The WFM Edge: How Grocers Like Heinen’s Create a Stellar Experience for the Retail Frontline

Recent stats on the retail frontline make for sobering reading. Turnover is high, teams are stretched to their limits, and retailers are struggling more than ever to attract and retain staff. Heinen’s has been a family-owned grocery store for four generations, with 23 locations in greater Cleveland and Chicago. Managing a team of 3000+ associates, the grocer understands the importance of continually leveling up its workforce management strategies to offer flexibility, autonomy, and opportunities for career growth. In this edited webinar transcript, Phil McElfresh, director of labor and process improvement at Heinen’s Grocery Store, Brian Monaco, vice president of solutions marketing at Logile, and Dan Bursik, senior vice president of product management at Logile discuss how Heinen’s has invested in WFM management strategies that increase retention through better engagement and provide flexible opportunities to boost work-life balance while touching on the what the future holds for retailers looking to finetune and finesse their approach to workforce management – whether through gig-like scheduling, learning and training opportunities, or other data-driven, tech-enabled approaches. Maia Jenkins: Hi, everyone, welcome to the “Employer of Choice: How Retailers Like Heinen’s Use WFM Strategies to Attract and Retain Frontline Staff” webinar, which is presented in partnership with Logile. My name is Maia Jenkins and I'm an editor at RIS News. Today, we’ll touch on the results of a recent report that RIS News did called “Managing Talent: Win-Win Workforce Management Strategies for the Retail Frontline.” There were some stark findings in this report, and some that may not be surprising — however, it’s worth noting that according to McKinsey, almost half of frontline retail associates are considering leaving their jobs in the near future.In the same report, they note that a lack of flexibility is the number one reason for frontline retail associates to consider leaving. That will be central to the conversation today. We will dive into these in more detail and look again at other trends that are also found in the report. There's going to be a stark increase in need for retailers with technical skills over the next 15 years. We're predicting more than a 60% increase in the need for retailers with those particular skills. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning, capability building, and creating a culture of opportunity within the retail space, which we'll also touch upon in more detail today.Now, looking ahead to the future, we've seen that retailers are heeding the call when it comes to improving employee engagement. Employee engagement management is the top area of retail workforce investment that retailers are looking for over the next two years. More than 25% of retailers say that this is an area of important investment for them. Joining us to talk about these topics and more, are Phil McElfresh, Brian Monaco and Dan Bursik. May each of you say a couple of words to introduce yourself, and share your role at your respective companies?Brian Monaco: Hi, everyone. I'm Brian Monaco, vice president of solutions marketing at Logile. I take care of the product marketing team and the efforts that we are underway with. Prior to that, I led the solutions delivery and customer support area at Logile for about six years. I have 35 years of retail store operations and labor management experience.Dan Bursik: My name is Dan Bursik, I lead the product management team at Logile. I joined Logile back in 2014 and, like Brian, I've had a long career with more than 40 years in retail store operations and workforce management. That includes helping retailers in just about every format and location in the country. The team I lead at Logile is responsible for the functional design of software and keeping software significantly ahead of competitors in the market.Phil McElfresh: My name is Phil McElfresh. I've been with Heinen's for 16 years. I spent 10 years in the stores and operations. In the last six years, I've led the workforce management process here, and have a total of over 20 years in labor management and store operations.A little bit about Heinen's and who we are. We have been a family-owned grocery store for four generations now. Founded in Ohio in 1929, we have a legacy of quality and source-verified products as one of our huge focuses, as well as a focus on world-class customer service and associate satisfaction. Currently, we have 23 locations in Greater Cleveland and Chicago, with over 3,000 associates.Jenkins: Thank you very much. My first question is for Phil. What were the drivers, or pain points, that prompted Heinen's to partner with Logile, and when did you first partner with them?McElfresh: We began our partnership with Logile in 2017. Prior to Logile, we used an Excel-based workforce management approach, which for us at the time was good, it worked. As time went on, we wanted more flexibility and needed the ability to understand specific store layouts. We have a very different layout at the majority of stores and some are very, very unique. Most importantly, we wanted to understand the labor associated with each item that gets produced and sold in our stores, to give us the ability to understand labor at a better level than we ever could before. We also envisioned a more modern approach to workforce management that could help improve operations, provide flexibility to associates, and then ultimately better serve customers.Jenkins: That leads me to the next question, why is an optimal workforce management strategy so important right now? What's changed recently, in the last 18 months or so?McElfresh: There's been a lot that has changed. As I said, we put associates and customers first in everything we do. Being able to improve workforce management helps us to do that more daily. We're a family-owned company, relatively small in our market, so we have to find different ways to meet the ever-evolving market, the worker expectations with HR, recruiting, and we have to use technology to help us. One of the things we had to understand