The Task Management Challenge

There was a great article and discussion at Retail Wire recently. The article, by Bill Bittner, presented a strong case for automating the scheduling of the various tasks sent down to store level by the corporate office. The gist of the argument is that "it is easier for everyone dependent on store performance to see how their activities overlap and monitor execution".

While there are certainly advantages to greater transparencies, it's been my experience that automating a flawed process simply results in bad things happening more quickly.

In my opinion, the challenge here is a cultural one. Here's the typical sequence:

Multiple departments in the corporate office work diligently to come up with ideas and tactics to improve business.
Ultimately all these ideas translate into a series of tasks for the stores to execute.
In most cases, these tasks are sent down to the store independently, with little or no oversight or rationalization. Rationalization means things like taking into account that store payroll (and execution capability) is usually dependent on store volume (the lower the volume, the lower the hours, the lower the capability). In over 35 years, I have never seen this obvious fact taken into account in tasking the stores.
Down the hall in the corporate office, the CFO is looking at weak sales and is trying to make the quarter by cutting expenses. Since the biggest variable expense for most retailers is store payroll, store associate hours go down, further reducing their execution capability.
The accumulation of tasks, along with some other directions from regional and district store managers arrive in the store in no particular order. At no time are the day-to-day tasks at the stores (customer service, processing receipts, price changes, store cleanliness, etc.) factored into these incremental tasks.
The store manager, realizing that he/she doesn't have enough associate hours to do all the tasks assigned, begins to prioritize, usually based on either what he/she does best/enjoys the most or who is most likely to see what hasn't been done, also known as the "what they don't see won't hurt me" strategy. The stores become very inconsistent in appearance.
The individual corporate managers complain that "business would be better if only those people in the stores would just do their job".
The store managers wonder if anyone at the corporate office has ever been to a store or has a clue as to what it takes to run one.
The customer bears the brunt of this frustration as the first thing to fall off the list of to dos is customer service.

This is obviously not a winning formula, although you see the results of this approach demonstrated in the majority of large 4-wall retailers. There's no question that Task Management is a complex task, but as I've discussed in earlier posts, this is primarily a corporate culture issue. When the corporate office views the stores as a support function for their strategies, it is almost impossible to avoid the situation described above. There are exceptions. Steve Temares, the CEO of Bed, Bath, and Beyond has been quoted as saying that he views the corporate office as a support function for the individual sales floors. This is reflective of the company culture and is demonstrated in a variety of aspects throughout the organization. It is also, in my opinion at least, the reason for their continuing success and dominance in the Home Furnishings channel.

So what do you think? What processes have you seen that are effective in managing task loads at store level and avoiding some of the pitfalls described above?