Today’s workforce management systems can do incredible things. They can forecast demand, build schedules and help organizations run more efficiently than ever before.
But there is an important question every organization should ask:
Just because we can optimize a schedule, does that mean we should?
During our recent Retail & Hospitality Inspiration webinar, Christine Ruchay, our host, summed it up perfectly:
“The issue here isn’t technology itself. It’s losing sight of the human experience.”
When Efficiency Becomes Too Much
Christine used a great example during the webinar about online shopping. Product recommendations, special offers and countdown timers are all designed to help, but together they can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Workforce scheduling can be the same.
A schedule might look perfect on paper. The right number of people are working at the right time, and labor costs are under control. But organizations can end up creating schedules that maximize efficiency while making life more difficult for employees.
And that is one of the biggest tensions in workforce management: precision versus predictability.
The Best Solution Is Usually in the Middle
During the webinar, I shared a simple idea:
“The answer lives in the middle.”
Businesses need flexibility. Employees need predictability. The best workforce management strategies recognize that both matter.
The goal is not to choose one over the other. It’s to find the right balance and give employees a voice in how work is scheduled. When people have some control over when and how they work, they’re often more engaged, more flexible and more willing to support the business when needed.
What Primark’s Experience Teaches Us
One of the most interesting examples from our discussion came from Primark’s workforce management journey.
Like many retailers, Primark wanted to have the right number of employees in the store at the right time. If customer numbers were expected to increase around 11 a.m., more employees could be scheduled to start work gradually around that time rather than all beginning their shifts at 9 a.m. One person might start at 9:00 a.m., another at 9:15 a.m., and another at 9:30 a.m.
On paper, this seemed like a smart way to make sure there were enough people available when customers needed help while avoiding overstaffing during quieter periods.
But once those schedules reached the shop floor, a different picture emerged.
As Christine explained, there was “a real pushback from managers and markets to the 15-minute scheduling approach.”
The challenge wasn’t the technology itself; it was practicality. Managers found themselves dealing with a constant flow of people starting and finishing shifts throughout the day, while employees experienced less predictability in their schedules.
Rather than asking, “How precise can we make the schedule?”, the conversation shifted to a more important question: “How can we create flexibility without creating complexity?”
Some of the key lessons from Primark’s experience included:
- Practicality matters as much as precision. A schedule that looks perfect on paper may not work as well in the real world.
- Multi-skilling creates flexibility. By training colleagues to work across different areas of the store, managers could respond to changing demand without constantly adjusting schedules.
- Consistency and flexibility must work together. Broader scheduling patterns and grouped start times helped create a better employee experience while still supporting operational performance.
- Different markets have different needs. What works well in one store or region may not work in another, making local flexibility an important part of workforce strategy.
For me, that’s the key lesson: workforce management isn’t about creating the most sophisticated schedule possible. It’s about creating schedules that work for both the business and the people behind them.
When efficiency, flexibility and employee experience work together, that’s when workforce management delivers its greatest value.
Coming Up Next
Join us on July 15th at 11:00 AM CEST for our next Retail & Hospitality Inspiration Session, “Forecasting Demand: Turning Uncertainty into Advantage“.