Workforce Management and Process Improvement Case Study

Client: A $200M+ specialty retailer

The challenge

Faced with both a declining sales trend as well as customer conversion results, this client decided to have PwC Canada's Retail Consulting Services practice assess the workforce management approach and determine how to best improve selling coverage levels through store payroll recalibration.

Our approach

PwC Canada's Retail Consulting Services team analyzed the client’s current labour budgeting / scheduling approach. This analysis included conducting a zero-based, bottom-up exercise to identify necessary changes to the client’s existing grid scheduling program. The effectiveness of the current organizational structure, roles and responsibilities were also assessed and recommendations for improvement were identified.

The team then made specific recommendations to recalibrate staffing grids based on fixed and variable tasks, store formats and forecasted sales. PwC Canada's Retail Consulting Services developed a customized tool to generate store specific shift-based schedules that matched staffing levels to customer traffic, sales patterns, fixed and variable tasks.

The result

• Provided a scheduling tool that the client could use to reduce required labour spend by 60 to 80 hours per week on average for top-tier locations while at the same time protecting staff coverage levels for peak selling times
• Implementation of the revised staffing grids and shift based schedule provided the client with a roadmap to reduce annual labour spend by $1.2 million
• During the test of the shift-based schedule conversion rates improved by 11% to 15%
• During the test period, it was determined that the tool sales forecasting accuracy rate was approximately 95%