A number of leading Retailers are currently looking closely at their biggest single cost item outside stock - their workforce, and at how Workforce Management can make dramatic improvements to the way they plan and utilise their staff to improve customer service and revenue, as well as lowering costs.

One such leading retailer is the latest to successfully complete an implementation of a Workforce Management solution from WorkPlace Systems. Following a rigorous tender process; WorkPlace Systems were selected to implement a strategic scheduling approach to help the customer make these improvements. The customer had already developed a workload demand model which provided a forecast of the actual work in staff hours required in each store to meet customer service and revenue targets. Using this data, WorkPlace employed a combination of consulting techniques and software technology to advise the customer on building idealised schedules and re-profiling the composition and structure of their workforce.

The project was one of the fastest implementations of Workforce Management to date. Using WorkPlace's ChangePlanner software, the project team were able to rapidly produce different scenarios to help the customer establish the right profile and structure of its workforce for each and every type of store. In addition, ChangePlanner significantly improved the process of developing and communicating staff schedules to each store, ensuring all staff knew when and where they had to work.

The project has resulted in a considerable improvement in Staff Schedule Efficiency and a significant net reduction in Staff Hours and an associated decrease in labour costs.

Quotes from NEXT plc:

NEXT spokesperson - "We chose WorkPlace Systems because they proved their understanding of the problem and how to solve it as well as having the right products available to deliver it."

NEXT spokesperson - "Our success was also due to a combined effort between ourselves and the WorkPlace team, who were very responsive and their commitment was fantastic in delivering the solution we wanted"

NEXT spokesperson - "We have been impressed by the results so far and are now looking at other ways Workforce Management can help us improve store performance and the service to our customers"

June 2007

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