ReThink Productivity Podcast
In this exciting podcast, Simon Hedaux from ReThink Productivity shares his insights and strategies for improving productivity and efficiency in the retail and hospitality industries. With the help of clients, partners, and the ReThink team, Simon covers everything from measuring and tracking productivity to developing and implementing effective strategies.
Whether you're a business owner, manager, or employee, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone who wants to learn how to get more done and improve their bottom line.
Here's what you can expect to learn:
- How to measure and track productivity
- Proven strategies for improving efficiency and reducing waste
- How to create a culture of productivity and innovation
- Tips for motivating and engaging your team
- Real-world examples of how other businesses have used ReThink Productivity to achieve success
Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from the experts and get ahead of the curve with your own business.
ReThink Productivity Podcast
Schedule Smarter, Not Harder: How to Transform Your Workforce Management
Matthew Haywood, Owner of WFM Consulting, a seasoned retail expert with over 25 years of experience, shares his framework for effective workforce management through seven essential pillars. He dispels common myths about auto-scheduling while providing practical insights into achieving the elusive "right people, right place, right time" goal that transforms both customer and colleague experiences.
• Understanding the five key challenges: mindset, capability, confidence, simplicity, and adoption
• Exploring the seven pillars framework: operating hours, forecasting, labour deployment, contracted hours, availability, work assignments, and skill sets
• Debunking the myth that auto-scheduling is a "magic button" solution – expect to achieve 80-85% automation at best
• Recognising that small increases in flexibility across staff can make significant scheduling improvements
• Challenging the assumption that part-time workers provide more scheduling flexibility than full-time staff
• Publishing schedules at least three weeks in advance to improve colleague work-life balance
• Viewing effective workforce management as an opportunity to reinvest hours strategically rather than simply cutting costs
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Welcome to the Productivity Podcast. I'm delighted today to be joined by Matthew Haywood, who is a seasoned retailer and business owner in the workforce management consulting space. Hi, matthew, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very well thanks. I'm really looking forward to today's session.
Speaker 1:Good, good. So before we dive into right people, right place, right time, which is a phrase I'm sure lots of people listening have heard before, tell us a bit about yourself kind of career background, how you got to having your own business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So I spent the last sort of 25 plus years in the retail, hospitality and travel sectors, started life out as an accountant, spent many years looking at balance sheets, profit and loss accounts, and then I moved into sort of systems implementations and about 15 years ago I stepped out of and set up my own business and spent a lot of time on various projects building Costa Coffees, putting Greg's Bakers in, running retail departments, looking after ferries.
Speaker 2:So I've done a whole wide range of things and for the last sort of seven or eight years I've been in the sort of HCM workforce management space, implementing systems and configuring them and then running them. And then I took the opportunity in February this year to set up on my own them. And then I took the opportunity in february this year to set up on my own, and for me it's my aim is to make life simple for companies, colleagues and customers by deploying labor that meets demand in the most efficient way. So I'm kind of in that space now just really looking to help other people from the experience that I've managed to get over the last 25 plus years.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, so you can do it all, from the the accounts, through to the the planning.
Speaker 2:Supposedly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good stuff. So I mentioned the phrase before at the start right people, right place, by right time it's. It's been coined, you know, numerous times times. I've worked in workforce management. Now I've rolled out a system when I was at Focus 25 years ago probably, and we use that as a bit of a strapline. So it's lived for what seems like an eternity. I'm not sure that many people have done it, and I know people have tagged on right skills at the end of the time. So it's kind of nice words, but it's not really that simple, is it.
Speaker 2:No, it is. It's not, and I think it's probably more relevant now than it's ever been if we look at the sort of the pressures the businesses are under. You cannot afford to have people allocated to schedules when they're not required. You just can't afford that anymore, and I think it's something that lots of companies aspire to and they probably like to think they've got right people, right place, right time. But you know, as we're going to talk through today, there's a lot that goes into making sure that you can deliver this effectively. So there aren't that many companies out there who are doing it probably the best they possibly can, and I think, hopefully today, the topics that we're going to discuss, it might just point a few more companies in the right direction and give them that kind of nudge that they need.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So without doing the workforce management vendors any disrespect, and I'll talk generically there is this perception that you can load a load of data into your workforce management solution, so people's working hours, their availability, skills, epos, data, delivery data, whatever it is, budgets Press a button, schedule drops out, everybody works that schedule. No fuss fuss, we go again next week. I'm yet to ever see that happen no, I think you're 100% right there.
