• Solutions
    • Execution & Communication
      • Real-Time Task Manager™
      • Q-Suite™
        • Q-Check
        • Q-Comm
        • Q-Visual
        • Q-Walk
        • Q-Docs
        • Q-Forms
      • Zebra Integration
    • Workforce Management
      • Workforce Scheduler™
      • Time and Attendance™
      • Employee Self-Service™
      • Reflexis Customer Connect™
    • Reflexis AI
      • AI Decisions
      • AI Staff Planner
      • AI Budget Planner
      • AI Performance Mgr.
    • Cloud, Mobility, & Analytics
      • Cloud Hosting Services
      • Advanced Analytics & Reporting™
      • Reflexis Mobility™
  • Industries
    • Retail
    • Hospitality
    • Banking
      • Overview
      • AI-Powered Workforce Management
      • Modernized Branch Operations
      • Integrated Customer Experiences
    • Healthcare
  • Customers
    • Customer Stories
    • Customer Success Program
  • Resources
    • Webinars & Events
    • Insights – Reflexis Blog
    • Case Studies
    • White Papers
  • About
    • Partners
    • Careers
    • News
    • Webinars & Events
  • Contact Us
  • Customer Support
  • English
    • Deutsch
    • Español
Language
  • lang English
  • lang Deutsch
  • lang Español
Blog
Customer Support
Reflexis SystemsReflexis Systems
Reflexis SystemsReflexis Systems
  • Solutions
    • Execution & Communication
      • Real-Time Task Manager™
      • Q-Suite™
        • – Q-Check
        • – Q-Comm
        • – Q-Visual
        • – Q-Walk
        • – Q-Docs
        • – Q-Forms
      • Zebra Integration
    • Workforce Management
      • Workforce Scheduler™
      • – Time and Attendance™
      • – Employee Self-Service™
      • Reflexis Customer Connect™
    • Reflexis AI
      • AI Decisions
      • AI Staff Planner
      • AI Budget Planner
      • AI Performance Mgr.
    • Cloud, Mobility & Analytics
      • Cloud Hosting Services
      • Reflexis Mobility™
      • Advanced Analytics & Reporting™
  • Industries
    • Retail
    • Banking
      • Overview
      • AI-Powered Workforce Management
      • Modernized Branch Operations
      • Integrated Customer Experiences
    • Hospitality
    • Healthcare
  • Customers
    • Our Customers
    • Customer Stories
    • Customer Success Program
  • Resources
    • Webinars & Events
    • Insights – Reflexis Blog
    • Case Studies
    • White Papers
  • About
    • Partners
    • Careers
    • News
    • Webinars & Events
  • Contact Us

Essential for All Retailers: AI-Powered Workforce Management

Essential for All Retailers: AI-Powered Workforce Management

white seperator line

Reflexis Blog

grocery AI

Suvarna Krishnan, Director of Predictive Analytics at Reflexis, shares her expertise on the use of AI for retailers addressing the current disruption.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Adds Value in Disruptive Times

These are uniquely trying times for retailers seeking to serve their customers via precise workforce schedules and optimized labor patterns. During the COVID-19 crisis, the creation of accurate schedules for those open retailers—pharmacies, and grocery and hardware stores among them—is more complex than ever, as the press notes. And now-closed non-essential retailers face immediate store-level scheduling challenges.

Essentials: Grocery, Pharmacy Stores

In past weeks, there have been unprecedented customer traffic spikes at pharmacies and grocery stores in particular. Customer activity and store workload are high throughout the day; while simultaneously, the crisis has caused some stores major reductions in associate availability.

The reasons vary: sometimes the employees may themselves, unfortunately, be sick or at-risk; or they may lack child or dependent care; or the store business volume is outstripping existing associate resources. The result: a limited staff pool spread thinner and thinner with changing shift demands.

Add to this:

  • Adjusted timing: Sometimes stores are open longer hours—or with limited, specified hours for particular shoppers, such as the elderly
  • On-boarding and training new employees are essential and continue, despite ongoing COVID-19 response challenges
  • Product inventory levels are frequently inadequate, because of disrupted or stressed supply chains and abnormal customer demand—employees must continuously watch for stock-outs and ensure rapid replenishment

 

This overall situation is rife with challenges, which artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies can address.

Workforce Forecasting and Scheduling Blind Spots

Traditionally, workforce forecasting and scheduling solutions and processes use prior-year data and trends to predict upcoming workforce needs. Accordingly, the forecasting algorithms embedded in typical industry solutions will provide inadequate guidance, since the needs of today’s stores are vastly different compared to the same period last year.

