Ensure Workforce Compliance

WFM has always challenged retailers, which is why more retailers are turning to technology to play a pivotal role in shaping performance management in stores. Empowerment through automated and integrated WFM applications is necessary for store managers to accurately balance tasks and customer-centricity for optimized store operations. So when Roots, a leather goods, active athletic wear, and home furnishings retailer, had trouble with store-level task follow-up, action needed to be taken. Robin Nelson, director of IT at Roots, sought to find an automated solution that tracked and monitored store issues, assigned store or personnel tasks, distributed documentation, and provided exception-based follow-up data.

Don't Rely On Email For Task-Completion Status
Following up on tasks is painstaking, especially if you rely on email to communicate with store-level employees. "Follow-up was a big problem for us," says Nelson. "Ensuring 100% follow-up is very time consuming, so it simply wasn't being done.

Head office communicated with store-level associates via email, but we didn't know who had read our emails or if tasks had been completed." The retailer also experienced issues with the timing of store-level feedback. For instance, Roots had to wait to receive weekly mailings of forms, checklists, and audit reports in hard copy format to review store-level data.

This caused filing issues, and sometimes checklists were returned incomplete. Roots also needed a way to monitor its training test results. "Traditionally, we have done a great deal of documentation, and there is a blind trust that stores read and digest the training information," says Nelson. "We were looking for an application that scored and tracked all training test data."

Transfer Written Documents To A WFM Document Library
Given the clear need for an automated WFM application, the retailer chose Store Ops Center, a hosted solution, from Opterus — an on-demand Web-based retail portal designed to communicate corporate policy and day-to-day objectives between head office and store locations. The retailer uses all available modules in Store Ops Center, and the message, task, and issues modules have replaced email communication between stores and head office. All written documentation is relocated from the retailer's existing intranet portal to the document library within the application.

Nelson worked with Opterus to ensure Store Ops' compatibility with the retailer's POS system — a process that took five business days. Once compatibility with the POS system was confirmed, Roots' retail operations department worked with all relevant departments to introduce them to the system and to demonstrate the modules that would apply to them. For each department, the retailer's operations department would determine the individuals who needed access to the Ops Center and set them up on the system. At this time, there was discussion about data that was essential for the document library and outlined the forms that would be useful to have on the system.

Nelson states the vendor's application has eliminated the retailer's WFM problems, as Roots has changed the way it uses email. Because the retailer must differentiate between announcements and tasks, anything that requires actions or follow-up is now created as a task. Opterus replaces typical email with a communication vehicle that is more efficient, centralized, and exception based. Indeed, the retailer no longer worries about attaining 100% follow-up compliance, as all follow-up is now exception based. Also, Roots no longer awaits the arrival of checklists and audit reports in hard copy form, because data can be submitted electronically and stored in a database and is available instantaneously. Store managers are assured that all checklist data is provided, because Store Ops requires users to fill in specific fields in order to complete the form.