Speaker 2:The you go through the sales process with various sort of vendors and they all talk about sort of hitting the magic button. You know you can hit the button, walk away, hey presto, schedule appears. There's a lot of work in the background to get to that position and I'm still not convinced that you can do that 100%. You know, I think this auto scheduling, whatever you want to call it there are benefits to it, some big benefits, and it will get you a long way towards your goal. But there's always going to be some form of manual intervention, required a little bit of top and tailing. But if you, if you get it right, it can certainly do the heavy lifting for you yeah, I think if you can get 80, 85 percent the way, you've done a good job.
Speaker 1:So I know you've got kind of seven pillars that that we'll talk around um. But before we get to that let's have a look at some of the kind of key challenges in in your mind that you've seen businesses face yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So I think that there are five things that I've identified as key challenges. Uh, first thing is mindset. So I think everyone wants change, but one of the most difficult things is changing that mindset of your colleagues away from the past and really clearly trying to demonstrate to them the benefits of the change to them at a personal level, because they need to buy into it, but also the wider business benefits, because they need to buy into it, but also the wider business benefits. And then, I think, once you've kind of got through that stage, you then start looking at capability. So we're talking about these big transformational projects and they can be really daunting to your colleagues. So it's really important that we invest time as leaders in coaching and offer guidance to your teams so they can get up to speed to start delivering some of these benefits.
Speaker 2:And I think, from my experience over the last couple years, one of the real challenges is confidence. So you can often put in these very highly configurable systems and you don't want to touch them, you don't want to play around with them and you don't want to mess up the configuration. So just having that confidence to sort of lift the lid on the system and actually get your hands a little bit dirty under the bonnet so you can start making some, some of these changes. So that's that's something you're not going to get day one. But the more you sort of involve yourself in the with the system and the configuration obviously you won't be doing this in the live system, it'll be in your test environment, so that's obviously a big.
Speaker 2:Something I'm really passionate about is trying to keep things as simple as possible, not just for the users, but also simple configuration and simple to manage, because it's very easy to overcomplicate these systems. So I think simplicity is kind of key, because you've not only are you figuring it now, but you've got that ongoing maintenance piece over the next, you know, two, three, four, five years, whatever it's going to be. So simplicity is key. And then I think the real challenge and I'm sure you've come across this in all the projects that you've done is the actual adoption piece. So, yeah, the configuration and implementation can be a little bit tricky, but the real challenge is, once it's there, is to get people to use it and us as sort of configurers or sort of project managers. There's only so much that we can actually do. It's really important that you've got this whole team approach and it'll be with your ops guys, the people team, the finance team Everyone's got to play a part to sort of delivering that piece of compliance.
Speaker 1:So for me they are sort of the main five challenges that I've come across yep, yeah, I agree with all those, and I think that the adoption piece I always find interesting, because typically a big payroll, workforce management, time and attendance task, whatever component you're using implementation as a you project team, a project manager, some senior sponsorship, hopefully, because if it doesn't, it's probably not going to go anywhere that all is well and good until you've rolled it out and then you're in business as usual and maybe there's one or two experts left in head office. But it's then really down to the field teams and senior leadership to drive that continual usage, monitor the performance, the stats, the statistics, whatever you're using, and at times I feel that's quite a big miss for organizations.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think you get sort of almost like implementation fatigue, don't you? You roll a project out and everyone sort of sits back, takes a gasp event and says, right, it's in now. But that's only when the journey starts, in my view, and I totally agree with you. You know it's that senior leadership buy-in. Um, you know it's not an optional thing, it's something that you know. We spent all this money all this time configuring. We've got to use it and it's using making sure we use the data that comes out of it and insights to the best we can. And it's not like a stick to beat people with. It's there to sort of say to them look, this is the real benefits having in your trading unit or your wider business. So, yeah, that adoption piece is definitely the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You could have spent a lot of money to implement a technical solution when actually the tech is the enabler for the change, isn't it? Yeah, it again amazes me when WFM becomes an IT tech project when actually it's a hearts and minds of a hr operational project yeah, I agree with that type totally so your seven pillars. So that that's kind of how you've thought about and chunked up the key requirements for for success. So do you want to take us through those one by one?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, so you know, I've spent a lot of time looking at various solutions out there and, like I said, you asked the question can you automatically schedule? Yeah, and, to be honest, a lot of these systems. They're very similar and I believe that these seven steps apply to all systems that you are going to configure. So I'll just go through them one by one. So, first of all, you're operating out. So your system is not a crystal ball. It needs to understand when you are going to configure. So I'll just go through them one by one. So, first of all, you're operating now. So your system's not a crystal ball. It needs to understand when you are trading and you need to make sure that you are keeping the system updated with any changes. So you know we talk about seasonal changes or changes at short notice. So that, for me, is a crucial first step. And then we come on to accurate forecasting. So you know this will drive your labor demand, so you must take into account a whole range of things. So have I got special days set up correctly in the system? Is the data that I'm basing my forecast on readily available? Can I put it into the system in a timely fashion? Is it sort of churning out that forecast. And again, a lot of these systems, forecasting platforms, aren't necessarily overly complicated, which isn't a bad thing. So you know, we might just looking at a sort of basic trend of historic averages will get you to a nice accurate level.
