What happens when your store is full of customers? Your workforce doubles instantly, and your HR team is drowning in spreadsheets.
The retail business is full of fluctuations and volatility, especially during holiday periods and high shopping periods. Managing the seasonal workforce while aligning all store locations can be difficult.
The Retail HRMS (Human Resource Management System) automates those complex journal entries, manual processes, and ensures all the locations and each employee —whether permanent or seasonal — work collaboratively together.
What is a Retail HRMS?
A Retail HRMS is an integrated HR software designed solely for retail businesses. It takes away the difficulty in managing large, ever-changing, and location-based workforces for the HR team.
Everything is easier and more accurate, from tracking attendance, managing payroll, shift scheduling, performance monitoring, onboarding, and compliance.
Every employee must be managed, paid, and supported, whether full-time, part-time, or temporary.
Why is it necessary for Retail Operations to have an HRMS?
Retail is a 24/7 business. Stores open early, stay open late, and operate 7 days a week. And often, it’s an HR staff nightmare to deal with seasonal increases in headcount. Spreadsheets and the manual handling of the workload are a lot of work.
A Retail HRMS includes control and follow-through in HR processes for:
- Managing mass seasonal hires.
- Standardizing employee policies in many locations.
- Automating payroll for hundreds of employees.
- Facilitating compliance management.
- Reducing errors and unique paperwork.
Basically, we want to ensure that HR works effectively with every aspect of a potential “busy” situation.
How does a Retail HRMS efficiently manage seasonal “workforce”?
Retail businesses rely on seasonal employees. When relying on a manual process, there is often confusion and decreased time. Let’s look at how a Retail HRMS can make it easier for you.
- Coordination and document verification, or hiring and onboarding.
During holiday seasons or a holiday sales event, retailers hire a lot of employees. A Retail HRMS automates the recruitment and onboarding process so that you can:
- Post jobs online and review the applicant flow in real-time.
- Play e-verification…verify documents digitally.
- Automatically create employee profiles.
- Onboard them with e-signatures and digital forms.
Saving in many cases days in administrative work and allowing for seasonal employees to start their first day at work, ready to work.
- Automated Attendance and Shift Planning
Retail stores typically have multiple shifts, and managing them by hand takes a considerable amount of time. However, HRMS software allows HR teams to do the following with shifts:
- Create intelligent shift rosters.
- Monitor attendance instantly using biometrics or mobile applications.
- Easily manage last-minute shift changes.
- Ensure accurate work-hour tracking for every employee.
In the end, everyone’s scheduling is managed effectively, with no confusion or missed shifts, and every store can operate efficiently, even during peak demand.
- Automatic Payroll Management
Payrolling can be hectic during peak seasons, dealing with temporary staff, varied hours, and multiple branches isn’t ideal. Retail HRMS automates the payroll process by syncing attendance and clocked hours. It facilitates time and attendance issues, such as:
- Overtime pay
- Incentives and bonuses
- Deductions and taxes
- Branch-based cost reports
Now you can ensure your employees are paid and you are audit-ready.
- Centralized Employee Data Processing
When a business has multiple locations, it is necessary to maintain data integrity. Centralizing HR documentation in an HRMS means employee data is simply located in one place that is accessible from anywhere. HR managers are able to:
- Monitor employee movements across locations.
- Maintain visibility of headcount instantly.
- Update any policies or benefits to the franchise.
No matter how many stores your brand has, the HR process remains consistent and compliant.
- Performance and Productivity Monitoring
Seasonal workers require quick assessment periods. HRMS solutions can offer tools for assessing employee performance through KPIs, sales reports, and attendance.
This helps HR easily designate their top contributors, reward them, and even consider converting them to permanent positions in the future.
- Compliance and Legal Accuracy
Retailers are also under the obligation of labor laws and store-level compliance requirements. A Retail HRMS will automatically track and report on:
- Minimum wage compliance.
- Statutory deductions (PF, ESI, etc.).
- Limits on working hours.
- Overtime policies.
Your HR team will not need to worry about compliance tracking when it is automated.
- Manage Multiple Locations Seamlessly
Managing multiple stores or outlets and regions can be an overwhelming task.
A Retail HRMS creates a method for connecting all branch locations. HR Teams can:
- Monitor attendance across locations.
- Approve leaves remotely.
- Create consolidated reports.
- Provide consistency of policy in every branch.
In other words, not only will your HR function be limited by location for visibility and control.
How Savvy HRMS Transforms Workforce Management in Retail
Savvy HRMS provides a comprehensive solution for retail management of seasonal and multi-location workforces.
This is what makes Savvy HRMS revolutionary:
- Centralized employee database for a variety of locations
- Auto-sync payroll as well as attendance across multiple locations.
- Mass onboarding & offboarding made easy.
- AI workforce analytics for improved workforce planning.
- Mobile access for attendance, leave, and shift swapping.
- Document storage and compliance management are automated for convenience.
Retailers using Savvy HRMS can remove manual processes, reduce the cost of HR, and provide visibility of their workforce across each store.
Summary
Retail HR teams have many competing roles daily. The management of a seasonal workforce while coordinating at multiple locations with speed and accuracy is fundamental to the success of the business. A retail HRMS checks both boxes.
It streamlines the onboarding, payroll, scheduling, compliance, as well as engagement of employees, allowing even the busiest retailers to function seamlessly.
Conclusion
Retail is fast-paced. If HR operations were to be conducted without some sort of automation, they would take their sweet time keeping up. A retail HRMS provides control, efficiency, and compliance for companies all in one place!
From seasonal workforce hiring to management across multiple locations, it can make everything faster, easier, and more reliable!
Frequently Asked Questions
A Retail HRMS is an HR software application that assists retail companies in managing employees, payroll, attendance, and compliance for several retail store locations.
HRMS makes it easier to fulfill the hiring and onboarding process when you are busy with the retail rush.
Yes. HRMS centralizes information and helps you manage your human resources operations across all locations.
Yes, absolutely. All retail businesses can realize the advantages of automation to track payroll, attendance, compliance, etc.
