Workforce Management
The competitive nature in all retail sectors today has put gross margins under attack. As margins drop, a retailer is challenged to lower operating costs in order to maintain profitability, while sustaining or improving guest service levels. Since labor is your most valuable resource, and the largest controllable operating expense, labor costs must be continually addressed. Bedrock Retail can help you understand what Workforce Staffing is required for you to really operate your store locations properly. The three primary areas to focus on are your Labor Standards, Forecasting and Scheduling:
LET US HELP YOU DEVELOP LABOR STANDARDS.
Labor standards are at the heart of any successful workforce staffing environment. Bedrock Retail can develop labor standards for all of your operations and selling areas. Using our proven methodology, developed labor standards will become key components across all of your staffing areas.
LET US HELP YOU CREATE A FORECASTING METHODOLOGY.
Retailers want to grow sales, realize profits and satisfy customers. This means having stores staffed to meet customer demand, but not overstaffed that valuable payroll is tied up. Having a forecasting methodology assists your stores in meeting weekly forecasted sales and customer demand. Bedrock Retail can help create or strengthen your current forecasting process.
LET US HELP YOU WITH YOUR SCHEDULING NEEDS.
Bedrock Retail can help you strengthen the process of determining how, when and where to allocate your stores given resources (associates) to successfully operate the store to meet both the guest service and tasking demands. By working together we can create a plan to determine what changes need to be made and how the changes can be implemented.
Optimizing your labor model is critical to ensure that your store locations have the right labor hours scheduled week-to-week to support your overall guest service and tasking requirements. To learn more about how Bedrock Retail can help you with your workforce staffing click the button below.
Performance Tracking
Each day, as part of your ‘day-to-day’ operations, you make decisions that will impact your organizations performance and chart the direction you are heading for years to come. The impact of each decision may be hard to measure in the short term, as an organization you are constantly changing. Bedrock Retail has created criteria for Performance Tracking that will help you track specific activities that indicate successful operations for your organization. These measurements provide a tool that consolidates all decisions and outside factors to help you in evaluating the organizations ‘day-to-day’ decisions. The three primary areas to focus on are Sales, Staffing and Productivity
LET US HELP YOU MEASURE KEY SALES INDICATORS.
Bedrock Retail can help you to adopt stringent sales performance measurements to help identify stores doing well and provide direction to under-performing locations. These selling measurements can help you educate your staff on how well they are selling to your guests and where their focus needs to be.
LET US HELP YOU MEASURE KEY STAFFING METRICS.
Bedrock Retail can help you understand what staffing metrics to focus on in order to staff your stores better in order to provide goals and overall direction. Since labor staffing is your organizations most valuable resource, and the largest controllable expense, retailers must continually address staffing.
LET US HELP YOU MEASURE OVERALL PRODUCTIVITY.
Bedrock Retail can help you identify the key indicators needed to measure the overall productivity of your retail operations. Knowing what indicators to monitor consistently will help your organization evaluate your overall performance and understand how your decisions are impacting your organization.
The fundamental purpose behind performance tracking is to improve your overall performance. Consistently monitoring and measuring your sales, staffing and productivity will help you evaluate how your organizations stores are performing. Having this information will help you know where to improve and understand what should be done differently.
Process Improvement
The first step in creating an efficient store operations for your retail organization is Process Improvement. Having optimized processes is the key to improving labor performance and efficiency, as well as your customers’ overall shopping experience. The three primary areas to focus on are Receiving, Front End and Sales Floor:
LET US HELP YOU WITH RECEIVING YOUR PRODUCT.
Bedrock Retail can help your retail operation by creating an efficiently organized receiving area, with processes that will ensure your product is getting to the sales floor in a timely manner. Solidifying how product is coming into your stores will have a profound impact on your overall productivity. This is the first place to start improving your overall productivity and efficiency.
LET US HELP YOU PROVIDE A ‘FAST & FRIENDLY’ CHECKOUT FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS.
Bedrock Retail can help your retail operation by creating a consistent and efficient checkout experience for your guests. We will help you ensure that the overall flow is effective and your brand is well preserved with a consistent positive experience. This is typically the last chance to leave a lasting impression on your guests as they leave your stores; it needs to be a ‘Fast & Friendly’ impression.