was that change management had to occur, and it had to start with department managers and store managers thinking about scheduling in a different way than we've done in the past. We've experienced shortage, we still do today, but it's getting better. We try to take a proactive approach with things like cross department scheduling, labor task scheduling, and some other things that we'll get into a bit more later today. Monaco: As the report said, the associates are looking for flexibility in the market now. Today's workforce has changed. Associates want more control over their schedule. They're looking for work-life balance, how they can attain that, and how the retailers can help do that. A long time ago, availability was “set it and forget it” — it would never change. It would stay there for months, years, and possibly for the lifetime of the associate's time with the company. But today, availability changes almost daily — around daycare, school schedules, sports schedules — they’re looking for the quality of work and the quality of the schedule. Retailers that are quickly adopting gigs, flexible scheduling options, and providing growth for opportunity are becoming the employers of choice.Bursik: In general, retailers are facing many challenges. Certainly, in the workforce, associates are expecting a lot more flexibility in scheduling and in opportunities. On top of that, certain areas of the country are faced with predictive scheduling or fair labor act scheduling, where new rules are in play to ensure that associates get a better work-life balance. But at the same time, retailers are faced with the challenge of running great stores in a highly competitive environment where consumers have changing expectations and more options, including brick-and-mortar or online, to be able to get the goods they're looking for. The bottom line: it's about creating win-win solutions to become the employer of choice. It starts with being associate-friendly and flexible in scheduling, but it's about more than that. It’s about engaging in and empowering associates, as well as providing the right opportunities for growth.Jenkins: I’d like to drill down a bit more on that word “flexibility”. As we saw in the statistics at the beginning, we found that there was a McKinsey stat that the majority (63%) of retail managers are considering leaving their job in the near future, in addition to the already alarming stat that half of frontline retail staff are thinking the same thing. As we've seen, flexibility is shown to be the number one reason why associates are considering leaving jobs. That aligns with a lot of what you just mentioned. Can you comment on that statistic and maybe speak to some of the technologies that are working to navigate this situation?McElfresh: As mentioned, the report calls out harnessing this technology, it's one of the things we've started to try to do more and more here at Heinen's. Implementing mobile employee self-service technology here recently has been a great thing. Associates have given us great feedback. It's something that a couple years ago we probably would've never thought of, nor would we have used. But now that we have it up and running, it gives associates the flexibility to request time off at any time they want. They can be sitting at home tonight and realize they need October 2nd off, and they can put it into the app — they don't have to worry about remembering to do it when they come back to work in two or three days. They have the ability to swap shifts with peers at their own free will, then bid on extra shifts when available.Some of the other things that have been big wins for us are using the workforce management tool and getting to the level of labor task scheduling, which is very different from the traditional type scheduling within a grocery store. Cross-scheduling has taken things to another level. Associates have absolutely loved it. It breaks up their day, gives them an opportunity to learn more around the store and other departments. Right now, we've got (on average) about 180 associates that work in a secondary department each week. Again, the feedback has been great. It offers opportunities that they didn't have before, or didn't know were available.Things that used to require a lot of significant planning — you mentioned department managers and management looking to leave — with this technology a lot of that work is taken out of their hands, and the system does the workforce. This allows department managers to focus on other things that are important for customer service, growing associates, and it gives them a lot more flexibility, as well. We're excited to begin the concept of gig scheduling, which is going to further augment the ability to provide more flexibility, attracting, and retaining associates and department managers.Monaco: A lot of things you're talking about are connecting the workforce, connecting the associates, and making sure they have input and flexibility. You mentioned cross-department scheduling. When you start looking at the gig — cross-stores, cross locations, cross departments — that becomes a win-win for the retailer and the associates because they're learning new skill sets. There’s no need to go out and find a secondary job because they're getting more hours, they’re getting complete information of what's happening and readily available via phone.The challenge for some retailers is predictive scheduling, which is actually providing schedules 2-3 weeks in advance. It's also about any type of changes that are instituted from there and how that affects everyone. Forecasting must be a top priority, and has to be done within a system that can manage it. Take it out of the manager's hands, give them more time on the floor with associates, and provide the service that Heinen's and others are striving for.Bursik: Phil mentioned task-based scheduling and cross-department scheduling. These are important strategies that are good not only for associates, but great for customer service as well. Gig scheduling, which both Brian and Phil mentioned, is an incredible opportunity that a number of retailers could benefit from. Let me explain what gig scheduling is. In traditional