Social networking sites are becoming integral to daily Internet behaviors. In the U.S. alone, people spent 121 billion minutes on social networking sites from July 2011 to July 2012, according to the 2012 Social Media Report from Nielsen. As a result, businesses across verticals are embracing social enterprise tools that help streamline and centralize corporate communications, and in turn, create more loyal and engaged employees.

Westfield Group, a developer and manager of approximately 105 shopping centers worldwide, has implemented Yammer to optimize social communication and collaboration across the organization — from executives to store employees. Yammer is a social network and application designed specifically to address the extensive needs of enterprises. Using tools and features available on the Yammer platform, Westfield successfully has built and maintained social dialogue among employees, creating a thriving ecosystem of loyal team members, according to Andy Hedges, Director of Shopping Center Management at Westfield Australia.

Following is Part 2 of the Retail TouchPoints series focused on Best Practices In Workforce Management. Part 1, which appeared in the April 16 newsletter, may be accessed here.

Mobile workforce management strategies are at the forefront for retailers focused on a more efficient, digitally savvy workforce, which is now better equipped to improve the customer experience.

“Making the move to mobile” is vital to streamlining WFM processes and staffing decisions today, according to an Aberdeen Group report, titled: Workforce Management: The Key to Retail Customer Service. In order to maintain customer intimacy, as well as improve employee productivity, the study explained: “Retailers need to transition to more open, integrated and mobile solutions that [allow them] to optimize their workforce management initiatives and also create engaging and valuable customer experiences.”

Following is Part 1 of the Retail TouchPoints series focused on Best Practices In Workforce Management. This section focuses on technologies and strategies designed to optimize the scheduling process.  Part 2, which looks at additional strategies retailers are using to enhance workforce optimization, will appear in the April 23 newsletter.

Retailers are competing more aggressively on customer experience. Many are focused on workforce optimization to achieve two key goals: improve the overall customer experience, and create more efficient and competitive workforce strategies.

The results of a survey conducted by Retail TouchPoints and Workforce Insight, titled: Benchmark Survey: Uncovering Answers To Workforce Challenges, disclosed the opportunities to enhance the customer experience: Almost half (46%) of the 200-plus respondents said they had quantified their customer experience and are allocating enough payroll to execute it. However, only 3% said their defined customer experience is executed consistently in every store on every day, 100% of the time. Another 19% said it is executed less than one out of every two opportunities to do so. Approximately 80% said the defined customer experience is executed more than half of the time.

Demand for cloud-based solutions continues to intensify as more retailers recognize the cost and performance benefits of cloud computing. In fact, cloud software revenues are expected to reach $67.3 billion by 2016, from $22.9 billion in 2011, according to IDC Insights.

Rent-A-Center (RAC) partnered with IBM Smarter Commerce and Coupa Software, an e-procurement software company, to move procurement processes to the cloud. The goal was to reduce sourcing costs and cycle times, and increase accounts payable productivity.

Through the collaboration, RAC successfully transformed several procurement procedures, streamlined spending and “achieved millions in savings by optimizing and centralizing its purchasing process in the cloud,” according to an IBM press release.