Building Blocks

“Aarrrggghhhhh I have to make the schedule.” I have felt that many times and said it out loud more times than I can count, but making the weekly schedule is more than managing payroll, it can be an art form. Stay with me here. I have always had a love/hate relationship with making schedules. Over the years, I managed to turn scheduling into a science of sales. Sound crazy? Yep, it is, but something I loved about managing my stores. My team might not have liked how long it would take to make the schedules, but I knew they would never really understand.

“Take the availability, hours needed, LY and projected sales and just MAKE the schedule.”

-said everyone always

If only it were that simple! If you think that is the idea, then you have been doing it all wrong! Did you know that making a schedule is the best business tool we, as store managers have to build our business? It is the one place you can manipulate payroll and availability for the better. Still with me??? Here is a little secret to for you…

Your people are the building blocks for a positive sales ledger.

I want you to take some time and really dive into your stores numbers. Analytics were always my favorite part about being a store manager and should be yours as well. For example, studying how that sweater in a certain area of the store did better on a certain type of fixture than it had on the other side of the store folded on a table always made me jump for joy at its results! Why can’t you have the same reaction when it comes to your people? Studying the key performance indicators (KPI) of your sales team is the best thing you can do to understand the dynamics of your business and make your schedule work for you. I am not talking about UPT or ADS necessarily, I am talking about time frames, team and production. Here is an example:

Tuesday nights from 6-9pm were the lowest performing sales generation time frame out of any for the entire week. Why? Was it the store’s traffic? Was it tasking? Was it who was working? Was it events in the area? Was it product flow management?

-The answer is yes to all of these scenarios

Something to consider when making a schedule, is your people’s performance together at the same time during the same shifts. I would always test certain managers with different sales associates. Who was the most productive together? Who had the best customer service? Who was able to get the most accomplished without sales suffering? I know it takes time to test the theory, but once you find the right combination, you no longer have struggling sales. I usually liked to keep a set schedule for those that would succeed together. It made them happy and customers became regulars on those days with that team. A win win!

There is a lot more to this theory, which I will get to next time, but this should give you a beginning and a new procedure to improve your business. If you have any questions, reach out. I am just an email away!