LET US HELP YOU PROVIDE A GREAT SALES FLOOR EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR GUESTS.
Bedrock Retail can help you create a positive shopping experience for your guests. We will help to ensure that you are meeting the needs of your guests, and that the sales floor is stocked properly and well maintained. We can help you with any process changes needed to ensure your stores are providing great service, the shelves are stocked and the sales floor is well maintained.
Optimizing store processes is the first place to start improving productivity performance and ensure a consistent experience in all stores. To learn more about how Bedrock Retail can help you with your Process Improvement click the button below.
STORE REVITALIZATION
Each of your retail store locations should be creating a consistent and favorable shopping experience for your guests every day. The burning question is “Are each of your stores creating a favorable experience every day?” If you’re concerned about the answer to that question, you need to focus on Store Revitalization in your stores. Let Bedrock Retail take you through a ‘three-step’ process that will strengthen your brand in connection to your guests’ experience and overall shopping environment from the moment they park until they exit your store locations. We will help you focus on strengthening your Stores Appearance, Merchandising and overall Shopping Experience:
LET US HELP YOU WITH THE OVERALL APPEARANCE OF YOUR STORE LOCATIONS.
Bedrock Retail can help the overall appearance of your retail operations by creating a personalized and sustainable approach specific to your needs. Our goal is to help you create a consistent and favorable shopping experience in every day.
LET US HELP YOU WITH YOUR MERCHANDISING STANDARDS.
Bedrock Retail understands the importance of having merchandising standards. We can help you create these standards or strengthen already existing standards. Our goal is to help you create the cleanest, most organized; in-stock retail operation possible. We have the experience and knowledge to understand your merchandising needs.
LET US HELP YOU STRENGTHEN THE OVERALL GUEST EXPERIENCE IN YOUR STORE LOCATIONS.
Bedrock Retail can help your retail operations by determining any needed changes and providing attainable processes that will increase the quality time being spent serving and taking care of your guests.
Revitalizing your stores’ appearance, merchandising and overall guest experience will ensure your brand is strengthened and your guests are having a favorable experience in your retail locations. To learn more about how Bedrock Retail can help you with your STORE REVITALIZATION click the button below.
Other services from Bedrock Retail:
LABOR STUDIES
Retail is a dynamic and fast-moving business. A Retailer has to change their business approach in response to opportunities and threats. The Workforce Management system must also reflect and support these changes. If not, the system will start to produce unworkable schedules and quickly fall out-of-favor at Store level. To ensure this does not occur, an annual ‘Labor Study’ or ‘Labor Validation’ will look at how well the Labor Standards are performing.
The two primary areas to focus on are validating staffing areas that have Recently Changed and those that are Status Quo:
LET US HELP YOU UPDATE STAFFING AREAS THAT HAVE RECENTLY CHANGED.
Bedrock Retail can help your retail labor model by creating a study approach to specifically meet the needs of your operational staffing changes, regardless of the staffing area. With the latest in Time Study Software, we will measure the impact of process or operational changes in your organization. This is the first way to measure the overall impact of the changes in your stores.
LET US HELP YOU VALIDATE STAFFING AREAS THAT HAVE REMAINED MOSTLY STATUS QUO.
Bedrock Retail has a well-developed approach to validating labor in the store environment. We can cater this method to the appropriate level of detail for your organization.
At a minimum, you will be able to understand the amount of time your associates spend on:
Customer Service
Tasking
Department Maintenance
Work-Related Communication
Administrative Tasks
Work Stoppage (Idle, Avoidable & Unavoidable Delay)
Vendor Activities
These Labor Studies/Validations can be tailored to meet your specific needs. Contact Bedrock Retail to help you get started.
The investment in conducting Labor Studies can be considerable in both time and money. The overall result of your investment will be beneficial in ensuring your Workforces Management system is aligned to the business and that field ‘buy-in’ is assured. Bedrock Retail has successfully accomplished this for many organizations and can do the same for you.