Designing a Labor Intelligence System

A labor budgeting and forecasting experience embedded directly into scheduling, enabling enterprise teams to make confident labor decisions in real time.

A labor budgeting and forecasting experience embedded directly into scheduling, enabling enterprise teams to make confident labor decisions in real time.

Role

Product Designer

Role

Product Designer

Role

Product Designer

Project Type

SaaS

Project Type

SaaS

Project Type

SaaS

Timeline

05.25 - 11.25

Timeline

05.25 - 11.25

Timeline

05.25 - 11.25

STACK

CONTExt

Labor budgeting consistently failed where decisions were actually made.

Excluding PTO on MS Grid is Not Real Time Effecting Labor TotalsPTO hours count toward the employee’s labor totals even when excluded from the Manage Schedules grid, causing confusion in real-time labor tracking.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budgeting – Projected Revenue by WeekCurrent functionality does not support incremental uploads for labor budgets by period or week. Retail clients need weekly updates due to fluctuating demand.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Labor Budgeting – Scheduled vs Actual vs BudgetedComparison views between scheduled, actual, and budgeted labor are limited and not consistently accessible across reports.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Labor Budget ReportCentralized labor budget reporting lacks flexibility in filters, drill-downs, and role-based access.
Labor Budgeting
Adding a Shift Without Budget ConsiderationsCurrent functionality allows adding shifts on the Manage Schedules grid without validating against labor budget constraints.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Importing Labor Budget OptionUsers need a standardized way to import labor budgets rather than relying on manual entry.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Labor Budget User AccessUsers can view labor budgets even if it is not relevant to their role or section of the business.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Totals Drawer Not Filtering CorrectlyTotals drawer does not properly respect applied filters, leading to incorrect labor totals being displayed.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Forecast Planning – Sophisticated Scenario SupportLabor budgeting does not support if/then forecasting scenarios or multi-variable planning.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Scheduling into OT WarningNo proactive warning when scheduling shifts that push employees into overtime.
Labor BudgetingCommunication
Group Shifts Counting Toward TotalsGroup shifts are counted toward labor totals in ways that do not always align with how budgets are structured.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Sum Labor Totals by Schedule GroupClients cannot view labor budget impact by individual schedule groups at the Manage Schedules level.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Copying Budgets Month to MonthBudget duplication across months is manual and error-prone.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Editing Shifts Does Not Recalculate Budget in Real TimeUpdating shift duration or role does not immediately recalculate labor budget impact.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budget Visibility by LocationMulti-location businesses lack a clear way to view labor budgets scoped to a single location.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
No Audit Trail for Budget ChangesChanges to labor budgets are not logged, making it difficult to track accountability.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Scheduled PTO vs Worked PTO AmbiguityScheduled PTO and worked PTO are combined in reporting, obscuring true labor cost.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budget Alerts Lack Threshold CustomizationBudget alerts do not allow configurable thresholds by department or role.
Labor BudgetingCommunication
Inconsistent Budget Application Across RolesLabor budgets applied at the role level do not consistently roll up into department totals.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Forecast Does Not Account for Historical SeasonalityLabor forecasts do not leverage prior-year seasonality patterns.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Budget Overages Only Visible in ReportsManagers only see labor overages after the fact, not during schedule creation.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
No Weekly Labor Budget LockOnce a week starts, budgets remain editable, leading to reporting drift.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Role-Based Budget Editing PermissionsBudget editing is not granular enough to restrict changes to specific roles or departments.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Excluding PTO on MS Grid is Not Real Time Effecting Labor TotalsPTO hours count toward the employee’s labor totals even when excluded from the Manage Schedules grid, causing confusion in real-time labor tracking.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budgeting – Projected Revenue by WeekCurrent functionality does not support incremental uploads for labor budgets by period or week. Retail clients need weekly updates due to fluctuating demand.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Labor Budgeting – Scheduled vs Actual vs BudgetedComparison views between scheduled, actual, and budgeted labor are limited and not consistently accessible across reports.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Labor Budget ReportCentralized labor budget reporting lacks flexibility in filters, drill-downs, and role-based access.
Labor Budgeting
Adding a Shift Without Budget ConsiderationsCurrent functionality allows adding shifts on the Manage Schedules grid without validating against labor budget constraints.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Importing Labor Budget OptionUsers need a standardized way to import labor budgets rather than relying on manual entry.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Labor Budget User AccessUsers can view labor budgets even if it is not relevant to their role or section of the business.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Totals Drawer Not Filtering CorrectlyTotals drawer does not properly respect applied filters, leading to incorrect labor totals being displayed.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Forecast Planning – Sophisticated Scenario SupportLabor budgeting does not support if/then forecasting scenarios or multi-variable planning.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Scheduling into OT WarningNo proactive warning when scheduling shifts that push employees into overtime.
Labor BudgetingCommunication
Group Shifts Counting Toward TotalsGroup shifts are counted toward labor totals in ways that do not always align with how budgets are structured.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Sum Labor Totals by Schedule GroupClients cannot view labor budget impact by individual schedule groups at the Manage Schedules level.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Parent: Copying Budgets Month to MonthBudget duplication across months is manual and error-prone.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
Editing Shifts Does Not Recalculate Budget in Real TimeUpdating shift duration or role does not immediately recalculate labor budget impact.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budget Visibility by LocationMulti-location businesses lack a clear way to view labor budgets scoped to a single location.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
No Audit Trail for Budget ChangesChanges to labor budgets are not logged, making it difficult to track accountability.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Scheduled PTO vs Worked PTO AmbiguityScheduled PTO and worked PTO are combined in reporting, obscuring true labor cost.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Labor Budget Alerts Lack Threshold CustomizationBudget alerts do not allow configurable thresholds by department or role.
Labor BudgetingCommunication
Inconsistent Budget Application Across RolesLabor budgets applied at the role level do not consistently roll up into department totals.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Forecast Does Not Account for Historical SeasonalityLabor forecasts do not leverage prior-year seasonality patterns.
Labor BudgetingData Reporting & Handling
Budget Overages Only Visible in ReportsManagers only see labor overages after the fact, not during schedule creation.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience
No Weekly Labor Budget LockOnce a week starts, budgets remain editable, leading to reporting drift.
Labor BudgetingConfiguration
Role-Based Budget Editing PermissionsBudget editing is not granular enough to restrict changes to specific roles or departments.
Labor BudgetingUser Experience

