Work

Online tool
for people
planning
in the
supermarket
business

RW Retail Solutions

Online tool for people planning people

People management within supermarkets is highly complex and dynamic. RW Retail Solutions knows this by heart since their core business is supporting supermarkets. Their digital product, PMT, allows managers to organise and plan their human resourcing. They constantly upgrade and improve their product to keep up with a rapidly evolving market and stay ahead of the competition. They invited Okapion to support along the way.

A puzzle in multiple dimensions

Planning employees is a puzzle that needs to be solved over and over again. Supermarket business margins are often slim, so it's essential to stay within budget and plan as efficiently as possible. Many layers of variables are changeable and influence the outcome. Think about contract hours, dynamic availability, hourly rates, expected revenue, workload, CAO rules and more. The biggest challenge for us was visualising as much as needed while keeping it clean, sleek and simple.

Collaboration grew over time

Over time, the added value of product design became more evident. What began as a conceptual design project evolved into a project where design and development work side by side. We follow a water-scrum-fall method, where design is two weeks ahead of development. From the moment the overall concept was clear, we could dive deep into every function, every interaction. Making sure every detail works like clockwork.

Communicate on a whole different level

The application supports communication between employees of all types in many different ways. Arranging free time, accessing your weekly schedule, creating sick leave, all is managed in a clear, friendly and efficient way. The application supports both a desktop view for advanced planning, as well as a mobile view for easy access by employees. The application can be rebranded easily so many different supermarket organizations can benefit it.

Dynamic tranquillity

Planning employees in many different shifts per day can easily result in a huge amount of data and numbers into view. We decided to make planning more intuitive, more visual. With subtle visualizations you can easily spot different types of shifts, notice conflicts and get a clear overview of your targets. All actions can be done within context and additional information can be called upon with just a keyboard shortcut. We only show what is needed in the moment, but with the flexibility to call upon so much more.

Delighted potential clients

While the optimization is an ongoing process, the new designs already strengthened the competitive position of RW Retail Support. The first implementations of the redesign were well received by clients. The visualizations of the latest designs shows a roadmap that helps the business in the acquisition of new customers, which really makes us proud.

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