by Rotageek on 15 June 2021
You only have to ask your employees how many hours they spend scheduling to see the immediate benefits of automated rota software. But whilst this technology is proven to save time, make your workers happier and cut costs, what your investor wants to know is the numbers. How much impact will the system have on your individual business?
Whilst every company is different, each experiences a selection of common pain points when it comes to workforce management. A lack of visibility, payroll errors, poor flexibility and many more issues affect both revenue and retention. All that needs to be done is pairing each with an indicative statistic.
Below we share how a rota scheduling tool can pay for itself by generating a solid return on investment.
The benefits of moving from a paper-based or legacy system to a digital SaaS platform are immediate. However, to achieve a high level of return on investment (and therefore impact overall revenue), businesses must move to an optimised, automatic scheduling solution that forecasts labour demand using data-driven technology.
Here is what can be achieved in as little as three months.
Automatic scheduling produces rotas that are dramatically better at matching demand than manual rotas - a benefit that has a multitude of quantifiable results.
Total revenue growth
Each of our retail clients has demonstrated a measurable growth in revenue directly due to their automatic scheduling solution. Our accumulated data suggest that for every 5% better match to customer demand, retailers will see up to 1% sales growth. For one leading store, this was an annual increase of up to £629,640.
Improve customer NPS by 5-10%
Better labour alignment is proven to better your customer service. No longer are stores left with too little staff to serve demand - or faced with unmotivated teams from overstaffing. With automatic rota software, you can benefit from at least a 7 point increase in NPS, which directly correlates to a 1% growth in revenue.
Increase store footfall conversion rate
Using the footfall data within our scheduling solution, we are able to demonstrate increases in conversion points due to better labour matching. Once staff are better deployed to real customer demand, stores are much more likely to be tidier, better merchandised and better serviced during peak times when customers have a heightened awareness of lengthy queues or chaotic displays. This additionally has a positive impact on reducing walk-outs and abandoned baskets.
Increase average transaction value
Every improvement made to labour matching either per week, day and even per hour directly affects a store’s average transaction value. The rota automatically accommodates for peak times meaning more hands to keep a tidy, well-stocked store. People are more likely to spend time and money when staff are available for queries, till queues are under control and shelves are replenished.
Save 5-10% of labour cost
Matching staff to your demand curve cuts up to 10% of your labour cost, whilst only using 0.5% of your staffing budget - a ten-fold return on investment. This presents an opportunity for retailers to not only reduce inefficient spending but also to reinvest savings into areas that benefit ROI further such as training and development, the service experience or employee engagement.
For one retailer, this resulted in a saving of more than 22.5 wasted labour hours per store every week - allowing the business to realign more than £1.2 million into revenue-focused activities.
Do you know how much time your teams spend creating rotas? In retail, managers can spend up to nine hours per week on schedule related admin. It might sound surprising but when you consider the volume of ongoing employee requests, shift swapping, availability inputs and schedule amends for multiple teams, it takes a lot of valuable time that could be reinvested into much more important tasks.
This benefit has been proven time and time again. Managers will automatically save between 2-4 hours per week, giving back nearly three weeks of work time every year.
After swapping spreadsheets for targeted, data-driven scheduling, O2 were able to identify 6,300 hours per week of staff time that was reinvested in the customer experience without increasing costs. Similarly, managers across The Perfume Shop’s 220 stores now save at least 3 hours a week after implementing Rotageek’s digital scheduling solution.
Time theft is an all too common issue in retail, costing businesses billions in pounds and productivity every year. The only successful solution is to implement advanced time and attendance software, a feature of optimised scheduling technology that digitises the clock in the process. Doing so has an immediate return on investment with visible financial savings.
In one case study, we found that one leading retailer was losing an average of 1.5 hours per store every week across over 100 locations. But with Rotageek’s T&A mobile app, they were able to eliminate this cost, immediately saving £100,000. This is due to our geofencing technology which only allows employees to clock in and out for shifts onsite, directly from their smartphone. Managers can see who’s on shift in real-time from a multi-location dashboard - a simple yet efficient solution to solving time theft without the need for additional hardware.
A third of employers make payroll errors, at a rate of 1-8% for those who use traditional timecards, and up to 40% in small businesses. This not only costs businesses thousands in time and inaccurate payments - it can have legal ramifications too.
However, data-driven rota software seamlessly integrates with payroll workflows to automate required cross-checks, eliminating any human error that would otherwise occur. If an employee works longer than legally permitted, the system won’t allow it. If they work a set of hours as confirmed by time & attendance functionalities in-app, then those hours are directly submitted to the payroll system. Benefit from automated accuracy and enhanced scheduling compliance.
Happy employees are more productive. We no longer need numbers to know this in today’s world, where mental health and wellbeing are a top concern in the workplace. One way to inadvertently improve this is with optimised rota software that nurtures an autonomous approach to scheduling.
95% of retailers receive shift related complaints, a reason why the industry has one of the poorest turnover rates in the UK. But by focusing on fair employee rotas, companies can not only benefit from a more engaged workforce but will also drastically reduce staff turnover and overall absenteeism for reasons belonging to flexibility, employee wellbeing and work/life balance.
Investing in optimised rota software is often paid for from just one or two of the above benefits - therefore ROI is not a one-time achievement.
At Rotageek, our automatic scheduling software is trusted by leading businesses worldwide from Pret A Manger to Lush Cosmetics. Find out more about how our technology can generate your business a return on investment and get in touch with our expert team today.
RotaGeek Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with the company number 06783810 and registered address of 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ
