Legion’s Configurable SmartCards: Empowering Store Managers with Key Insights for Smarter Workforce Decisions

In the dynamic and fast-paced retail and service operations world, store managers are often tasked with juggling multiple responsibilities. The sheer volume of decisions can be overwhelming, from managing employee schedules to ensuring optimal labor costs and maintaining customer satisfaction. With so many moving parts, how do you ensure you’re using your workforce efficiently without getting bogged down by data overload?

This is where Legion’s new configurable SmartCards feature comes in—offering store managers a powerful and intuitive way to view and act on the most critical workforce data in real-time. Legion allows managers to create personalized dashboards, providing a clear and comprehensive view of essential workforce metrics, including scheduled hours, labor wages, actual hours worked, demand forecasts, and labor utilization—all at a glance.

With these insights, store managers can make faster, more informed decisions to improve operations, optimize labor costs, and ensure a better customer experience. Here’s how Legion’s Configurable SmartCards can transform how you manage your workforce.

The Power of Configurable SmartCards

Store managers often have to balance labor costs with the fluctuating needs of the business. Legion’s Configurable SmartCards feature streamlines this process by presenting critical data in a visual, customizable format. Users can tailor SmartCards to highlight the metrics that matter most.

Here are some of the key metrics available through Configurable SmartCards:

1. Scheduled Hours

One of the most important pieces of workforce data is each employee’s scheduled hours. These hours have been planned to meet forecasted demand and ensure staffing levels align with business needs.
Configurable SmartCards give managers a quick view of the total scheduled hours for a day or week, broken down by work role, job title, and engagement status. This level of visibility helps managers identify gaps or overlaps in their schedules early on, ensuring that they’re not overstaffed or understaffed during peak times.

2. Actual Hours Worked

While scheduled hours give an idea of the staffing plan, tracking actual hours worked to gauge performance and adjust operations as needed is just as important.

With Configurable SmartCards, managers can see how actual hours align with scheduled hours. Are employees working more or fewer hours than planned? Are there discrepancies between what was scheduled and what was worked?

By keeping track of actual hours worked, managers can pinpoint inefficiencies, such as overstaffing or understaffing, and quickly make adjustments. For example, data is immediately visible if an employee worked extra hours unexpectedly or if coverage was adjusted due to higher-than-expected foot traffic. This allows for a more accurate understanding of labor utilization and provides a foundation for making more informed scheduling decisions in the future.

3. Labor Wages

Labor is often one of the largest operational costs for retailers and service-based businesses. By tracking labor wages in real-time, store managers can monitor labor expenses and avoid unnecessary costs.

Legion’s SmartCards provide an easy-to-read view of the total labor wages accrued based on the scheduled and actual hours worked and the wages paid to employees. Managers can compare actual wages against budgeted or forecasted wages, providing immediate insights into whether labor costs align with expectations.

4. Demand Forecasts

Demand forecasting is a key factor in optimizing labor, and Legion’s Workforce Management Software (WFM) integrates demand data directly into the SmartCards. By providing visibility into forecasted demand, managers can align their staffing levels more closely with what is actually needed.

Legion’s advanced AI-driven forecasting engine uses historical sales data, weather, promotions, local events, and more to predict the amount of labor needed during any shift.

With this information readily available, store managers can adjust their schedules accordingly, ensuring that they have the right number of staff to meet demand. For instance, if demand is forecasted to be high for a certain period, managers can ensure that they are adequately staffed, avoiding overstaffing during slow periods and understaffing when customer traffic is high.

5. Labor Hours Utilization

Another key metric Configurable SmartCards highlights is labor hours utilization, which provides an overview of how effectively labor is used during a shift.

Store managers can evaluate whether labor is efficiently utilized by comparing scheduled labor hours with actual labor hours and forecasted demand. This metric helps managers determine whether staff are working optimally, if there is excess idle time, or if there are gaps in coverage.

For example, if labor hours are underutilized, the manager may notice that employees are idle during certain periods, signaling an opportunity to optimize the schedule. Alternatively, if labor hours are overutilized relative to demand, it might indicate that the store is overstaffed, leading to unnecessary labor costs.

Why Configurable SmartCards Matter for Store Managers

The beauty of Configurable SmartCards lies in their ability to combine all these metrics in one place, allowing store managers to track the key levers of operational success in real-time. With customized dashboards that display only the most relevant data, managers can:

• Make data-driven decisions: Instead of relying on guesswork or spreadsheets, managers can access real-time, accurate data to optimize staffing, reduce labor costs, and improve customer service.
• Improve labor efficiency: By continuously monitoring scheduled hours, actual hours, labor costs, and demand forecasts, managers can ensure their workforce is utilized effectively, leading to higher productivity and lower costs.
• Increase agility: Real-time visibility allows managers to respond quickly to unforeseen changes, such as spikes in demand, employee absences, or changes in customer behavior.
• Enhance operational performance: Tracking labor utilization and comparing it to forecasted demand ensures that the right number of employees are available at the right time, improving customer satisfaction and employee engagement.

Conclusion

In the complex world of store operations, visibility is key to making informed, data-driven decisions. Legion’s Configurable SmartCards bring that visibility to life by providing store managers with a customized, real-time view of the most important metrics. By tracking scheduled hours, labor wages, actual hours worked, demand forecasts, and labor hours utilization, managers can optimize staffing levels, control labor costs, and ensure their workforce operates at peak efficiency.

Legion’s SmartCards empower managers to make smarter, faster decisions by giving them the insights they need at their fingertips. That agility and precision are invaluable in today’s competitive retail and service landscape. To learn more, request a demo today.