scheduling, the associate provides the business with set availability, then they're scheduled within that availability on a weekly basis. That construct doesn't work for a good number of people who are looking for more flexibility and control. Gig scheduling reverses that. The business posts shifts that are available, then gig associates have the opportunity to bid on (or request) those shifts. There's still an approval process to select the right employee. In some cases, seniority may be involved as part of the selection criteria, but it's a far more flexible situation for college students, retired employees, and perhaps people who are balancing work responsibilities with childcare responsibilities, or with providing care for another family member. It's a great opportunity.There’s an article that was done recently on another of Logile's retailers, Schnucks, who has proven the concept and it's working well for them. It can work in, again, almost any market, and in seniority-based or other markets too.Jenkins: Lots of exciting innovations are taking place within this space as we strive for that all important flexibility. But Brian and Dan, are there any other tech trends you're seeing out there in the market that are also helping to boost or improve associate engagement and retention?Monaco: The generation and the workforce today is at the fingertips. Everything is read on the phone or on a mobile device, and being able to swap and replace shifts or bid on shifts is becoming a functionality that everybody wants. There's still approval processes and stuff like that, but when a school schedule gets changed, associates don't necessarily want to lose the money they’re making that week, they want to swap with somebody. Is there an opportunity in being able to take that and automate it, within technology, as part of that? Another piece that is wearable and sensors that'll be able to, not only for safety and sanitation purposes, connect the associates while they're there in the wearables and communicate for customer needs, etc.Another area that's coming — it'll be slow, but it's coming quicker than we think — is robotics. How can robotics take some of the routine work out of managers hands so they can focus on customer service and take care of the customer as they come in? Another area, again it's all part of technology, is being able to have staffing augmentation, where companies can go right into the gig-style scheduling and take care of all of the stocking for you, or be able to take care of all the cleaning. Then, the staff can focus on the customer side. There’s a lot that goes into this. Predictive scheduling, we’ll touch on the rules and regulations. We touched on the flexibility for the associates, the rules and regulations of that for the retailers is massive when there's a schedule change three weeks out and tracking all that, making sure you have all the logs, you're meeting all the law requirements. The requirements are changing by not state anymore, but now it's down to counties and they're doing all of this in the better benefit for the associates, but behind the scenes there has to be a system that's taking all that in and protecting the retailers at the same time.One of the big items in the market right now is day pay, which takes gig-style scheduling or Uber-style scheduling, to pay the associates daily. If they work, they get their money, and they’re able to see how much they're going to make throughout the week. This also provides quicker access. Being able to do all of that with technology and provide that, allows retailers to become the employer of choice. When you can offer all of these and know that you're helping the associates provide better service for customers and protecting the company as you're going forward, it’s golden.Bursik: All great points, Brian. At a time when retailers are faced with less experienced managers, and in many cases, less experienced associates, the upside is that many of the new associates are much more digitally savvy. They're looking for opportunities for engagement and to use technology to be more productive in their roles to help the business grow. Almost everyone's heard about AI, which is something that we've been using at Logile for quite some time now. It's been instrumental in our ability to create more accurate forecasts and be able to do the flexible scheduling that we've been talking about. That's been key to minimizing the adjustments that have to be made, enabling the system to take the workload of building that schedule off the backs of managers, and enabling them to have a little less stress and to focus on the things that only they can do. Where AI is going to take us is a big open question right now. We’re using it on a number of fronts and you're going to be seeing more and more of that as the years unfold.Jenkins: Wonderful. It's an exciting time for this space when we look at how technology is going to marry with giving a better work-life balance for retail associates and serving the needs of the business. Changing gears a little, the report discusses — and we saw earlier in the statistics — how learning opportunities and capability building are going to be key to attracting and retaining staff. Phil, you touched on this when you were talking about cross-scheduling, but could you speak more broadly about how you create a culture of learning and opportunity in Heinen's?McElfresh: As I mentioned, we're trying to make a focus with the store teams to be more proactive and talk to associates about these opportunities. In the old way, we would wait for associates to come up and ask for more hours, or mention they’d like to go to a different area and learn more. We've turned around and said we want store management teams to be proactive, to go out and talk to associates about that because not everybody is that open to come up and have that conversation as an associate first. We want them to sit down and have one-on-ones with associates in every department to talk about the different opportunities, not only within their store, but within Heinen's in general, to look for opportunities for career development and career paths.This strategy is going to help us, and we've