Well prepared for the Advent season with workforce management software

Sleep already in the fallgzeilen that: „Rekordeinnahmen expected in the Christmas business” or “Christmas: retail trade is growingsalesz first» is making the rounds in the media. The importance of the Christmas business for retailers is undisputed. It is a period in which many companies make a large part of their annual turnover. Retailers define the Christmas business as the two months of November and December. In recent years, some of the Christmas business has increasingly shifted towards November due to special promotions around «Black Friday» or «Cyber ​​​​​​Monday».

In the Christmas 2024 business, retail sales would have been around 123.5 billion euros. Thanks to the increase in online commerce, courier, express and parcel services continue to record high shipment numbers: On 2 December 2024 alone, DHL sorted over 12 million parcels in one day in the German postal and parcel network for the first time. There are signs of declining consumer confidence this year, as rising prices and political uncertainty are having an increasing impact on purchasing behaviour.

What are the biggest challenges in retail during the Christmas period?

The biggest challenges in retail during the Christmas period can be summarized in several areas:

1. High frequency of customers and crowds
   Long queues at the checkouts, full sales areas, increased stress levels for employees and customers.
2. Planning of staff deployment
   Ensure that sufficient staff with appropriate qualifications are available at peak times.
   Manage overtime, sick leave and employee motivation.
3. Stock levels and range availability
   Predict demand, plan reorders in a timely manner and avoid out-of-stock situations.
4. Logistics and shipping
   Online orders must be shipped on time. Courier and parcel services have to cope with peak loads.
5. Customer expectations and service quality
   Friendly and competent staff, quick advice and smooth processes are key to customer satisfaction.
6. Technical challenges
   Checkout systems, merchandise management, online shops and mobile solutions must function stably to avoid failures.
7. Price and competitive pressure
   Discounts, special promotions and competition for willingness to purchase require strategic action.

What do customers mainly expect during the Christmas period?

Regardless of whether the shopping mood is up or down, what matters most to customers in the Christmas industry is the shopping experience. They set clear expectations for retailers that go beyond just sales.

Buyers mainly expect three points:

• short queues at the checkout,
• Advisory staff sufficiently helpful, friendly and competent
• a large selection of products.

Plan effectively and sustainably with staff deployment planning software

People who work in retail can do all three points for their customers with just one careful planning implement and realize the expected income. Sales forecasts are the basis. Here’s how the third one works This point is relatively easy to ensure by placing orders in sufficient quantities in advance.
For the first two points, however, you can use a personal oneatz scheduling software provides useful services sales forecast using a predefined hourly production transformed into necessary personnel becomes. Hourly production is the turnover that an employee generates on average every hour.

Overcapacity and undercapacity: not with us!

People working in retail, taking into account the required number of employees, but also the required qualifications of the employees and the availability of the employees, plan the deployment of staff in a targeted and sustainable way. It becomes like this Overcapacity or undercapacity of the workforce can be avoided in advance.

In order to be able to carry out longer work assignments and work weekends in December, employees often accumulate negative hours in their time accounts in the previous weeks. As a result, during the high-sales Christmas period, expensive overtimes planned at short notice are hardly or not possible at all.

The effect can be clearly defined: The regulated sales forecasts die Planning of staff deploymentwhile factors such as hourly output, customer frequency analysis, and determining employee qualifications take care of fine-tuning.

Everyone must move forward – Fair implementation planning during Advent as well

With modern personnel planning software, shift planning at the trade fair can be implemented reliably. Workplaces, needs, qualifications and shifts are taken into account so that the software plans automatically. If an employee is absent spontaneously, a suitable replacement can be found here.

Conclusion

To be well prepared for the Advent period, especially Christmas activities, optimal planning of staff deployment is necessary. The needs of the company, but also the wishes of the employees, can be taken into account through automatic planning. So the Christmas period can arrive!

We will be happy to address your individual consultation needs in a free, no-obligation 30-minute conversation