Revisit and Revamp Your Approach to Retail Labour Planning

The retail landscape has changed more in the last 18 months than it has in the last 10 years. Stores have been tasked with many new activities to support digital sales. Store performance is also being measured differently – through a combination of brick-and-mortar and digital sales. These changes have impacted labour planning in a big way. Retailers need to consider that legacy labour planning methods may no longer fit with the current operation. There has never been a better time than now to revisit and revamp your labour models. 

Below are some different labour planning methods to consider. These methods take into account the retail trends of today. These trends include changing customer behaviours, and the new sell and non-sell activities that have emerged recently in retail. They also consider your employees and how you can give them greater choice and flexibility. These labour planning methods will help ensure your store is staffed with the right people at the right time, and with the right quantity required for your store’s customer patterns.

4 Labour Planning Methods to Consider in Specialty Retail

Review Sell/Non-Sell Split of Hours  

Non-sell activities now account for upwards of 50% of overall labour hours. Additional non-sell activities are driving the need for a large piece of the labour pie. New tasks performed in store include BOPIS, picking and packing, appointment booking and virtual appointments, to name just a few. Now is a good time to review your selling and non-selling activities and update your scheduling profiles to reflect the current in-store activities.


Available Capacity

Most stores will have some available capacity within their existing store schedules at specific times of day that can be used for non-selling activities. These are the times when customer patterns don’t align with minimum staffing requirements, based on other policies. Before adding more labour hours to your stores, consider your available capacity to perform additional tasks in-store. Try to forecast each store’s daily available capacity and provide visibility to them. These elements will help increase your labour efficiency.


Labour Banding

Labour banding groups together similar – or like-stores, based on common characteristics to assess labour spend and productivity. The assessment focuses on identifying opportunities to re-balance labour. It objectively defines labour standards by groups, to allocate the right number of labour hours to each store. These standards first ensure that retailers maintain a base coverage. They then use productivity to invest hours based on sales volume. This exercise drives results by funding those stores with the greatest opportunity. It also provides a more consistent service level across all stores within the group. 

Labour banding is the foundation for labour planning in speciality retail. It objectively balances the hours to be spent within your brands, stores, and seasons. Rebalancing hours away from over-funded stores to under-funded stores identifies opportunities for increased sales. These opportunities result in a more consistent customer experience across all stores.


Labour Pooling 

In markets with a density of stores, consider labour pooling for increased scheduling flexibility. You’ve invested time, energy, and money to train part-time employees on processes, product knowledge, and brand values. So, provide them with opportunities to work additional hours. Pooling employees allows them to work in multiple stores within the same city. This provides efficiency for your stores and flexibility for your employees. 

Pooling store labour goes a long way in creating better quality jobs for your store part-time staff, particularly in off-peak seasons. While part-timers may receive 3 or 4 shifts per week during holiday, they are often reduced to 1 or 2 shifts per week when February comes. Pooling labour across stores offers you an actionable strategy to retain and incentivise your top performers. 

It’s a win-win. You increase employee retention and tenure and reduce the need for constant hiring and training. The result is a pool of employees who are engaged and knowledgeable working across your stores. Posting shifts and allowing employees to select a portion of their schedule gives them flexibility and control. These are employer attributes that employees are seeking in today’s workplace. Become an Employer of Choice by incorporating flexibility into your scheduling practices. 

Retailers are embracing the evolving role of the store. They are also embracing changes in the customer’s buying journey. Latest trends call for new approaches to planning and measuring labour. With all the recent changes, it’s important to be open to new methods and really challenge the status quo. Stores have changed, and so should the way we plan labour to support this new operation. 

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