Speaker 2:And then, once the system has created that labor demand or given you a number, you then need to sort of work out well, how am I going to deploy that labor over my trading day? So labor deployment is my third pillar. So it's saying how am I going to spread it? Am I going to spread it over demand? Am I going to allocate labor into certain time blocks? So have I got stock tape? I know it's between these hours. Well, let's not spread it over the moment, let's actually put it against that time slot. So trying to understand that a lot of these things will evolve over time, it's not you don't necessarily can nail this first immediately. It's sort of, as you work with the units and the operators, a lot of this stuff will be teased out and it's about top and tail tailing this stuff and getting it as accurate as you possibly can. And then the fourth pillar I've got contracted hours and you can have issues here whether you're under or over contracted, and it's really important to try and sort of strike the right balance and make sure you're planning ahead, looking at your peaks and troughs, just to ensure that you've got that enough contracted hours to meet demand.
Speaker 2:And then one of my old favorites is availability. So do we have people available when we need them? A lot of businesses will say that they've got the contracted hours. Yeah, I've got contracts at our space, but actually you've got a really inflexible workforce and yeah, everyone's happy to work between eight and four, monday to Thursday, but it's always a struggle to fill that Friday, saturday, sunday schedule when you probably need people the most. So having that availability and flexibility in the system is really important.
Speaker 2:And then we're looking at work assignments. So the more flexibility you can build into your schedule, the better. So we're talking about work assignments, maybe across multiple departments in the same location. So it might be a fast food outlet, a bakery operation, a supermarket operation. You might be able to split that person across the trading data to make you as efficient as possible and it might be across multiple geographical locations.
Speaker 2:So have I got a pool of people that have got the ability to work across a multitude of sites, and sometimes that can be. You know, if you're a high street retailer and you've got multiple operations in the same town, that might work really well. If you're a motorway service operator, where your locations could be miles apart, that might not work really well. If you're a motorway service operator where your your sort of locations could be miles apart, that might not work so well. And then then the last um pillar, that I've got skill sets. So it's not just about having what I call bums on seas. You know, have we got the required skill sets to operate? Now some of these might be driven by brand standards. So if I'm running a fast food outlet, the brand might dictate I need a certain skill set at certain stations, or there might be statutory requirements around various legislation. So the greater the pool you have in terms of skill sets, the more options you're going to have. So for me they are the seven things.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter which system you're looking to implement, you've got to get these right yeah, I just want to focus on one of those, which is availability, because again there's this myth, I think, that starts to spread if you're not careful around fully flexible people being available every working hour of every day. And from my experience I've seen if lots of people can give a little flexibility, maybe even an hour each side of what they currently do, that can have a really, really big impact yeah, no, I agree on when you run these forecasts.
Speaker 2:I mean, most of these systems now are forecasting demand at 15-minute increment and just by someone not everyone's starting at 7 o'clock, someone's starting at 6.45 or 7.15. It just starts making that little bit of difference. So I think availability, as I said, is one of those sort of key pillars that we've got to get right and when you'll go through that recruitment process, it's not just about getting oh yeah, I've got someone on 35, check that they are available to work when you need them to work.
