The Labour Workspace

The labour workspace is a tool for understanding labour requirements.

What you can do in the Labour workspace

Run a labour forecast

  • The labour forecast contains the required labour hours per job per day for a forecast week.

  • Note: The labour forecast can be run from the Forecast Planner or it can be scheduled to run during off-periods in a batch process.

Work with the generated labour forecast at a department level or higher

  • View the required labour hours total per day and totals per job for each day for a forecast week
  • Make adjustments to the volume forecast amounts to improve the quality of the forecast

View and edit labour forecast values and edit headcounts

  • Add or modify labour drivers to account for required labour that is not driven by volumes
  • Edit the labour forecast head count requirements by job, for every 15-minute period in the week
  • Compare budgeted, forecasted, system-generated and system-adjusted labour on a daily or weekly basis
  • Compare the imported labour budget values to the forecasted values (% of budget)
  • Examine the impact of volume changes on headcounts

Run the labour constraint engine

  • The labour constraint contains rules that adjust a labour forecast up or down to fit such purposes as budget or resource availability.

Add an adjustment driver value

  • An adjustment driver is a labour driver that provides external data that is used in a constraint calculation for a labour target.

Use this workspace to generate, view and edit the labour forecast for a category and time period. You can also set up, view and edit the labour drivers and volume drivers and include them in the display as forecast factors; see Forecast Factors.

You can access the two workspaces and switch back and forth between them in one of two ways, depending on how your environment is configured:

  • On the Main Menu , select Workforce Planning. The choices on this menu are named during system configuration and may include separate forecast planners for volume and labour. Click any forecast planner on the menu. In the upper left region of the workspace under the main menu icon, a label reads either Volume or Labour indicating the type of workspace you have chosen.
  • Also on the Main Menu , the Workforce Planning sub-menu may include a forecast planner that provides access to both volume and labour workspaces. In this case, the forecast planner has a menu at the upper left, which indicates the currently displayed workspace, either Volume or Labour . Click the menu and choose the workspace you want.

Labour Forecast table

The Labour Forecast table contains labour data for the selected category or categories and time period. The labour forecast table displays a row for each forecast factor included, and a column for each day in the forecast week.

You cannot edit labour values in the Labour Forecast area. To edit the labour forecast, display labour details (see Edit a labour forecast).

To set up a labour forecast for viewing, running or editing, you must define a location, a forecast week and forecast factors.

  • To see a list of currently selected locations, click Locations Selected. Select any level of any location path that appears to display that location.
  • To select all locations in the displayed portion of the Business Structure Represents the logical structure of an organization as it concerns staffing. It contains a hierarchy of locations that contain jobs to which an employee may be assigned., tick the Select All tick box in the Select Locations window. To deselect all locations, untick the Select All tick box.
  • To select a previously saved location or set of locations, select it on the Select Favourite menu.
  • To load all locations within one of the business structure levels listed in the left or right columns below, select its check box and click Apply.
  • To list the breakdown of locations within one of the business structure levels listed, click its right arrow . The breakdown displays in a list to the right.
    • If you see the level you want to load in the right column, select its check box and click Apply.
    • If you want to list the breakdown of any location that appears on the right, click the right arrow . The breakdown appears in a new list in the right column.
    • Select the check box of any level of the business structure to load that location and all its sub-levels.
    • If no right arrow appears, there is no further breakdown possible on that branch of the business structure.
  • Previous Forecast Week - The forecast week before the current forecast week
  • Current Forecast Week - The forecast week that contains today
  • Next Forecast Week - The forecast week after the current forecast week
  • Same Week Last Year - The week that is 52 weeks before the current forecast week

  • Note: The week that is 52 weeks before the current week may appear quite different from the current week. For example, April 15 may be part of the week April 15-22 this year, but it may have been part of the week April 8-15 last year.

  • Select Forecast Week - You can select any week. Ensure that data is imported for the selected week
  • Click Select Forecast Week.The current month appears.
  • If the desired forecast week is in the current month click any day in that week
  • If the desired forecast week is not in the current month navigate to the month as follows, then click any day in the desired forecast week:
    • To navigate by month into the past or the future click the or , respectively
    • To navigate to a month in any year in the past or the future, click the month name, then click the or , respectively. When the desired year is shown, click the desired month,

See Forecast Factors

Before you run a labour forecast, make sure that values for labour drivers have been entered for all departments that you want to include in the forecast.

Custom drivers already assigned to a day in the Forecast Planner display as three vertical dots in the date header. You can click on the icon to see the values defined for that date.

Custom labour drivers allow you to add labour that is unrelated to volume, such as recurring tasks that differ from location to location. Create these tasks in Administration > Application Setup > Forecaster Setup > Labour Drivers, and define their labour values for the location in the Labour workspace.

  1. Click Add Labour Driver. The Add Labour Drivers panel opens.

  2. Note: To display a custom labour driver data already assigned to the labour forecast, click on the custom driver icon in the date header.

