Axsium Group Blog » Retail

You Want Me To Be More Productive? How Do I work Faster?

Kevin Donnelly — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I have been put in the position where others have asked me to “increase productivity” to meet company goals. As a matter of fact, that has come up numerous times over a very long span of working. From selling newspapers and washing cars, to running retail stores and directing [...]

Today’s Retail Workforce Management: It’s Less About the Solution You Choose to Use, Than How You Choose to Use the Solution

Andi Needham — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I take most of the articles I read about the retail customer today with a pinch of skepticism. If we are to believe everything we read, this species is rarer than the Giant Panda; have the research disciplines of Albert Einstein; have smartphones integrated into their souls; and can [...]

Identifying the Right Labor Drivers to Forecast with Your Workforce Management System

Bob Clements — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I am often asked by retailers, “What labor drivers should we forecast with our workforce management system?” The answer is both good and bad news. The bad news is that there is not a stock answer. Sure, at a high level, retailers typically forecast some combination of sales, items sold, transactions, shipments received, and customer [...]

Eight Questions to Ask Yourself about Your Labor Model

Kevin Donnelly — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

It has always been my belief that questions will spur more questions. That’s a good thing because the more we ask the more we learn, and the more we learn, the better we can perform at whatever task we may work on. As they say “Knowledge is power.” We are slowly coming out of one [...]

Today’s Retail Workforce Management: Beyond Automation and Cost Savings

Andi Needham — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I spent some time reminiscing with my wife this week about my career in Retail Workforce Management. Actually, I think she did very well to keep eye contact as long as she did, and apparently it’s not at all what she had in mind for our anniversary dinner. My earliest introduction to WFM was color [...]

How to Use Special Days to Improve Forecast Accuracy

Bob Clements — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

There is a lot of activity in my household right now as my family gets ready for the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale which starts in a mere nine days. It’s funny how much time my household gets planning for a department store sale, but its become an annual ritual. As crazy as I think we are, [...]

Facebook and the WorkPlace

Bob Clements — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

I’ve heard more than one retailer quip that Facebook is the most widely used workforce management system. As the argument goes, Facebook is the place your associates post their work schedules for their friends and family to see, and to swap shifts with their colleagues. Taken as a whole, it gives Facebook the largest WFM [...]

DOL Releases Timesheet App for iPhones

Chris Flanders — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:30:00 +0000

This week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that they have developed a free smartphone app for employees to keep track of the their hours, independently from their employer, and determine what they should be getting paid. You can read the press release at the link above, but there’s one key paragraph that should jump [...]

Understanding Reporting and Analytics in WFM

Chris Flanders — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:00:11 +0000

The term “analytics” gets thrown around a bit by WFM vendors as they have solutions that are advertised an a “analytics reporting system” or something similar. Wondering what that means, exactly, and how that is different from the reporting inherent in the vendor’s application? We’re going to take a look at reporting and analytics to [...]

Retail’s Last Mile: The In-Store Customer Experience

Bob Clements — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:00:00 +0000

In the telecommunications industry, there is a term called “the last mile”. It represents the final leg between the telecommunications provider and the customer. It is typically seen as the most expensive part of delivering service because that last mile requires the provider to physically connect from the last central point on their network to [...]