Speaker 1:And I think there's also this myth that part-time people are more flexible. Again, students, potentially, but they might be back at uni and this, that and the other, so they may have availability between different locations, but most people in my experience are part-time for a reason. So child care commitments, um care commitments, lifestyle commitments full-time people, again in my experience, have tended to be more flexible because they've got to do 40 hours, so you've got to fit them in somewhere and they need their two days off yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I mean the part-time people, um, they're generally part-time because they've got restrictions either end of the day and they need to fit, you know, make it work for their sort of work-life balance.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I definitely agree with that so that the world's, I think, in a good place with the technology, like you say there's. There's multiple choice, everybody does the same thing slightly differently and it all looks you know, pink, blue, green, red, whichever, whichever one you decide to choose, but ultimately, where they're all processing data at half an hour, 15 minute level, matching it to all the information we put in about sales, shapes, availability, skills, and they give us this best start. I'd probably call it so, with all the information we've given it, it's the best start for the manager to make the fine tuning. Do you still see lots of schedules? This best start 85%, 95% that we've got to that are pretty poor because the data's not great.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. I think the data that's going to drive that schedule has got to be timely, and I think with a lot of the sort of poor quality schedules that I'm seeing, it's because we're not scheduling far enough in advance or, like you say, the the data's being corrupted or especially if sort of looking at special days in the system, that maintenance piece, so yeah, that's that's where I tend to see sort of the poorer quality schedule and it's where people haven't invested in those seven pillars as well, and so there's lots of. You know, we want to be giving people that work-life balance, so my view you should be shedding at least three weeks in advance and what that poor schedules generally tend to be, those where the data's not great and people are meddling with it right up to the last minute. So I don't know what I'm working tomorrow, when I should know what I'm working two or three weeks at a time yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's got to be a fairness for colleagues and all this because otherwise people will restrict their availability and go back to more of a fixed working pattern, which then limits the benefit you can get from the system. So, talking of benefits, then do you want to run us through kind of some of the things that you see when people start to get this right?
Speaker 2:yeah. So you know, you know we don't invest all this time and money for nothing. So there are some real benefits to be had by getting that sort of right people, right place, right time. And for me I mean they're quite obvious on them but they're transforming that customer experience. So we want to give the customers the best experience. We can great service, short queues, great product availability and we can Great service, short queues, great product availability and we can go a long way to satisfy that by making sure that we've got labor sort of meeting that demand. So when customers come in, you know I'm a great believer in sort of schedule efficiency as well and I used to work on something really basic that if I was 85% efficient on my schedule, I've probably got a 15% chance of a queue. And if I'm 50% compliant on my schedule, then I've probably got a 50% chance of a queue. So that for me, making sure that you've got your staff in when your customers need them, it's not only just about the staff but it's also enhancing your colleague experience. So giving colleagues a fair schedule that's data driven. So something we just touched upon, built on accurate forecast and forecasting and, most importantly, at least three weeks in advance, we ensure they can achieve that work life balance. So everyone's got busy lives. So anything that we can be doing to make our colleagues lives better, the better for us it's going to be. And then I think, colleagues front of house we want people front of house, not back of house. So anything we can be doing for freeing the managers up from those onerous tasks around some of the HR processes, some of the workforce management processes, definitely help us. It will help drive the brand standards and also drive sales. And then the real benefit from getting an accurate forecast the more accurate we forecast, the better control we're going to have over our labor. We can spread it more efficiently, more effectively and ultimately control that labor cost.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of people um assume that when you're looking at schedules, workforce management, especially efficiency, it's all about reducing schedules, taking hours out. I don't think that's right. Look where hours need to come out. Yeah great, we'll take them out, but it's it's for me it's reinvesting the hours in the most appropriate times. If we get that right so taking out labor off those shoulder periods and putting into those peaks, not only will you be more efficient but you'll start driving sales. And in my view, if you're driving sales and making yourself more efficient, the way your labor model works is that you will actually get more hours generated as we go forward. So there's some real key benefits there from getting them out right people, right place, right time, the best you possibly can yeah, no, totally agree, you can save your way out of so much.
Speaker 1:But I think in the current climate, with the cost challenge, you've got to drive atv, you know, maximize your conversion in terms of the footfall, because you can only save. There's just some stuff you've got to do and there comes a point where you're at the bottom line and you can't remove any more labor. Yeah, so fascinating conversation. I mean we could go on and talk about ai and all those other bits, but clearly that the world's evolving so quickly that that stuff changes daily and again all the solutions are starting to use co-pilots, ai and and all sorts of other wonderful things in their, in their software. If people want to find out more about you, want to chat this through further, want you to come and do some work on their wfm system or project, where's the best place for them to find you?
Speaker 2:the best way is to look for matthew hayward on linkedin or wfm consultingcouk and you can drop me an email at matthew at wf consultingcouk and I'll be happy to have a chat perfect, we'll put.
Speaker 1:We'll put the link to your linkedin profile in the notes so we can make it nice and easy for people to find. You Really enjoyed the conversation, something that's brought back some memories for me and is close to my heart as well for people to getting it right. So appreciate your time and we will catch up soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
