The People Calculator – Workforce Stability That Drives Sales

Retail leaders need a single workforce signal they can act on. This session shows how a composite stability metric – spanning transfers, tenure, promotions/demotions and vacancy ageing – predicts store performance, then proves impact through test–control designs with Corporate Data Science. You'll see the external labour-market overlay, the legal and privacy guard-rails, and a simple monthly cadence that turns stability into decisions and measurable sales effects.

• Define the People Calculator: a composite stability score (transfers, tenure bands, promotions/demotions, vacancy ageing) with leader-friendly thresholds.
• Link stability to outcomes: model the People → Customer → Sales chain and quantify effects.
• Validate causality with store-level tests: matched pairs or test–control designs with Corporate Data Science and Business Insights.
• Add an external benchmark overlay: BLS and community indicators to separate market conditions from store effects.
• Govern and operate: metric catalogue, legal guard-rails, a monthly diagnose → act → review cadence, and finance-ready reporting.

• Build a composite stability metric with clear weights, thresholds and a one-page definition.
• Design a causal validation plan for store interventions using A/B or matched-pair tests with DS/BI partners.
• Incorporate external labour-market benchmarks so 'good' performance means beating the market, not last month.
• Implement governance and a monthly operating cadence that enables safe, finance-aligned decisions.
• Communicate stability to store leaders so they can diagnose, prioritise and track actions.

Vatsala Syed

Head of People Analytics · Wawa, Inc.

Frontline retail is expanding while labour markets remain tight and store turnover is costly. Executives want a single stability signal that explains variance in sales and service, separates local market noise from store effects, and fits finance cadence and governance – without exposing sensitive store-level numbers.