Turning schedules into action – how retailers drive performance with task management and communication. That was the headline when we joined Kendra Scott on stage at NRF 2026 to discuss their workforce transformation. During the session, Aaron Locke, Lead of Retail Planning, walked us through exactly how scaling to 200 stores exposed the limits of their "scrappy" start-up operations – and how they fixed it.
By partnering with Quinyx to centralise operations and introduce AI-driven demand planning, Kendra Scott didn't just regain control – they unlocked significant value. The result? An 8.5% reduction in total labor costs and a simplified process that turned hours of admin into minutes of strategic work.
Here is how they did it.
The challenge: when "scrappy" stops working
Rapid expansion brings complexity. As Kendra Scott moved from 25 stores to hundreds, the variables multiplied. They weren't just scheduling shifts; they were managing a bespoke in-store experience involving "Color Bar" customisation events, engraving services, and varying store footprints.
Yet, the tools hadn't caught up.
- Manual friction: Store managers spent two to three hours writing a single schedule.
- Decentralised spend: There was little discipline or visibility regarding labor spend at a corporate level.
- Employee impact: Schedules were often released late (Tuesday or Wednesday for the following week), making it difficult for staff to plan their lives.
"When you have a store manager taking hours to write a schedule on a spreadsheet, there's a tendency to do it as late as possible because it's a laborious process," explained Aaron Locke, Lead of Retail Planning at Kendra Scott. "That creates friction. And even if those are tiny grains of sand, when you add them up over time, it erodes the value of the employee experience."
The efficiency unlock: 8.5% savings
The primary drivers of the transformation were financial control and operational efficiency. By implementing Quinyx, Kendra Scott shifted from reactive spreadsheet management to proactive, data-led demand planning.
In their first full year of operation (2023), the impact was clear:
- 8.5% savings on the total labor budget: This was achieved through a combination of efficiency gains and improved forecast accuracy, reducing variance against plan.
- 15 minutes to schedule: Managers went from spending hours in the back room to creating compliant, optimised rotas in roughly 15 minutes.
- Granular forecasting: The team now breaks down labour drivers beyond revenue alone, analysing transactions, units, and specific events to build a bottom-up forecast that aligns with reality.
This efficiency didn't require cutting corners. Instead, it came from ensuring the right people were in the right place, eliminating the waste of over-staffing and the lost revenue of under-staffing.
Managing complexity: the Color Bar factor
Many workforce management tools struggle when retail gets complex. For Kendra Scott, "complexity" means ensuring that a customer walking in for a custom jewellery session is met by an expert who knows how to walk a customer through the Colour Bar journey, or how to run the engraving machine.
"Not everybody can walk into a Kendra Scott store and use the engraver," says Locke. "It's a complex device that requires certification."
Using Quinyx's AI-driven skill mapping, Kendra Scott automates this complexity:
- Skill tagging: Employees are tagged with specific certifications (e.g., 'Engraving Certified').
- Demand matching: The system identifies shifts where specific skills are needed – for instance, a Saturday afternoon "Color Bar" event.
- Automated routing: The scheduler ensures only certified staff are assigned to those specific roles, preventing the customer experience "wobble" that happens when the right expert isn't available.
This allows store managers to trust the automated output, rather than having to manually double-check every shift for skill coverage.
The rollout playbook: super users and peer training
Technology fails if people don't use it. Recognizing that adoption was the "secret sauce" to success, Kendra Scott took a unique approach to change management.
Instead of sending HQ staff to fly around the country training store teams, they empowered the frontline. They launched a pilot in their Northeast District (NYC), turning those early adopters into "super users".
"We used that super user group to travel around the country and do district-level rollouts," Locke notes. "It was so much more powerful to take store managers from the Northeast and send them to Chicago or LA to teach their peers. It started with understanding that the frontline users are the principal stakeholders."
This peer-to-peer model ensured the training was grounded in reality rather than corporate theory. It also allowed the project team to "Kendra-fy" the platform, adjusting terminology and settings based on real-world feedback before the full launch.
The human impact: a most loved workplace
While the ROI caught the CFO's attention, the impact on the CHRO's KPIs was just as significant. The new system removed the friction of calling stores to check schedules or requesting swaps via text.
"If you improve the associate experience, they're going to be more engaged and show up more frequently," says Locke.
The results speak for themselves:
- Top 100 Most Loved Workplace: Kendra Scott has achieved this recognition for four consecutive years, a streak that correlates with their operational transformation.
- Manager focus: By reclaiming hours of admin time, managers are back on the floor, coaching teams and driving sales.
What's next?
Kendra Scott isn't stopping at the core brand. They are now applying these lessons to their new "Yellow Rose" brand – a concept that introduces even more complexity, including full bars and beverage service.
By leveraging the labor model built in Quinyx, they can determine the proper staffing levels for these new concepts from day one, rather than guessing.
The takeaway
Kendra Scott's journey proves that rigorous cost control and a premium employee experience are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are interdependent. By automating the science of scheduling, they have freed their teams to focus on the art of retail.
Is your scheduling process holding back your growth? Discover how Quinyx can help you cut costs and complexity.