already seen that in having 180 associates on average that are working in secondary departments. It's going to help us continue to grow this and utilize it even more. For example, we had one of our grocery managers who recently sat down with every one of his associates and said, "I know you work in grocery, but what are some other areas that you think you might be interested in learning?" As he built this matrix out of all of this associated information, now he could take that and start to build a training plan with it. Through that process, he found out that one of the wine associates also had a wellness degree, which then gave the opportunity to have that associate work in wellness and provide expertise over there.It's been a huge win from that perspective of getting out in front of it and talking to the team. Additionally, a few years ago, we implemented an e-learning platform from Logile, which can be tailored to each associate based on their path within Heinen's. It starts out in their home department, and is intended for some quick short burst of information around their department — it may be customer service, something technical within their department — but as they learn other areas of the store, we can add that to their learning path, and it helps enhance the on-the-job training they get while they're here in the building. We could also use it for a platform for company messaging, as well as individual store messages.Jenkins: It's really tapping into capabilities that you may not know exist within your current staff, but also capability-building and investing in your staff to create that culture of learning. As we look at retention, Phil, what are some additional workforce management strategies and capabilities that retailers can leverage to combat things like labor shortage issues, improving department coverage, even as they're seeking to attract and retain talent?McElfresh: As I mentioned before, labor task scheduling is very different from the traditional type scheduling. As we started, it was a big challenge, a big change, a lot of conversation, a lot of change management. But one of the things that we've seen by using that and priority availability within the system is that it helps bring to light these areas where we have opportunities. We can identify that we need deli stocking during this time, produce stocking during this time, or whatever it may be. As we've gotten better with it, we've gotten more acclimated. Now, we can use the system at a labor task level to identify a need in a deli from 11:00-3:00 on a daily basis to stock. Ideally, if we've got an associate that’s been cross-scheduled, the system can take that associate and automatically schedule them right in the deli to do that work.It takes away from the manual intervention of the department managers writing the schedules, going back and forth, having to have a conversation. It makes life a lot easier from that perspective. On the other hand, if we don't have that associate that is trained to do that deli stocking right now, it gives us a quicker base to start with. We can take that information to know that we need deli stocking every day from 11:00-3:00, and we have this list of associates that's interested in learning about the deli. We can start this training path, start down that road, so we can take care of our needs in terms of labor and help our customers as well.The ability to use these two pieces together is what's helped us improve operational efficiency. It streamlines the store execution process and, ultimately, improves the customer's experience as well.Jenkins: Brian and Dan, did you have anything to add to Phil's comments there? Bursik: Phil is spot on. It’s about investing in the success of each associate, and every retailer has been in situations, particularly when there's a labor shortage, where warm body hiring and training by throwing them into the deep end of the pool isn’t necessarily great for the business or the associate. We can't afford to continue to do that.One of the things we're actively working on are tools to help retailers look at staffing from a longer term perspective — to anticipate the needs for new staffing and make fact-based decisions about the hires that are needed — not only how many people are needed, but full-time, part-time, what skills are critically needed and what availability is most important to the business in order to best serve and fulfill the needs of customers. We see tremendous potential with this. Every retailer faced with labor shortages could benefit from that. It enables coordinated training, maybe in a group session instead of one-on-one training, that can be a little hit or miss at the individual employee level. AI is playing a big role in some of the underlying functionality.Monaco: Phil mentioned it. There’s change management, but there's also change leadership that needs to come first. It’s a change in the mindset and how you go about hiring, recruiting, the value of each associate, getting the most value, and providing them the most value so they aren't looking for a second or third job, or looking to leave because you're providing and fulfilling their needs — not only with flexible scheduling, but with growth.Jenkins: That leads me to my next question, which is what have been the benefits of this partnership? Sounds like it's been a fruitful one, but how has productivity increased? Please feel free to share any anecdotes or examples of some of the benefits you've seen from this partnership.McElfresh: It's been a very good partnership over the last 5-6 years now. One of the things we look for is the feedback from our team. Our store managers are using this on a day-to-day basis. Our department managers are using the system every day. That's the feedback we look for. Our store management teams have been extremely pleased with the forecasting ability of Logile. When doing the forecast pre-Logile in the old Excel basis program, it took me a lot of time to do it on a week-to week basis as a store manager. Now our store managers can open it up, look at it, and most of the time, they're not touching it too much. They don't need to adjust or they're doing it because they want to see if