A new study, 2024: State of the Hourly Workforce, summarizes the perspectives of more than 1,500 hourly workers and managers on a broad spectrum of workforce management (WFM) topics—and some of the key findings are quite eye-opening or downright jaw-dropping. For example, the report reveals that:

• Employee retention remains a huge problem, with 50% of hourly workers saying they were “very likely” to leave their jobs in the next 12 months and 41% reporting that their companies “have not done anything to make my workplace better” in the past year.
• The threat of unionization is real, with 27% saying they wish there had been a unionization effort at their companies.
• The advantages of AI are not clearly understood, with 48% of hourly workers either “suspicious” or “indifferent” about the use of AI and a mere 20% of managers using a program that automatically generates schedules.

Do these and other findings seem accurate to real-world retail executives? And what actions are they taking to alleviate concerns and create innovative new opportunities for hourly workers and managers?

Insights for Innovators: How Real-World Retail Leaders are Optimizing Workforce Management

To learn more, Legion recently hosted a webinar, “Intelligently Automating WFM for Empowerment,” and posed these and other questions to leaders from three prominent retail organizations:

• Jim Malafronte: Director of Labor Optimization and Workforce Management for Rite Aid, a leading drugstore chain in the U.S., with more than 47,000 employees and 1,500 stores.
• Shamia Healy: Senior Workforce Planning Analyst for The RealReal, an online marketplace for users to buy and sell luxury goods, with 34 million members.
• François Paquin: Senior Operations Manager at ALDO Group, one of the world’s leading fashion retailers: with more than 1500 stores in 110 countries.

Here are just a few of their responses to the issues and opportunities raised by the recent survey.

On Employee Retention

“Compensation is always going to be top-tier, but there has to be flexibility with scheduling, with overtime opportunities. And team members want to feel like they’re included. Things like employee of the month, incentives, different performance measures—that’s what makes team members say hey, I want to go to work today.”

-Shamia Healy

“We attract new employees with recognition programs and incentives. And we focus on work/life balance through flexible scheduling options… and growth opportunities through programs that offer internship opportunities with a chance for future employment.”

-François Paquin

“Rite Aid is a bit unique. In addition to having traditional hourly associates, we’re also a healthcare provider with some highly educated and well-compensated pharmacists who are hourly. We have carefully evaluated our labor model and made very strategic adjustments to free up some time for our pharmacists to have more consultative interactions with the patient… This gives them greater satisfaction in what they are doing while also providing value to our customers. Part of this effort is leveraging Legion WFM tools to provide a lot of flexibility in their schedule and also provide in mobile access, which our employees are really embracing.”

-Jim Malafronte

On Unionization

“Rite Aid actually has a mix of union and non-union employees. And our goal is to provide the same level of associate engagement regardless of the classification… As an example, one of the biggest pain points that we’ve discovered is not posting schedules far enough in advance for our employees to plan their lifestyles. So, we have made a commitment to post schedules three weeks prior to the effective date.

“The other thing that we found in looking at configuring our new labor scheduling system is that there are many states that only require a 3-hour minimum shift. But unions in many cases require a 4-hour shift. We made the decision that regardless of what state you’re in, we were going to set 4 hours as our minimum shift configuration. We just think that’s the right thing to do for our employees.

-Jim Malafronte

On Attracting New Workers

“I was not surprised by the survey findings that the top reasons people take a new job are schedule flexibility, greater recognition and rewards, and the ability to get paid early. One thing I would add is that having a mobile option, such as we get from Legion, gives our teams the ability to quickly add in when someone is available, and that availability piece helps increase the work/life balance that a lot of our teams are looking for.”

-Shamia Healy

“The survey findings are no surprise to me either. We frequently send surveys to our store associates to understand their priorities. And this is what they’re expressing: We need to be flexible with our associates to create a positive experience for them. They want the ability to pick and pick up extra shifts when available, or swap shifts with colleagues to accommodate their personal lives. And they want to receive their earnings immediately after their shift. That’s why we launched Legion InstantPay more than a year ago. It also unlocked an added benefit, which was a better clock-in performance. In fact, after we adopted Legion InstantPay, clock-in performance improved by almost 70% in the first three months.”

-François Paquin

On the Role of AI

“I think that without the understanding of what AI is and what AI can do, it’s important to emphasize to workers that we always will still need you. However, with an AI assistant to help you, you may not need to spend so many hours or minutes doing more tedious work, and you can focus more on the parts of the job you love, like interacting with people.”

-Shamia Healy

“I think employees understand the potential benefits. But realistically, I think there’s still some skepticism and concerns… One of the ways we’re demonstrating the potential and building that credibility is by using AI to automate scheduling with Legion WFM. We fully expect schedule creation time to be reduced by about 50%. So that’s significant time that can be redeployed for more high-value activities.”

-Jim Malafronte

On Giving Managers What They Need

“We are, and always will be, a people-first company. So to support our store managers, we have developed a comprehensive training program and continuous learning opportunities. We set clear expectations and objectives, provide them with the tools to efficiently complete their daily tasks, and give them the support they need.”

-François Paquin

“Our managers are not able to help their teams if they don’t have the support from the top. So we are definitely supporting our managers all the way around with anything that they need, so they don’t have to spend so much time doing paperwork.”

-Shamia Healy

“With the AI capability and other tools from Legion, we fully expect schedule-creation time to be reduced by about 50%. So that’s significant time that can be redeployed for more high-value activities and additions. It’s part of our overall strategy to avoid locking managers into task work that really should be assigned to hourly associates. We’re really being more prescriptive in designing those tasks to flow more to the appropriate resource, which really frees up a big slice of time that the managers can now use to coach and lead their associates.”

-Jim Malafronte

Watch the Webinar and Read the Full Survey

Clearly, the advantages of using intelligent, automated workforce management software are real, as expressed by the distinguished guests of the webinar. Learn more about how these companies are harnessing Legion solutions to advance their WFM goals by watching the webinar and downloading your copy of the full 2024 study here.

And if you have any questions about how your business can benefit from using Legion WFM, we’d love to show you.