Director, Store Operations (Workforce Management)

General Summary:

Provide leadership and oversight to the store operations workforce management team and ensure the successful administration of workforce management software. Direct the labor planning function to ensure store labor expense tracks to the financial plan and is optimized to drive store performance. Provide strategic leadership in developing optimizations for both the WFM team’s way of work and field labor operations.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Leadership and optimization of the workforce management software solution and labor models including management of system driver data, store scheduling models, and store staffing models. Ensures 100% accuracy in issued labor budgets.
• Leadership of Retail labor expense management which includes budgeting, forecasting, ad hoc analytics, and reporting on all labor expense accounts totaling greater than $4 Billion annually. Reconciliation of variances to LY, budget, and forecast (minimal variance to forecast is the expectation).
• Create and implement labor productivity and effectiveness initiatives that demonstrate improved expense management or revenue. Ability to lead changes inclusive of gathering organizational buy-in and effectively cascading through field operations.
• Create and lead training initiatives to ensure proper education of field users and increase system adoption. Regularly interact with field leaders to gather perspectives and opportunities then action on the feedback.
• Provide oversight and recommend enhancements to the Store Operations sales planning & exceptions processes and production of Operating Statements (store-level P&Ls).
• Work cross functionally representing Store Operations on enterprise wide initiatives and projects.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Lead strategic and analytical store operating model work through teams composed of direct reports, cross functional representatives and field partners. Strong project management and time management skills required. Ability to manage competing priorities.
• Strong understanding of engineered labor standards, workforce management concepts and applications, operational models, process improvement techniques, and labor laws such as Fair Workweek.
• Strong background in retail finance and budgeting. Ability to autonomously create bottoms-up retail labor budgets leveraging a strong understanding of workload drivers. Ability to create accurate financial models to predict average hourly wages, store-level sales results, etc.
• Expertise in WFM software such as Legion, Kronos/UKG, or Reflexis. Strong understanding of WFM software offerings such as pay rules, time & attendance, scheduling rules and engines, demand forecasting, earned wage access programs, and employee engagement. Strong understanding of SaaS development cycles, UAT, troubleshooting, and end user support.
• Experience using AI tools to increase productivity and operational results.
• Strong knowledge and comfortability with MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). Experience with Access database is preferred.
• Expertise in business intelligence tools and techniques such as 1010data, Microsoft PowerBI, PowerQuery, Tableau, Qlik Sense, APT, etc.
• Experience with enterprise financial and HCM systems such as Oracle, Anaplan, SAP, Workday, etc.

Work Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field (Business Administration, Finance, Engineering, Analytics, etc.) required, MBA preferred.
• At least 5 years of leadership experience in retail, convenience, or QSR workforce management.
• Experience in leadership and development of teams.