Setting Up and Tracking Labor Costs
Setting Up and Tracking Labor Cost Goals
Labor cost goals in Easyteam help you control spending and optimize staffing efficiency across your retail locations. Monitor real-time labor costs, track performance against targets, and make informed scheduling decisions to maintain your desired labor cost percentage.
Labor Cost Explained
Labor cost represents what percentage of your sales revenue goes toward paying your staff. This key metric helps you understand if you're staffing your store efficiently.
For example, imagine you run a clothing boutique. During a typical 8-hour shift, you schedule two employees who each earn $20 per hour, costing you $320 in wages. If your store makes $3,200 in sales that day, your labor cost would be 10%, $320 divided by $3,200. Knowing this percentage helps you make smarter decisions about scheduling—like whether you need both employees during slower shopping hours, or if you can afford extra help during busy periods.
Easyteam helps you track this automatically, calculating your real-time labor cost percentage as sales and working hours are logged throughout the week. This way, you can spot if you're spending too much on staffing relative to your sales, or if you might be understaffed during peak times.
Accessing Labor Cost Goals
Access sales goals directly from your schedules screen in Easyteam.
➡️ Open the Schedules screen in Easyteam.
➡️ Look for the Sales Goals button in the top menu bar.
The Sales Goals dropdown shows your assigned retail locations. Each location displays its current status: either 'Active' if it has any goals set up, or 'No Goal' if it doesn't have any goals configured yet.
Choosing Your First Labor Cost Goal
When setting your goals, Easyteam helps you choose realistic targets based on your store's performance data.
➡️ Select any location from the Sales Goals window.
➡️ In the Define Desired Goals screen, open the Sales performance from past weeks table to view your labor cost performance from the last few weeks.
➡️ Enter your desired weekly labor cost goal as a percentage of sales.
On the same screen you can optionally set a sales goal. Read more about sales goals here.
➡️ Click Save
Your goals will be tracked starting this week. Read on to learn how to see your store performance.
Tracking Labor Costs
Your current labor costs appear in the status card at the top of your schedules screen. Easyteam calculates this in real-time, combining actual worked hours, clocked-in hours, from previous days with scheduled hours for upcoming days.
For past days, EasyTeam uses actual worked hours in the calculation. For future days, it uses scheduled hours. This gives you an accurate picture that combines both historical and planned labor costs.
When selecting a single location, the status card shows two key numbers: your current labor cost percentage and your target goal. When multiple locations are selected, you'll only see the combined labor cost percentage.
You'll see one of these status indicators:
- On Track: Your current labor cost percentage aligns with your target goal
- At Risk: Your current labor costs are trending above your target percentage
- Missed: For past weeks, your labor costs are above your target percentage
- Achieved: For past weeks, your labor costs are below your target percentage
For each day in your schedule, you'll see a labor cost icon showing that day's percentage. This helps you identify specific days where labor costs were higher or lower than expected.
Managing Goals Over Time
Labor cost goals automatically carry forward until you change them. This means your target percentage remains consistent across weeks unless you adjust it.
➡️ To update a labor cost goal, click Sales Goals and select the location.
➡️ Enter the new percentage in the Labor Cost Goal field.
When you change a goal mid-week, the new percentage applies immediately to the current week and future weeks. Previous weeks retain their original goals for accurate historical tracking.
Use the date picker on the Schedules screen to view goals for different weeks and your performance in those weeks.
By default, goal tracking begins only after you create goals for a specific location. If you'd like to view goal performance data from before your goals were created, please reach out to our support team via the chat bubble in the bottom right of the screen.
Setting Up Goals for Multiple Locations
Each retail location can have its own labor cost goal, allowing you to account for different staffing needs and local wage conditions.
➡️ Select locations individually from the Sales Goals window to set their goals.
When viewing multiple locations, Easyteam shows their combined performance. The status card indicates if any location is over budget, helping you quickly identify which stores need attention.
Choosing a Labor Cost Goal
Your labor cost goal is a critical target that helps keep your business profitable. Most fashion retailers, for example, aim to keep their labor costs between 12% and 25% of their gross sales.
When selecting your goal, consider factors that might affect your target: Store format and in-store service type, peak hours, location, seasonality and more. Most of these can be further tracked using other Easyteam features.
When setting your labor cost goal, use the Sales performance from past weeks to compare your past six weeks of performance, helping you make informed decisions about your goals.
Each week shows your actual sales, goal achievement percentage, and labor costs. Green numbers indicate weeks where you reached your targets, while red shows where you fell short.
Understanding "Weekly Sales Needed for Your Schedule"
The "Weekly Sales to Support Schedule" appears on the labor cost performance tab and shows you the minimum sales needed to maintain your labor cost goal with your current schedule. This number updates automatically whenever you add or remove shifts from your schedule.
Here's how EasyTeam calculates this number, let's say your store has these numbers:
| Scheduled labor cost | Labor cost goal | Weekly sales needed |
|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | 20% | $10,000 |
Weekly sales are calculated as $2,000 ÷ 20% = $10,000
This means your store needs to generate $10,000 in sales this week to keep labor costs at 20%. If you add more shifts to the schedule, this target will increase. If you remove shifts, the target will decrease.
This value is available for current and future weeks, and changes when you schedule shifts on the calendar.
When multiple locations are selected, EasyTeam calculates this number separately for each location based on their individual labor cost goals and schedules, then shows you the combined total. This helps you understand the overall sales needed across your business.
Use this number as a guide when planning your schedule. If the required sales seem unusually high, you might need to adjust your scheduling to better match expected sales volume.
Ready to optimize other aspects of your retail performance? Check out our guide on Setting Up Sales Goals to track your revenue targets.
Need help setting up your labor cost goals? Contact our support team via the chat bubble in the bottom right of the screen, or check our other articles about goals and performance tracking ❤️
Updated on: 23/01/2025