Workforce management has always challenged retailers. While payroll may be their largest controllable expense, managing the specific components of that expense often seems uncontrollable. Even as the tools to manage hourly employees have grown more sophisticated, the business challenges retailers face have remained relatively unchanged: high turnover, highly variable seasonal demands, and the need to keep an iron thumb on labor budgets, all while providing increased levels of customer service.

However, in the last few years the focus on customer service has shifted, moving from a tactical exercise owned by stores to a strategic tenet of the business. As retailers struggle to shift their entire organization to become customer-centric, workforce management becomes the front line in the battle to move customer service from “the expected” to “the differentiator”.

This study seeks to benchmark how far the retail industry has come in shifting the workforce from a tactical to a strategic enabler of customer centricity. It also examines the aspects of workforce management that are most important to retail winners, identifying the ways that winners accelerate the performance of their employees.