Reflexis-Zebra Glossary of Key Terms

Workforce Management is an integrated set of applications and processes that optimize employees’ productivity and efficiency. Such a solution automatically matches associate/employee availability to customer demand, on a weekly, daily or even hourly basis. A full workforce management solution will also enable managers to accurately forecast labor requirements, and create and manage staff schedules. The goal is to cut costs, improve execution, and delight the customer with the minimum of effort and expense.

Proper workforce management demands labor budgeting, forecasting and scheduling to match customer demand with employee availability. Creating a budget requires harvesting historical data from corporate systems, and/or from individual regions or stores. Using input from management, analysts then create a forecast plan, subject to revision, of sales, customer traffic, and so on. The budget is then matched to employee resources and a project schedule is created linking associate demand to customer requirements. This schedule is then distributed to the associates and store managers for execution.

This is a key part of successful workforce management. It varies by organization, country and context, but usually involves analyzing, forecasting, and planning an organization’s workforce needs. Ultimately, it ensures that the right people are available at the right time to serve the customer.

Workforce management solutions can involve a wide variety of processes and platforms: these can include employee self-service, time and attendance, as well as scheduling and analytics. Scheduling is a crucial part of workforce management and involves matching the labor budget to employee resources. Workforce scheduling apps also can integrate with other key third-party enterprise solutions, such as finance and payroll, human resource management, performance and training management, and more. This enables connected and streamlined processes to save time and effort across the company.

Artificial intelligence can do such things as factor in total workload on-site, budget, and labor spend. It can also involve self-learning capabilities that automatically consider employee preferences and habits when devising schedules. This results in the rapid creation of accurate schedules that would otherwise require extensive rewrites and dependence on multiple separate systems. Leveraging AI streamlines workforce management, and makes it more rapid, accurate and successful than it could be using clumsy manual or paper-based processes.

Businesses improve their productivity and efficiency by buying and implementing a workforce management solution—preferably accessible via smartphone or other mobile devices. Managers leverage these solutions to factor in likely demand, and create accurate budgets based on valid data—and then generate the best and most equitable schedules. Relying on one modern, familiar system and interface, managers can contact employees anytime, anywhere, to share proposed schedules, as far in advance as possible. This eliminates guesswork, paper- or spreadsheet-based processes, and enables a single integrated schedule that the associates can easily access 24/7.

Without streamlining and automating workforce budgeting and scheduling processes, the store managers must devise their own schedules, typically using slow and cumbersome manual processes. They must make on-the-fly calculations for the budget, then create the schedule and share it with associates via phone, email or other means. Manually produced schedules are error-prone and static—and can require frequent edits and updates to staff. On the other hand, automated workforce management boosts productivity for managers and gives associates more flexible and equitable schedules.

Any industry committed to meeting customer demands with a workforce that supports disparate locations, and that needs coordination and precise planning—along with the ability to react quickly and at a local level. Retail has already widely adopted workforce management solutions, with proven success. The medical, restaurant and hospitality industries also are among the top candidates for workforce management deployment and success.

Task Management is a set of applications and processes that enable employees to efficiently—and with accountability and management visibility—execute all phases of a task or project. The best Task Management solutions leverage a mobile-first interface to share checklists, messages, and other communications anytime between managers and associates. Smart engines embedded in the solution can enable a fast response to unfolding situations, according to existing best practices. This leads to greater efficiency and productivity to improve the customer experience.

A Retail Associate is a person working for a retailer, who handles a variety of activities. These tasks include extending the initial customer greeting; offering answers and assistance; suggesting and locating items; and many other activities essential to the success of the retailer.

Employee Self-Service (ESS) is a solution that enables store associates to access scheduling, information and resources. Via a mobile-first ESS, associates can view, edit and receive approval for schedule changes at any time from any location, according to corporate policy.

Also called consumer banking/personal banking/branch banking, Retail Banking is a type of banking that is focused on non-business clients. Either in-branch or online, bank customers securely deposit and manage money, access credit, and more. Retail banking relies heavily on the person-to-person interactions at the branch level.