Glossary
Retail scheduling glossary.
The terms you will meet when you plan retail labor, in a sentence or two each.
- Availability
- The times a person can generally work, week to week. It differs from time off, which covers specific dates.
- Blackout dates
- Dates when a business does not grant time off, usually around its busiest days. See our guide.
- Break
- Time during a shift when a person is not working. Rules on paid and unpaid breaks vary by state. Check with counsel.
- Buddy punching
- One person clocking in or out for another. See timesheet proof.
- Clock-in verification
- Checking a clock-in against other evidence, such as a clip from a store camera.
- Closer (shift)
- A shift that runs to the end of the store day. The word also describes a salesperson who is good at finishing a sale.
- Conversion rate
- The share of visitors who buy. It needs a door count. Not every store has one.
- Coverage
- How many people are working at a given time, compared with the number needed.
- Coverage gap
- A period when fewer people are scheduled than the store needs.
- Customer time
- Time a person spends actively helping customers, measured apart from time worked.
- Design partner
- A customer who works closely with the product team, giving regular feedback in return for early access or better terms.
- Draft schedule
- A schedule that has not been published. Staff have not been told about it, and it can change freely.
- Fair workweek law
- Another name for a predictive scheduling law. See our overview.
- Home store
- The store a person mainly works at, in a group that shares staff.
- Hours budget
- The number of labor hours a store plans to spend in a week.
- Labor cost percentage
- Labor cost divided by sales for the same period.
- Multi-store Unit
- In Juvant Workforce Management, a group of nearby stores that share people and are planned on one board.
- Open shift
- A shift with no person assigned.
- Opener (shift)
- A shift that starts at the beginning of the store day.
- Peak hours
- The hours of the week when the most selling happens. See peak-hour staffing.
- Predictability pay
- Extra pay some local laws require when an employer changes a posted schedule on short notice.
- Predictive scheduling
- Local laws that require advance notice of schedules and may require pay for late changes. They apply in some US cities and states.
- Preferred day off
- A day a person would like to have off. It is softer than time off: the plan keeps it if it can.
- Rest between shifts
- The hours between the end of one shift and the start of the next.
- Sales per hour worked
- Sales for one person divided by the hours they worked. See how to use it.
- Sales per labor hour (SPLH)
- A store's sales divided by all labor hours in the same period. See our explainer.
- Special day
- A date with its own hours or staffing, such as a holiday sale.
- Staffing need
- The number of people a store wants on at a given time of day.
- Store assignment
- A record of which stores a person is allowed to work at.
- Time off
- Specific dates or hours when a person will not work.
- Traffic
- The number of people who enter a store in a period.
- Week exception
- A temporary change to a rule for a date range, such as allowing six-day weeks in December.
See it on a week from your own stores.
Bring your store hours and your Saturday problem. We will draft a week together, and you can ask any shift why it is there.
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