Kronos real-time workforce analytics technology helps Puma reduce costs

Orlando, Fla. -- Puma is improving the performance and reducing operational cost of its retail stores by giving district managers access to custom payroll and labor reports on a daily basis.



David Schaub, manager of retail operations at Puma North America, explained that Puma employs workforce analytics technology from Kronos to enable real-time analysis of how store employee hours trend against payroll goals. “We forecast payroll goals by week and target the amount of hours employees can work based on those forecasts,” explained Schaub during a presentation at the KronosWorks conference in Orlando, Fla. “We then compare payroll trends against the forecast for the rest of the week and change the forecast daily.”



Schaub said district managers receive daily email updates of how payroll forecasts are changing based on employee work trends and have access to current analytical data at any time.



“It’s the oxygen district managers live with every day,” said Schaub. “They need the information that allows them to manage payroll.”



Schaub said taking a longer-term, comparative view of payroll and labor also enables Puma to avoid drastic short-term corrective measures that can hurt overall store performance.



“How many customers and sales do we lose trying to cut people on the sales floor?” he asked. “We had a high amount of hours in fiscal September of this year and were able to make it up in the first week of fiscal October.”



Looking ahead, Schaub said Puma plans to provide store managers with access to Kronos analytics.