Food Forum: Staying On Schedule

When it comes to modern workforce management, grocers would be wise to adopt employee self-service and mobile technology. By Matt Zelek Work schedules have been around for as long as there have been stores and employees. After all, “who is working and when” are not trivial details when it comes to effective operations. Someone has to open the store, someone has to close the store and the right people are needed to engage the customers on the floor in between. If retail scheduling practices seem like common sense by now, then why has there been so much recent attention on the topic? There has been extensive New York Times coverage on schedule fairness at Starbucks and the New York State Attorney General sent warning letters to 13 major retailers about their reported “on-call” scheduling practices. This is the natural outcome of retailers’ efforts to manage labor expenses coming into conflict with the evolving needs and expectations of U.S. workers. As retailer adoption of workforce management technology has grown, retail operations managers have gained greater control and precision over not only the amount of labor spend, but even more critically, how to allocate a labor budget optimally throughout the store and across the schedule. At the same time, labor availability has declined in many markets and a new generation of retail associate has emerged—one armed with a very different attitude about what they expect from the employment experience. There is a widely held axiom that happier store associates are more loyal and provide better customer service, which in turn reduces labor recruitment and training expense. Is it possible then, that the automated scheduling tools that promised better labor expense management may actually be contributing to lower associate engagement and retention by creating more unfavorable schedules for individual associates? Is the push for greater schedule efficiency actually exposing retailers to regulatory compliance risks? The answer might well be, yes. If used improperly, or with insufficient training and guidance, workforce management systems can paradoxically lead to a negative impact on labor expense and compliance risks. The good news is that this situation is totally avoidable. Workforce management software combined with employee self-service (ESS) tools and mobile device functionality can absolutely have a positive effect on associate engagement, while simultaneously creating a more efficient labor budget. Providing associates with the ability to view schedules, request time off and swap shifts from a web browser or via a mobile phone can dramatically change their level of connectedness to their jobs, and even more importantly the way they perceive their employer. As one CIO of a regional grocer explained, “When we rolled out ESS for scheduling, one of our young associates commented how cool the company had become, since he could check his schedule from his smartphone. Imagine that, a 19-year old associate thinking of a grocery company as cool. But since nearly every other aspect of that young person’s life is facilitated and enhanced by a mobile app, why shouldn’t his work schedule be there too?” It is a good story, but what is the practical value of being perceived as cool by your associates? Keep in mind that the same technology behind the “cool” mobile app is the same technology that saves store managers thousands of hours each year by dramatically streamlining the scheduling process, while also optimizing a multi-million dollar labor budget. That value is very cool. When the following is considered, the whole picture becomes clear: • Work schedules can have a big impact on associate satisfaction levels. • Associate satisfaction levels can have a big impact on profitability. • Mobile devices are becoming nearly ubiquitous among U.S. workers. Modern workforce management technology with ESS and mobile scheduling apps can have a positive impact on associate engagement, and therefore store sales and profitability. Workforce management technology is not just about expense management any more. Matt Zelek is industry advisor – workforce management solutions at Empower Software Solutions. He can be reached at [email protected].