Strategic Workforce Planning
reduce your labor spend while maintaining – or even improving – service levels
Planning for the right level of labor capacity is critical to meeting a wide range of business objectives – from maintaining customer satisfaction to meeting cost objectives. Our strategic workforce planning solutions provide predictive models and planning tools for operations groups, retail staffing or call centers, providing the insight you need to make real-time adjustments to planned demand.
benefits of strategic workforce planning
Companies utilizing BetterVu's approach in Anaplan have seen significant reduction in labor spend, while maintaining – or even improving – service levels. Organizations report improved communication and scheduling capabilities as managers see live data for reporting and forecasting on staff capacity utilization. Forecasted staffing levels can then be used as an input to scheduling systems.
BETTERVU & ANAPLAN IN ACTION: Be sure to check out the Aramark Workforce Planning case study at the bottom of this page.
THe Bettervu approach
Optimizing Required Labor Capacity
Our approach focuses first on projecting required transactional activity volume, and then determining the most optimal level of labor required to meet service levels (shown in red at the top of the chart below). This is then compared to available labor and the difference is shown (in blue) to help determine the most efficient staffing model. Time frequency can be as low as needed - even down to 15 minute intervals by day of week.
Effective communication and execution demands simplicity.
We focus on driving simple presentation and explanations that field staff can understand and respond to. In this case, "less blue" became the mantra for driving staffing compliance across the organization.
Activity Metrics Are Key
Key to BetterVu's approach is measuring and projecting activity levels. We use operational methods to allow for forecasted variations and changes in activity levels across different products / services, locations, staffing levels, etc. Using real-time collaborative tools, models can be updated under different scenarios.
Looking to take your workforce
planning to the next level?
NEW BetterVu Workforce Planning App now Available in the Anaplan App Hub
BetterVu’s Workforce Planning App provides managers with tools that easily and accurately determine the right number and type of staff resources needed, at the right time, and place, to meet varying customer demand. Our video highlights our approach to Labor Planning using a detailed insurance scenario.
Strategic Workforce Planning Case Study
Demand-Driven Scheduling
Aramark is a Fortune 200 organization that operates a comprehensive network of entertainment and food service facilities in North America. Aramark’s Global Operational Excellence team was tasked with executing on a key strategy, Demand Driven Scheduling. To help achieve these goals, new information was required to help identify areas of opportunity, and to communicate them to field management in an effective and repeatable way.
BetterVu worked with Aramark to design and implement an innovative Labor Optimization Model using Anaplan, which was ready for full deployment in less than 3 months.
Aramark's customized application enables flexible logic and modeling, the ability to link disparate data sources, the ability to handle large transaction volumes and an effective user interface for reporting and analysis.
This new information is used by field management teams with dashboards presenting multiple views for action:
- Analysis of Labor Patterns over the course of a given day or event
- Analysis of Sales Patterns on a matching basis
- Calculation of Productivity, using measured “Transactions per Labor Hour” as a metric. The system measured actual productivity for each location and day, and compared it to previously achieved levels for the same location and meal-time to determine an optimally-required level of labor based on demand.
- Analysis of “Optimal Labor” against the “actual labor” to indicate areas of opportunity
- The system allowed the manager to forecast projected demand based on historical daily sales curves and changes in overall projected demand, and then provided a guideline for staffing needs.
The model provides significant opportunities and has been in place to guide execution of these strategies over two years.
““The model perfectly fits our needs. It’s simple, easy to interpret, and shows exactly the analytics we’re after.””