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New Oracle Workforce Scheduling for Retail: Improve Staffing, Cut Expenses

At the end of summer, Oracle released the first version of Oracle Workforce Scheduling, a standalone application that helps retail-industry planners optimize complex employee schedules and analyze scheduling performance for financial and operational efficiency.

Some scheduling optimization users have reported reductions in unnecessary overstaffing by 80 percent, while understaffing declined by 50 percent. Some firms also registered a 10 percent decline in payroll expenses.

According to Derek Morgan, Oracle director of HCM product strategy, Oracle Workforce Scheduling is particularly suited for companies whose schedules encompass a number of dynamic variables, including customer traffic and sales activities that rise and fall throughout the day. "Supermarkets need 30 people to staff checkout registers during peak times, while at other times of the day need perhaps five people," Morgan says.

Other considerations include widely varying skills among the workforce and restrictions about when and how many hours individuals can work.

Oracle Workforce Scheduling uses embedded algorithms to model these variables and suggest the best combinations of workers based on company business rules. The resulting efficiencies can result in significant cost savings. "I have been involved in projects that returned a positive ROI in 12 to 18 months," Morgan says.

Scheduling optimization capabilities inherent in Oracle Workforce Scheduling typically aren't standard components within HCM suites, he adds. OWS, the first product based on technology from Oracle's acquisition of TempoSoft, extends the capabilities of that company's 360Commerce Workforce Management program.

To develop optimized schedules, Oracle Workforce Scheduling focuses on five stages: forecasting, workload assessments, personnel information validation, schedule generation, and results reviews. The latter step produces daily and weekly reports based on pre-determined performance indicators to evaluate each schedule's success.

This year's phase one release will be followed closely by a version next year that will be integrated with PeopleSoft for Human Capital Management and the Oracle Retail Suite. In 2008, Oracle Workforce Scheduling will support the planned Fusion HCM suite. The fourth year of the current development roadmap will see Oracle Workforce Scheduling scheduling capabilities for additional industries.

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