  3. Do one of the following:
    • To delete a labour driver from a location, click Delete next to the location path and click Save.
    • To edit an existing labour driver at a location click Edit next to the location path modify any value or setting in the following steps.
    • To create the first Labour Driver at a displayed location or locations, select a department location and continue with the next step.
    • To create an additional Labour driver at a displayed location or locations, click Add More Drivers and select a displayed department location.
  4. Select a displayed department location.
  5. Select one of the following:
    • Apply to Whole Week - adds the specified value to each day
    • View Individual Days - allows you to specify a different value to different days
  6. Enter the custom driver hours to include in the forecast.
  7. Click Save.
  1. Click Run Labour. The Run Labour panel opens.
  2. Select the loaded location you want to run. The location must be a site or a department and you must have already have run a labour forecast for the location.
  3. Note that any metrics Measures and tracks workforce performance by comparing planned with actual workload or coverage, or by showing variances at any organizational level. that are used in the constraint are evaluated at run time for the current forecast week.
  4. Click Run.
  5. To check the progress of the volume run, click Tools > Engine Status. The Engine Status panel opens showing active engine runs and their status. To update the engine status, click Refresh .
  6. When the run is over, click OK.

To edit headcount for any 15-minute period for jobs in a department in greater detail, do this after a Labour run:

  1. Select a department location path. (See Select Location
  2. Select a forecast week. (See Select a Forecast Week.)
  3. Select a favourite factor view that includes labour hours, jobs, or both.
  4. To view or edit the breakdown values for a forecast factor, do one of the following:
    • In the Forecast Factors column, double-click a cell labelled Labour Hours - Forecasted - (any week) to view or edit the forecasted headcounts for all the jobs in that department.
    • In the Forecast Factors column, double-click a Job (any job) to view or edit the forecasted headcount and additional details for that job.
    • In the date header, double-click the date to open a view of all the jobs in the department.
  5. See View and Edit the Labour Forecast Details for details.
  6. Click Calculate Totals to incorporate your changes in the adjusted totals in the Total Labour Hours section. Each increment increases the adjusted value (for the job and the total) by 0.25 because 15 minutes is 25% of a labour hour.

    7. Note: Clicking Calculate Totals does not save the change, it only updates related values on the screen. This gives you the opportunity to examine the overall effect of the changes you have made before saving them. If the effect is not what you expected, click Refresh. If the effect is satisfactory, click Save.

  7. Do one of the following:
    • To save your changes, click Save
    • To delete your changes for the session, click Refresh .

The system saves only the most recent labour forecast. If you edit and save a labour forecast, the system retains only the saved forecast. Old forecast data is not retrievable.

If you are working with labour forecast data and you want to discard your edits, click Refresh . This discards your current edits and restores the workspace with the last saved data.

Labour constraints help stores achieve their financial targets by providing a mechanism to

  • Increase the labour forecast so that it uses the entire labour budget up to the allowed maximum
  • Decrease the labour forecast to the minimum weekly labour budget

Labour constraints also provide the ability to control how these budget adjustments are applied. For example, if the labour forecast is being increased, retailers can indicate that the increased hours should be applied to the high traffic days. On the other hand, if the labour forecast is being decreased, retailers can indicate that the reduction in hours should not occur or should have less impact on high traffic days. They can also control how budget adjustments impact special events.

The labour constraints feature involves the following objects:

  • Labour constraints
  • Adjustment drivers.

A labour constraint contains rules for how to adjust the labour forecast – for example, how to determine the target and how to distribute hours by day and within a day. They are assigned to groups of jobs in a generic department.

The labour constraint engine can be run from the Forecast Planner or it can be scheduled to run during off-periods in a batch process.

Sufficiently privileged managers can run a labour constraint from the Labour workspace. To do so:

  1. Click Run Labour Constraint The Run Labour Constraint panel opens.
  2. Select the location on which to run the constraint. The location must be a selected store or a department on which you have already run a labour forecast.
  3. Note that any metrics that are used in the constraint are evaluated at run time for the current forecast week.
  4. Click Run.
  5. To check the progress of the volume run, click Tools > Engine Status. The Engine Status panel opens showing active engine runs and their status. To update the engine status, click Refresh .
  6. When the run is over, click OK.

An adjustment driver is a labour driver that provides external data that is used in a constraint calculation for a labour target. The driver is used in a labour constraint to represent a numeric value that can change from week to week. The constraint engine evaluates the adjustment driver at run-time in order to pick up the value for a specific week.

Sufficiently privileged managers can add adjustment driver values directly in the Labour workspace. To do so:

  1. Click Add Labour Adjuster. The Add Labour Adjuster panel opens.
  2. Select a Location to which the driver has been assigned.
  3. Specify the name of the adjustment driver in the Driver Type field.
  4. Specify a Weekly Amount. The amount value must be an integer greater than 0 (zero).
  5. You can then also add the adjustment driver as a forecast factor so that its weekly value can be seen in the Forecast Planner.