they can get a tad bit closer to actual sales.They enjoy it and it saves them a lot of time. Many of the department managers have said they can't imagine going back to handwriting a schedule. Now, with the introduction of the employee self-service, a lot of the administrative work they had to do in the past becomes much easier. They can approve requests with the touch of a button, or the swapping of shifts for associates — it’s a couple clicks and they're done. It makes life a lot easier. Then again, associates enjoy being able to have flexibility on their device so that they don't have to remember to write it down and do that manual process like we've done in the past.When you get into the numbers of it — over the last few years since we've implemented labor task scheduling, it's helped increase productivity. When we ended the year in fiscal ‘21, we were at a 97% productivity rate and we ended this fiscal year ‘23 at 99.7%. It's helped to improve that productivity. Again, most importantly, what we've seen is that customer service scores have improved over that same time as well.Monaco: Working with Phil and the team at Heinen's over the last several years has been a great partnership. We learn together, we challenge each other together, and we're looking for the best solution that matches Heinen's philosophy of taking care of their associates and customers, and taking a lot of pride in that. We don't deviate from that. Phil and his team have come up with a repeatable approach where it takes technology and change management to allow the staff or his associates buy-in to make the change throughout the entire journey. To think about where we started and where we are now with gig scheduling, it wasn't even on the roadmap 5 years ago. Now it is. All of those efforts along the line have been a great partnership.Bursik: At Logile, we work hard to create smart tools, but it takes a great leader and a great retailer to apply those tools effectively to put those smart systems to work, to leverage the opportunities and become an employer of choice in their market. It's been great working with Phil and his team. We appreciate the opportunity to work with progressive retailers who can take advantage of the technology, those tools that are available that make running better stores a possibility, even when we're faced with less experienced managers and associates. Maia, I want to take the opportunity to thank Phil for his participation today. We really appreciate it, Phil.Monaco: Thanks, Phil, and continuous success as we go through gig scheduling.Jenkins: With that we will move to the Q&A portion. My first question is for Phil. What are some tips or best practices for retailers starting out from day zero on the journey to optimize workforce management strategies and attract and retain retail associates?McElfresh: Having a good understanding of where you are today and where you want to be in the future is the first step. But also be aware, as you start to put that plan together, understand that it's going to change over time. We've changed courses a couple times as we've gone through the implementation process, and changed strategy slightly. I've done training courses from when I first started this to when I just ended it, and those have changed as well. It’s important to be aware that change is going to happen — that’s the biggest piece. On the technology side, the technical training will all come in time. However, understanding where the company is right now in terms of change leadership, the change management, and where you want to get to in the future is a good starting point.Monaco: Map out where you are today and find some quick wins along the path as you're going through the journey. But you're looking for more than a vendor, you’re looking for a partner that's going to be there with you through the journey, challenges, and adapts to all those changes that Phil's talking about. Being able to have a partnership rather than a vendor that's just going to do whatever you say. Now it's a journey, and being able to have that partnership along the entire journey makes it a little bit easier, but you got to start. Those quick wins will get you started, but now is the time to start — you’re going to lose ground if you don't, because everybody else is.Bursik: That's absolutely true. The imperative to get started is the key here. Once you do the wins that Brian is describing, that can fuel and fund additional steps forward. From where you are now, you may not see all the opportunities that are available to you, but as you move through that journey, more and more opportunities become visible and actionable.Jenkins: Regarding forecasting, does Logile offer a forecast pilot program for retailers?Bursik: We've done a lot of work in forecasting and it's a critical foundation to planning the business and into writing the best schedules possible both for the associates and for customer service. If you don't have a great forecaster, it's time to get one — particularly one that can take into account not just basic events, but weather, price and promotions, and all the things that are affecting your business. To make it easier for retailers to consider Logile's forecasting system, we do have the ability to set up some sample data to run it through on our website, and you'll see the results. Even with minimal information. You’re going to see an improvement on what's possible, and we'd love to work with you on that.Jenkins: Phil, how is Heinen's implementing cross scheduling to make it successful? We've touched on this in the discussion, but maybe we can drill down on it a little more here.McElfresh: One of the things that's been a big win for us is taking our time, not having a hard deadline — a hard date to where we want to have all stores on and all stores implemented. We opted to take a slow, methodical approach to it. My team and I spent five weeks in-store, one-on-one training with department managers and store managers. That's one of the things that's helped us the best. It gives my team and I the opportunity to work with them, not only on the technical side, but also on the change management side because that's the bigger lift, the change management