In addition, some retailers are already coping with predictability pay requirements, while facing new or altered regulations. This forces businesses to juggle compliance efforts, while scaling their operations up or down, depending on their individual COVID-19 responses.

Incurring Pandemic-Related Workforce Costs

As we discussed above, during the pandemic, prior-year data is largely inadequate for generating an accurate forecast. And combining this data with old models and systems—which are unable to factor in new paradigms—results in unreliable forecasts and substandard scheduling.

Besides the reliance on irregular or unique data sets, managers must also cope with a limited labor pool, which can include irreplaceable pharmacists and others. This can result in:

  • Overtime costs (due to unavailable associates)
  • Labor law violations and subsequent non-compliance fines
  • Unmanageable workforce shortages, spikes in customer demand, and the like

AI-Powered Workforce Forecasting

Retail demands a highly precise and realistic alignment of employees with demand. Fortunately, in these (and similar) circumstances, retailers can use AI-powered workforce scheduling. This enables nimble adaptation to new COVID-19—or future—workforce challenges.

Using AI, the system can perform drill-downs and make connections; it can reveal such things as otherwise impossible-to-see customer traffic patterns. These models can factor in the varying availability of different types of employees: cleaners, cashiers, stockers, and so on.

The solution can then forecast customer traffic by time, type, and other factors for a comprehensive view of future demand. And AI and machine learning-based models are fully configurable, so that business managers can quickly adjust forecasting models to support their own needs.

AI in Retail Action

Here is a hypothetical example: Managers mine a three- to five-week period, from, say March 2020, and extract data points that are weighed more heavily than long-term history. This process provides a more accurate prediction during the pandemic. Any uptick or downtick in the trend that is connected to the COVID-19 situation should be included—potentially using a growth factor feature.

The benefits include:

  • More accurate predictions of customer demand and associate availability
  • Optimized labor costs
  • Reduced overtime costs
  • Improved customer experience
  • Greater scheduling equity
  • Higher employee morale
  • Continuous operational improvement in critical business areas

 

Ultimately, we live in an age of disruption and unpredictability. Despite all challenges, the AI-powered forecasting enables more intelligent operations throughout a retail organization, with potentially huge cost savings. The end result is a nimble execution template that supports a great customer experience, even during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

To learn about Reflexis AI-powered Workforce Management solutions, please join us for an informative webinar: “Solve Labor Scheduling Challenges with AI-Powered Workforce Management” on Thursday, April 30, 2020, from 2:00 PM-3:00 PM EDT.

Latest Posts

Why 20% of bank employees consider quitting: Survey

Why 20% of bank employees consider quitting: Survey

June 10, 2022

Administrative tasks are often handled manually, causing inaccuracies and longer customer wait times. New software and apps are the solution.

Zebra Named a Leader in Nucleus Research’s 2022 WFM Technology Value Matrix

Zebra Named a Leader in Nucleus Research’s 2022 WFM Technology Value Matrix

April 28, 2022

Nucleus Research evaluated 16 WFM solutions and ranked them on their delivery of value to customers via both the functionality and usability of their software. Zebra received accolades for its AI-powered Reflexis WFM platform, which allows managers and employees at retailers, quick service restaurants (QSR), hotels and banks to optimize execution processes and labor expenditures.

How Digital Acceleration Has Impacted Store Operations and the Next-Gen Workforce

How Digital Acceleration Has Impacted Store Operations and the Next-Gen Workforce

April 21, 2022

In this market snapshot from Incisiv, explore how shifts in customer expectations have changed the landscape of retail store operations, as well as how to empower a next-gen workforce that can meet these expectations and more.

The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Scheduling

The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Scheduling

April 7, 2022

Modern workforce scheduling solutions can offer healthcare facilities the ability to empower nurse managers, while also improving time management and reducing nurse burnout.

Ready Your Retail Store Operations to Empower a Next-Gen Workforce

Ready Your Retail Store Operations to Empower a Next-Gen Workforce

March 22, 2022

Retailers are turning to intelligent technology to empower a next-gen workforce: streamlining task execution, connecting teams, optimizing staffing, and making work easier and faster.

Zebra
logos
reflexis

Reflexis Systems, Inc.
3 Allied Drive Suite #220
Dedham, MA 02026
+1 781-493-3400
sales@reflexisinc.com
Email Preferences

  • Home
  • Solutions
  • Customers
  • Resources
  • Contact Us

FAQ

© 2022 — Reflexis Systems, Inc. | Legal Terms | Privacy Policy

  • Home
  • Solutions
  • Customers
  • Resources
  • Contact Us
Our site uses cookies. By continuing to use our site you are agreeing to our cookies policy. Click here to read our cookies policy.