How Grocers Reduce Unplanned Overtime With Sales Forecasting

00:00 – Sean Kosednar:
Hello and welcome to Grocer Pod. My name is Sean Kosednar. This week I’m talking with the COO of TimeForge, Audrey Hogan. Before we get to Audrey, please remember to subscribe to Grocer Pod. Subscribing means new episodes will be downloaded automatically. You can find Grocer Pod on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or any platform you use.

00:00 – Sean Kosednar:
Thanks for joining me today, Audrey.

00:00 – Audrey Hogan:
Thanks for having me.

00:00 – Sean Kosednar:
Labor costs are at the forefront of all of our members’ minds. I know you recently completed case studies with Woods and Pyramid Foods about reducing unplanned overtime. Can you tell us what that study found?

00:00 – Audrey Hogan:
We just made the Pyramid Foods case study public. It’s on our website under Resources → Case Studies. We reduced their overtime by 72%. Based on average wages in their region, that’s nearly $100,000 in annual labor cost reduction.

00:01 – Sean Kosednar:
For any retailers that don’t know, can you tell us a little about what TimeForge does?

00:01 – Audrey Hogan:
TimeForge is a labor management platform targeting grocers. We’ve served grocers for over a decade. We’re different from many labor platforms because we built it backwards. We started as an operations tool to improve efficiency at the store level—building schedules, managing requests off, and other tedious tasks that stack up to hours of manager time—so managers can get back on the floor faster.

00:02 – Audrey Hogan:
Then we expanded into PTO/leave, holiday pay, and labor law compliance, including fair workweek regulations. Our claim to fame is tying together cross-departmental functions—scheduling and timekeeping, which can sit between ops, payroll, and finance—into one centralized place so everyone has real-time visibility.

00:03 – Audrey Hogan:
Because of our operational knowledge in grocery, we know how important a good sales forecast is to understand what labor should be—so you can reduce unplanned overtime by staffing to real demand.

00:03 – Sean Kosednar:
Can you talk more about the sales forecasting tool and how it helps with budgeting?

00:03 – Audrey Hogan:
TimeForge integrates with over 60 POS systems. We pull sales data in quarter-hour department buckets and can segment it by transaction type. We track things like net sales and transaction counts—whatever the right labor determinants are for that grocer.

00:04 – Audrey Hogan:
That data appears in the TimeForge web app so you can log in anywhere and see sales by department and hour. It also appears in the manager app so store and regional leaders can see real-time sales by store, department, and hour.

00:05 – Audrey Hogan:
We don’t just consume sales. We have a proprietary machine-learning ensemble—around 40 algorithms—that forecasts sales for the next 6 to 8 weeks. It updates iteratively as new sales data comes in.

00:06 – Sean Kosednar:
That’s impressive. Are retailers still scheduling without this kind of forecasting?

00:06 – Audrey Hogan:
Yes and no. Some grocers do this manually: rolling six-week averages, year-over-year comps, then they compare that to labor metrics like sales per labor hour or labor as a percentage of sales. They convert the labor target into a schedule.

00:07 – Audrey Hogan:
If that’s done manually with spreadsheets and calculations, it can take 4 to 8 hours per manager per week. Or they do none of it and copy last week’s schedule, and labor ends up misaligned with demand.

00:08 – Sean Kosednar:
Saving retailers time is a big theme. It sounds like this can save time and money across the store.

00:08 – Audrey Hogan:
We’re often brought in for labor optimization—to trim the fat. We frequently find too many openers scheduled for front-end opening duties. Owners often don’t realize the overstaffing is there until they have visibility.

00:09 – Audrey Hogan:
Then we see a positive impact on culture, which supports retention and hiring. People are happier to work when they know they won’t be so short-staffed that one person runs the deli alone.

00:10 – Sean Kosednar:
How does more effective scheduling change culture and affect hiring and retention?

00:10 – Audrey Hogan:
I’ve worked in retail and restaurants. In these industries, employees can often walk across the street for similar pay and the same work, but with a manager who accommodates school pickup or availability.

00:11 – Audrey Hogan:
When we asked why employees leave, schedule flexibility was the number one reason. It’s simple: if someone asks for a day off, honor it.

00:12 – Audrey Hogan:
People overuse the word “culture.” To me, culture is how things are done around here. What impacts that more than how leaders manage and respect employees’ time?

00:13 – Sean Kosednar:
It seems easier to offer flexibility if you know when you truly need people.

00:13 – Audrey Hogan:
Exactly. You can improve culture without buying a platform, but it’s much simpler with a system. You can’t run spellcheck on a napkin.

00:14 – Sean Kosednar:
You also did an industry-wide labor study so retailers can compare labor to others. What did you find?

00:14 – Audrey Hogan:
We did an AWG webinar on labor metrics—what reports to run and what to track. Cross-training can create blind spots if systems don’t reflect where people actually worked. Your reports may show someone as deli while they’re filling in at bakery, so you don’t realize bakery is short.

00:16 – Audrey Hogan:
Customers asked: am I low, am I high, how do I know? There aren’t good benchmarks at the department level. So we did a study using department and position-level labor. What “normal” looks like varies widely based on concept, department mix, and region.

00:18 – Audrey Hogan:
Use the data by finding similar concepts and comparing averages. But we’re not recommending everyone cut labor to match others—small towns where cashiers know everyone may prioritize experience over trimming labor.

00:19 – Sean Kosednar:
Same-day payouts are becoming more common. Can retailers do that?

00:19 – Audrey Hogan:
Yes. I saw a gas station recruiting with “we’ll pay you every day.” Instant pay is being adopted widely. Employees opt in. When they clock out, they can request pay immediately. Employers can set guardrails like paying out only 80% of earned pay or limiting payouts.

00:21 – Audrey Hogan:
We partner with Rain. Employees use the Rain app, and TimeForge data flows in automatically. It’s deducted from payroll like other deductions. It’s seamless for employers—and it’s free.

00:22 – Sean Kosednar:
How does your platform handle communication?

00:22 – Audrey Hogan:
At its core, it’s a communication tool. Employees communicate availability. Managers communicate schedules clearly. The schedule flows into timekeeping to enforce the plan, and timekeeping flows into payroll. If schedules change, the system notifies the right people. If there’s a call-out, managers can message eligible employees to cover.

00:24 – Sean Kosednar:
If retailers are interested, what should they do?

00:24 – Audrey Hogan:
Reach out to me at audrey@timeforge.com, or go to our website and use the contact buttons. AWG contacts can also connect you, and you can ask other AWG members who may already use it.

00:24 – Sean Kosednar:
Perfect. I’ll include the email and website in the show notes. Audrey, thanks for your time today.

00:24 – Audrey Hogan:
Thank you so much for having me.

00:25 – Sean Kosednar:
Thank you all for listening to this episode of Grocer Pod. That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next week with another episode.