Doing Well by Doing Good: Improving Retail Store Performance with Responsible Scheduling Practices at the Gap, Inc.

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kesavan, Saravanan; Lambert, Susan J.; Williams, Joan C.; Pendem, Pradeep K.
• 署名单位: University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; University of Chicago; University of California System; University of California San Francisco; University of Oregon
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.4291
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 7818-7836
• 关键词: responsible operations; retail labor; work schedules; experiment

摘要

We estimate the causal effects of responsible scheduling practices on store financial performance at the U.S. retailer Gap, Inc. The randomized field experiment evaluated a multicomponent intervention designed to improve dimensions of work schedules??? consistency, predictability, adequacy, and employee control???shown to foster employee well-being. The experiment was conducted in 28 stores in the San Francisco and Chicago metropolitan areas for nine months between November 2015 and August 2016. Intent-totreat (ITT) analyses indicate that implementing responsible scheduling practices increased store productivity by 5.1%, a result of increasing sales (by 3.3%) and decreasing labor (by 1.8%). Drawing on qualitative interviews with managers and quantitative analyses of employee shift-level data, we offer evidence that the intervention improved financial performance through improved store execution. Our experiment provides evidence that responsible scheduling practices that take worker well-being into account can enhance store productivity by motivating additional employee effort and reducing barriers to employees adhering to the scheduled labor plan.