piece.That has helped us so that we know we're going to have to circle back and work with it some more, but it's helped us to do that less. We can focus on the things that we need to. Taking our time and again, not having a hard deadline for complete implementation has been one of the biggest wins in this working successfully.Jenkins: That sounds like an exciting area of opportunity. How do you ensure that those associates that work in secondary departments are trained?Monaco: Well, as far as the system, there's certifications. We can apply certifications to any labor task or position within the schedule and that can be brought in through any other third party, such as the one that they use for the training purposes. If somebody's certified there, it can also be done manually with the department managers, but we wouldn't want anybody to be scheduled in a position or a labor task that they're not certified for.Bursik: That's a big key for the importance of task-based scheduling versus job-based scheduling. Many of the jobs have special skills that are needed and it's bringing someone into a new department, it's very difficult to have them learn everything about that new department. By focusing on the tasks they're competent in, enabling those skills in their profile can grow that person's experience over time.McElfresh: One of the things we've focused on in that process is starting with those quick tasks — the stocking, the quick tasks that we can show them. They already know Heinen's, they know what we're about, they know how we operate, so let's show them the quick tasks and continue to build that skillset as they go on and on in the department.Jenkins: We have a question here around introducing gamification into the workforce management process, such as shift incentives. Have you seen any of this or considered it, Phil?McElfresh: We have not, as of this point. We have not seen much of it yet.Monaco: I could say some retailers are doing that and they're looking at it for a couple of things: Associate availability and being able to provide stop gaps for shortages of timeframes, as Phil was talking about, from 12-4:00 and maybe incentivizing those shifts a little bit differently. Others would pick that up or open their availability if it was possible. Gamification or incentivizing around points for how many times you come in for additional shifts. What is that percentage and how does that affect either the hours that you work throughout the year? At a certain point you get a bump, an increase because of it.There's different techniques being talked about and used around that. Again, being able to have that within the system and allow the scheduler to take that into account as it builds the schedule. Then, it also takes out any type of sweethearting or special scheduling based off of the managers. It's based off of the program and what's been designed there. There are areas that the associates like that allow them to open up availability for a certain position versus what their normal availability might have been.Bursik: There are always situations that come up that create last minute needs where managers have to ask, "Can someone fill this shift?" Never underestimate the power of thanking associates for their flexibility, for helping the business, and letting them know how much that work is appreciated. But when it comes to a need to fill critical shifts that are less desirable, or at times that few people want to work, providing that extra incentive, a perk of any sort (it doesn't have to be monetary), can make a huge difference in being able to get those shifts filled and serving customers at that time.Jenkins: What do the experts on the panel say to retailers who are not yet ready for a new big initiative? Maybe some words of advice to leave us with today as we wrap things up. I'll come to you first, Phil.McElfresh: For those that are not ready, it is understanding where you want to be in the future. Looking at where you're at today, and what are the things you want to work towards in the future. Finding those small wins, those areas that you want to improve on and finding that small win, then you just continue to build on it. As Brian said, five years ago we never thought about employee self-service or gig scheduling, and look where we're at today. That's a big starting point.Monaco: Getting started, finding the low-hanging fruit, picking it and making it a team or company event that includes everybody — be inclusive and inform everyone. The other key is you can't be afraid to get started. You will make some mistakes along the way, but everybody's making them or made them. Think about what happened over the last three years of COVID and how much it advanced quickly. You need to be thinking about not today, not tomorrow, but in three years — how do you find the right partner to help you along that journey?Bursik: The challenges that retailers face these days are not going to go away. The trends you're seeing and the challenges around staffing are only going to accelerate. For someone who doesn't feel they're ready, you want to look from the standpoint that first of all, you can get ready. Not everything that can give you wins is a big IT project. That scares a lot of people, but we've got an operations excellence group that can help with best practices, with five best workplace organization, with the kinds of things that are quick wins that then build toward being able to put the right smart systems in place to give you a competitive advantage for the future, and better serve both customers, associates, and the business as well.Jenkins: Great words to leave us with. It seems the transformational journey is moving quickly, but there's lots of exciting areas of opportunity along the way if we're willing to invest in getting started, being proactive, taking charge, and making change where it's needed.I’d like to say thank you again to our panelists today, and especially to Phil for joining us from Heinen's. We appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us. Thank you to our speakers and to our sponsor today, which is Logile, and wishing you all a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks, everybody.