Let the Madness Begin
Finally! We’re officially underway: March Madness is upon us!! After sitting on the sidelines last year because the entire NCAA Basketball Tournament was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, fans of college hoops are as excited as can be to see what this year’s tournament will bring and which coach will get to cut the nets on April 5.
On the road to the Final Four and, ultimately, the championship game, everyone is hoping for plenty of suspense: who will score, when will they score, how many close games will we see? Overtime, anyone? Absolutely! Can’t wait to see some nail biter, buzzer beater overtime games!!
Sweet Sixteen – Wouldn’t It be Nice
While we’re all beaming with excitement over uncertainty and overtime in the world of sports, when it comes to your business operations, uncertainty and overtime are the last thing you want to face. Easier said than done? How are business owners to know when customers will walk in? And if work is suddenly piling up, of course you ask your team to stay on to get everything done. So, for service-oriented businesses, uncertainty and overtime are plainly unavoidable, right? Wrong! Technology has advanced so significantly, that applied artificial intelligence can not only forecast your busy seasons, but predict actual daily and hourly peak times with surprising accuracy. Like a free throw.
Elite Eight – Getting There
Hard to believe? Here’s how it works: Software that utilizes AI combines data from a variety of sources and creates proprietary prediction models based on your specific business and its unique circumstances. The data incorporated includes your internal data such as employee skill level and shift duration, as well as external data like weather and economic factors, among others. The software will then create a demand forecast, devising work schedules that take into consideration the specific needs and challenges of your business and your workforce. Additionally, managers can and should adjust those schedules to incorporate their own learnings and expertise to further optimize work hours of their teams. By doing so, they are actually teaching the AI what matters to them, making its forecasts even more powerful and valuable to your business.
Final Four – Making It Work
You may think that the cost of implementing such advanced technology would be prohibitive to a medium-sized business. However, business owners are frequently surprised how reasonable monthly subscription pricing can be. Particularly if you take into consideration the resulting benefits for your revenue and your staff members: reduced overtime hours, better work schedules, and more balanced work hours for your exempt employees, just to name a few.
Championship – Congratulations, You Made It!
Combining the intelligence of the AI algorithm with the intelligence of your managers, your business will no longer have to suffer from unpredictable volatility, straining your employees or your payroll, so that the only madness in your life will be March Madness.
Author: Daniela Kister
Daniela is responsible for marketing and design at Weave Workforce, a workforce optimization company founded and headquartered in beautiful Ann Arbor (we’ll leave it up to you to guess who we’re rooting for this March). Weave Workforce software applies artificial intelligence to forecast fluctuating demand for medium-sized businesses. Having worked in automotive, education, consumer goods, and not-for-profit management on three different continents, Daniela is passionate about time management and its benefits on business revenue and work-life balance.
