How to address retail workforce and execution challenges with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning

Cheng Ning, Technical Director of Zebra Technologies Greater China

# #In the face of growing demand, whether the number of retail team personnel and specific operation execution can be matched in a timely manner is becoming a challenge that retailers have to face. Shortage of retail team staff will make it difficult for stores to operate normally. When store managers are stretched thin, they may not have time to train employees in new skills, help employees improve their existing skill sets, or figure out how to leverage their skills in a better way in the store. Store managers may also have difficulty scheduling existing employees efficiently. With today's customer and employee expectations being higher than ever, it can be difficult to track each team member's scheduling preferences and availability.

# However, it is important for store managers to be able to keep morale high. If employees feel they are not adding value to the store, they may experience burnout, become frustrated with their current responsibilities, or long for a better work environment. If a store or team is understaffed and employees feel overworked, they may take advantage of the competitive labor market and find another job.

#So now is a good time for retailers to look into smart employee management technology as a way to explore how store managers can balance employee and store needs.

Employee management with twice the effort

Intelligent employee management software leverages AI and machine learning to analyze historical workforce trends and current trends demand situation under factors. It creates better-fitting models that take into account more variables than traditional models, such as geographic region, store characteristics, and sales data. In turn, managers can quickly generate more accurate workforce forecasts and provide employees with greater flexibility during periods of high workforce variability. Particularly when retailers are grappling with more supply chain or inventory gaps than usual, such scheduling solutions also ensure that existing staff are fully utilized.

#How can you better optimize your workforce spend through intelligent workforce management to ensure you are staffed appropriately and succeed during challenging times? Retailers need to ensure that the employee management technology they choose can do the following six things:

#1. Automate the scheduling process. # Intelligent employee management solutions eliminate errors that may occur in manual scheduling by generating optimized schedules in minutes. If this solution is integrated and used correctly, store managers can free up time each week to train employees and help customers, and have more room to deal with unforeseen events.

2. Create more accurate labor forecasts and schedules. Store managers don’t have to fret over whether estimates are correct or account for additional workload and other key variables that impact project success. Retailers can choose a smart workforce management solution that does all the calculations for them. When an employee requests time off or operational needs change, store managers don’t need to waste time making drastic changes to their schedules. Instead, they can make minor adjustments when necessary, and this can be done from a mobile or desktop device.

3. Respond to rapid changes in customer traffic and needs. Retailers need solutions that can leverage AI and machine learning to quickly identify micro-trends and clusters based on the challenges they face. The solution generates specific staffing recommendations, such as moving employees from warehouses to fulfillment sites in real time, so store managers can determine when and where they need to increase or decrease in-store staffing levels.

4. Simulate scenarios to understand labor needs. Store managers can conduct scenario simulations to find better options for meeting their store’s workforce challenges. With intelligent workforce management solutions, you can customize simulation goals and parameters, simulate staffing situations, and receive AI-driven recommendations based on the results. This capability is critical for optimizing the workforce, as it can model simulations to reveal which employees need cross-training in new skills, as well as the number and type of employees to hire. It can also show store managers how to adjust employee hours. to optimize labor expenditures.

5. Empower frontline employees with self-service capabilities. Tracking and scheduling shifts based on an employee’s changing availability can be frustrating for store managers, and tracking individual employee shift requests can be equally difficult. But if AI-driven employee management technology has employee self-service, employees can easily manage their own shifts on mobile devices, and store managers will know about shift change requests and availability modifications in real time. When an employee submits a time off request or makes other changes, store managers are alerted and can approve the request and contact available replacement staff.

6. Help retailers comply with labor laws and regulations. # Manual scheduling makes it difficult to ensure compliance with ever-changing government labor regulations. Intelligent workforce management software can align staffing models to employee preferences, needs, customer traffic, and comply with applicable labor regulations, making it easier to generate schedules and automatically allocate labor in a balanced and compliant manner.

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