As a retail manager, scheduling your team’s breaks is an opportunity to maximize productivity. Ideally, picking up on store traffic patterns can inform you when to schedule a break to ensure you are covered during peak hours.
Not only can you find the right downtime to give your teams a break, but those breaks enable your employees to stick around longer into the day. So a 9-5 turns into a 9-6 and gives you better coverage in the peak sales times of the day. This, in return, helps your customer see that the store is better staffed in the times that matter most.
While most states and provinces require breaks based on the number of hours an employee works, this requirement can be approached as a strategic approach to sales coverage.
A break gives you ½ hour back each day that you schedule an employee, so 20 shifts per month = over 5% of either 1) Sales Coverage or 2) payroll cost reduction OR BOTH.
Imagine looking at your forecasted sales on a particular day and seeing that you have an employee scheduled to leave at 5pm, but that coincides with your peak sales traffic time. By scheduling their break at a non-peak time you extend their shift to 5:30 or 6pm and potentially reduce labor costs.
It’s often underutilized breaks that impact overtime and understaffed peak sales hours that retailers don’t have insight into until the end of a quarter. Taking a look at your forecast and coverage data empowers you to take action that impacts your bottom line.