaping the next generation of industry experts through our four core courses:

• Introduction to Productivity – Building the baseline
• Work Study – Measuring the essentials
• Method Study – Designing smarter workflows
• Labour Modelling – Optimising your workforce

Ready to level up your team's capabilities? 

🌐 Explore the Academy: ReTime Academy

📅 Save the Date! Join us live at the Productivity Forum on 10th September in Birmingham. 

🎟️ Secure your spot: ReThink Forum 2026

 #theproductivityexperts
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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat

April’s numbers look grim on the surface, but Easter timing shifts spending into March and distorts the year on year story. We discuss the real signals behind falling footfall and softer sales, then ask what rising costs and uncertainty are doing to jobs, confidence and everyday choices. 
• Easter timing and strong comparables shaping the headline results 
• Footfall declines across high street, shopping centres and retail parks 
• BRC sales turning negative and what that suggests about demand 
• Beauclair town-centre spend falling with discretionary categories hit hardest 
• Inflation cooling overall while hospitality and transport stay high 
• The “how expensive is too expensive” question and what markets will bear 
• Unemployment at 5% with much higher youth unemployment 
• Wages keeping pace with inflation for those in work 
• Consumer confidence staying low and driving caution 
• Experiences still winning over material purchases 

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We recorded our first live ReThink Productivity podcast at the Retail Technology Show after-show party, talking candidly about what retail tech is actually doing for productivity right now. Chris Chandler and Steve Young share what is changing with AI, wage pressure, training, and the practical realities of running stores on land and at sea.

• AI at the show feeling more integrated and less like marketing 
• Cruise ship retail productivity focused on freeing time for guest experience and sales 
• Training challenges with rotating contracts and the value of app-based learning 
• AI forecasting as a key lever, especially when demand varies by itinerary 
• National Living Wage at £12.71 pushing retailers beyond “low-hanging fruit” tech 
• Shifting focus towards operating models, partners, and commercial arrangements 
• AI workflow management to drive the right task at the right time 
• Supply chain visibility and QR codes for end-to-end product tracking 
• Funding AI through a mix of labour efficiency and sales growth 

Download your copy of the Retail Report

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We gave Notebook LM our first ReThink Productivity Retail Report

NotebookLM digs into why shops can look perfectly staffed and still fail you at the checkout or on the shop floor, then trace the problem back to how retail measures efficiency. We use the ReThink Productivity Retail Report 2026 to show how a push for 100% utilisation creates a capacity cap that burns out colleagues and leaks sales
• The £6.25bn annual opportunity hidden inside “wasted” labour time 
• How the efficiency index is built and why 80% is healthier than 100% 
• the capacity cap and why small disruptions collapse service 
• Demand-led rotas that protect peak trading hours and use quiet periods well 
• Security tagging as a labour cost that can exceed the value it protects 
• Omnichannel services that add seconds which turn into queues 
• Self-checkout friction and why design beats blame 
• Pragmatic tech wins like electronic shelf labels that lift morale 

Download your copy of the Retail Report

 #theproductivityexperts
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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat

We read the March 2026 retail and economic data against a month shaped by war and an early Easter, where strong headlines hide weaker high street reality
• March footfall rising year on year but flattered by a weak 2025 comparison
• BRC sales growth driven mainly by food as households buy ahead of Easter
• Non-food sales growth lagging inflation and remaining fragile
• High street sales down sharply with food and drink spend falling hardest
• Pay-cycle spending patterns and how Easter timing shifts monthly demand
• GfK consumer confidence sliding with personal finance views turning negative
• Inflation pressure from housing and fuel costs pushing consumers to save more
• Major purchases feeling riskier as caution rises
• Unemployment dipping while economic inactivity increases, changing the real story
• War-driven fuel prices feeding uncertainty with a possible staycation upside

Download a copy of our first ReThink Productivity Retail Report 

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Sue, Simon, & James share the top-line findings from ReThink Productivity Future Retail Ready Benchmarking Report and explain how a £6.25bn opportunity could be unlocked. They walk through six golden rules to improve store performance, protect customer experience, and avoid hidden workload that quietly harms sales.
• Why retailers feel the squeeze after the ‘easy wins’ are gone
• The efficiency index and why 80% is the realistic target
• How running above 80% removes the cushion for peaks
• The productivity paradox where cost cuts can damage sales
• Managing capacity intelligently with better demand modelling
• Simplifying security so tagging does not erode profitability
• Unlocking self-checkout by reducing interventions and friction
• Designing services deliberately so complexity does not swamp teams
• Deploying technology pragmatically with training and real ROI
Download the report, have a read, get in touch with any questions

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Hear directly from our experts—Sue, Simon, & James —who share real-world trends, new data findings, and actionable productivity insights

We share the latest ReThink Academy training updates and why we built courses we wish we’d had when we first stepped into productivity and workload modelling roles. We also unpack how measuring work can remove customer friction, from mobile phone sales processing to the daily annoyances of hotel check-in, and why buy-in makes or breaks operational models

• ReThink Academy expansion and what’s new 
• Introduction To Productivity course for new starters and teams 
• Workload Modelling course and the wider ecosystem around it 
• Method study as a practical process improvement framework 
• Time and motion study, work measurement and MTM pathways 
• Why productivity data supports better customer experience 
• Mobile phone retail example where processing time dominates 
• Workload model trust, overstaffing vs understaffing and queue impact 
• Retail Technology Show and benchmarking report launch plans 

We will be at the Retail Technology Show (RTS) the 22nd and 23rd of April at the Excel in London Book a meeting at RTS

 #theproductivityexperts
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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat
They break down why February 2026 turns into a tough month for UK retail, with record rain dragging down footfall and high street sales. They also zoom out to consumer confidence, inflation pressures, and the April policy changes that could reshape hiring and costs.

• Record wet weather and why it hits retail demand fast
• Footfall declines across high streets, centres and retail parks
• High street debit card sales tracking below last year
• Category performance across fashion, food and drink, general retail, grocery, health and beauty
• GfK Nielsen consumer confidence falling and what it signals for March
• Major purchases weakening and the savings index rising
• Inflation staying at 3% overall while essentials run hotter
• Discounting effects in clothing and muted inflation in big-ticket categories
• Average transaction value rising in food and drink and health and beauty
• National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rises from 1 April
• Key headlines from the first phase of the UK Employment Rights Act

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We gave NotebookLM our Productivity Pulse podcasts from November 2025 to February 2026 with Sue, Simon, & James and this is what it came up with...

We follow the stop-watch data behind everyday queues and show how “efficient” labour models can still create predictable chaos at peak demand. We trace how wage pressure, algorithmic scheduling, and physical layout decisions reshape what workers do and what customers feel.

• Minimum wage pressure and the knock-on effects of wage compression
• The efficiency index and why zero slack systems lose resilience
• Variable efficiency and why two stores can feel like different companies
• Algorithmic break scheduling that prioritises compliance over footfall
• Hidden travel time that turns a short break into a bigger productivity hit
• Manager role drift and why leadership disappears into shelf-stacking
• How quick service restaurants redesign space for delivery drivers
• Kiosks, upselling psychology, and the customer dithering factor
• Micro efficiencies in kitchens that function like pit-stop engineering
• Parcel collection bottlenecks and the shaky maths of the halo effect
• Stock replenishment waste, taking stock for a walk, and lean batch processing

 #theproductivityexperts
Register for the 2026 Productivity Forum
Download a copy of our first ReThink Productivity Retail Report
Connect to Simon on LinkedIn
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