Understanding Labor Efficiency

See when stores were overstaffed or understaffed relative to actual customer demand.

Labor Efficiency reveals when your stores were overstaffed or understaffed relative to actual customer demand. Rather than showing raw headcount, it surfaces the specific time slots where staffing was out of sync with traffic, so you can adjust future schedules with precision.

How it works

The analysis is built on two key signals:

  • SPLH (Sales per Labor Hour): revenue generated per hour of staffed labor. High SPLH can signal understaffing; low SPLH can signal overstaffing.

  • CVR (Conversion Rate): the share of visitors who made a purchase, used alongside SPLH to confirm the direction of a staffing deviation.

Avia compares each time slot to the same moment on the equivalent day of the week in the baseline period. A slot is flagged when SPLH falls outside one standard deviation of the baseline, with CVR confirming the direction:

SPLH vs. baseline

CVR vs. baseline

Flag

Higher

Lower

Understaffed: demand existed but couldn't be captured

Lower

Normal or lower

Overstaffed: labor cost not matched by sales activity

Before you start

Labor Efficiency requires three data sources:

  1. Traffic data from your Avia device

  2. Sales data from Shopify

  3. Labor hours entered for each store

Warning: Labor hours should be added before Avia runs the daily Labor Efficiency calculation. If labor hours are missing for the selected dates, Labor Efficiency may appear empty or incomplete. If labor hours are changed mid week or added late, the data may not appear and require support review before it appears correctly.

Adding labor hours

Option 1: Manual entry (via the dashboard)

Navigate to Store Management → Labor Hours. Assign shifts per employee across the week. You can also enter Floor Hours for aggregate or unassigned labor. Use Copy previous week to pre-fill from the prior week and adjust from there. All changes are auto-saved.

Option 2: CSV import

  1. Navigate to Store Management → Labor Hours.

  2. Click Download sample CSV and fill in your labor hours using the template.

  3. Click Import CSV and select your completed file.

  4. Review the import summary and confirm.

Use the Avia CSV template exactly: custom column names or formats are not supported and will cause the import to be rejected.

Option 3: EasyTeam integration

Info: Avia also integrates with labor management platforms. If you use EasyTeam, your shifts (per employee, per day, per store) can feed Labor Efficiency directly through the integration, replacing manual entry.

Labor hours entry screen

Dashboard metrics

Metric

What it shows

SPLH

Net sales ÷ labor hours. Primary efficiency signal.

CVR

Conversion rate for the period. Confirms understaffing when SPLH is high.

Total Labor Hours

Sum of all entered labor hours for the selected period.

Understaffed Hours

Approximate total hours in flagged understaffed slots.

Overstaffed Hours

Approximate total hours in flagged overstaffed slots.

Efficiency Score

0-100 composite score of overall staffing alignment. Higher = fewer deviations.

Labor Cost %

Labor cost as a % of revenue. Requires cost data to be configured.

Labor Efficiency dashboard metrics

Why it matters

Labor is typically a retailer's largest controllable operating expense. Scheduling decisions made on intuition or broad averages are expensive, either in missed sales (understaffing) or unnecessary payroll (overstaffing). Labor Efficiency replaces guesswork with signal grounded in your actual traffic and sales data.

Use it to answer: were we understaffed during our busiest windows last week? Which stores are consistently over-scheduled on slow mornings? Did our new schedule reduce overstaffing vs. the prior period? Where did we lose conversion due to insufficient floor coverage?

Baseline data

Labor Efficiency may need enough historical data before all insights become available. If you see a warning about insufficient baseline data, Avia does not yet have enough previous data to compare against. Continue entering labor hours consistently, and insights will become more useful once enough baseline data is available.

Insufficient baseline data warning

If Labor Efficiency is empty

Before contacting support, confirm that:

  • The correct store and date range are selected

  • Labor hours were added for the selected dates

  • The store was open during the selected dates

  • Traffic data and Shopify sales data are available for the selected dates

  • Store opening hours are configured correctly in Store Management

Labor Efficiency requires traffic data, sales data, and labor hours. If one of these is missing, it may appear empty or incomplete.

Related articles

Need help?

If Labor Efficiency appears empty or incorrect after checking traffic data, Shopify sales data, and labor hours, contact Avia support at avia.support@retailogists.com and include:

  • Store name

  • Selected date range

  • A screenshot of the Labor Efficiency section

  • Whether labor hours were added for the selected dates

  • Whether Shopify sales data is appearing correctly