When speaking with retail representatives at numerous trade shows, I’ve noticed a seemingly hidden, but strangely common problem that each one deals with in their day-to-day workload: obtaining seemingly basic information about their stores. If you ask a district manager about open hours for a store in their district or about the specific number of employees at each of their locations, their answer is typically something along the lines of “I don’t have a system where I can readily access that information,” or worse, “The information is stored in different spreadsheets that belong to different departments.”
On the surface, it sounds like a temporary issue. Perhaps you find the person with the information and you don’t end up looking through endless folders within your labor management suite. But according to RIS News, corporate-driven workload has increased 77% compared to five years ago. In the long run, when it comes to managing hundreds or even thousands of stores, the difficulty of finding location-specific attributes has played a huge role in the generation of corporate-driven workload.
Moreover, the #1 listed goal for a majority of retailers was increasing labor productivity, with 80% of retailers listing it as such. A key factor that drives labor productivity is having specific insights into working environments and deploying location-specific strategies. These optimize corporate-driven workload and create opportunities for better in-store task execution and smarter workforce scheduling.

Been eagerly awaiting this study. Thanks @joanwilliams and @gap for showing how stable scheduling not only helps workers but also results in increases to productivity and sales: The Stable Scheduling Study https://t.co/XpBSZGBTCn via @worklifelawctr #talkgoodjobs

— Amy Blair (@amyblair63) April 12, 2018

Simply put, having actionable information like working hours, district info, location type (urban or rural), and employee count at your fingertips decreases your workload and empowers your workforce.
The benefits go well beyond just convenience and accessibility. A strong locations management tool integrates information that already exists within a workforce productivity suite, eliminating otherwise standard hassles of data translation. It also incorporates crucial information gathered from time studies, appointment booking, and labor modeling solutions. This furthermore enables corporate users to integrate location-specific attributes into their strategic planning and put their team members in a position to succeed.
The potential gains of a strong locations management solution are endless. The results are just as valuable as any effective labor strategy: lowered operations costs resulting from removal of inefficiencies, improved execution in stores, better workforce scheduling, and elevated customer experiences.