Labor is the largest controllable cost, often 25–40% of total expenses, yet budgeting tools rarely exist at the moment decisions are made. The problem wasn’t bad numbers. It was late insight. Managers scheduled first. Budgets came later. When overages showed up, the money was already spent. The system forced high-risk decisions without real-time cost visibility. That gap between action and feedback was the failure.

Over 70 percent of requests referenced delayed or misleading labor signals during scheduling.

Analysis

A market optimized for reporting, not decisions.

We reviewed workforce management platforms focusing on how labor budgets influenced daily decisions.


The primary user was an operations or district manager overseeing hundreds of locations making hundreds of micro-decisions:

  • Adjusting shifts

  • Responding to demand

  • Avoiding overtime

  • Balancing service and cost


Each decision carried financial weight.

But the systems they used lagged behind reality.


The system stopped guiding decisions. It only recorded them after the fact.

The system relied on too many manual touchpoints for a process that should have been proactive, not reactive.

The existing labor budgeting system
broke down at scale.

Background

Solution

Labor Intelligence is a proactive AI layer woven into scheduling, making labor guidance feel native, not additional.

The existing labor budgeting system
broke down at scale.

First
Second
Before
After

AI Setup

Designing a proactive budget from day 1.

Early in the project, it became clear that labor budgeting could not become proactive if setup remained manual. Asking users to configure dozens of fields upfront guaranteed two outcomes: missed edge cases and reactive corrections later. To shift labor budgeting forward in time, the system needed to start with intelligence, not inputs. This reframed setup as a conversation rather than a form.

Automating edge case handling eliminated the most common causes of budget rework, which accounted for over half of post-setup corrections.

Ideation

Structuring data across time

Labor decisions rarely live at a single level of time. Budgets are set monthly, schedules are built weekly, and staffing decisions happen in minutes. The challenge was not defining more tasks. It was preserving context as users moved across time without losing confidence in the numbers. I explored how a manager might start with a high-level budget and move step by step toward granular detail while always understanding how each decision connected back to the whole.

Across early explorations, users lost confidence whenever context reset, even if the data was correct. Maintaining continuity across time reduced perceived complexity by over 60% in usability testing.

Integration

Integrating Into Scheduling

Labor budgeting was embedded directly into scheduling so cost impact was visible as shifts were created, not after schedules were published. As managers built or adjusted shifts, real-time budget signals surfaced inline, showing spend and risk before changes were committed. This removed the need to switch tools or reconcile costs later.

Reflection

Some Takeaways…

Some Takeaways…

Designing this system was a highly collaborative effort, shaped through close partnership with product managers, engineers, and ML stakeholders. Working in short, focused sprints allowed the team to pressure-test ideas early, align on constraints, and iterate quickly as complexity surfaced. Many of the strongest design decisions emerged directly from working sessions across disciplines, ensuring the system was both usable and technically sound.