How to Navigate Workforce Planning in the Age of AI
Labor shortages. Rising costs. Unexpected demand spikes. These are just a few of the challenges warehouse operators face daily. While automation, robotics, and AI-driven planning tools offer part of the solution, they’re not a cure-all. In 2024, McKinsey & Company reported that only 20% of North American warehouses have adopted any form of automation to date.
That’s where workforce planning comes in.
Workforce planning is the practice of aligning the right people with the right skills in the right place—and at the right time and cost. Done well, it helps warehouse leaders anticipate and fill labor needs, minimize scheduling gaps, and allocate resources with surgical precision.
Organizations with strong workforce planning are significantly more resilient. Those that embed workforce planning directly into their warehouse operations report better performance and productivity, while improving employee retention and engagement.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 74% of employees say they’re ready to learn new skills or retrain to remain employable in the future, yet only a fraction of warehouse environments are designed to support that upskilling in real time.
In a world where labor availability, digital transformation, and customer expectations collide, workforce planning is how supply chain leaders stay ahead.
To make workforce planning actionable, it helps to break it down into five simple questions—the "5 Rs":
This framework helps warehouse and logistics leaders ask better questions and make better decisions. It also reflects a vital, tomorrow-driven mindset.
With growing automation, tightening labor markets, and seismic demographic shifts, organizations must be future-obsessed. This means rethinking not just how many workers they’ll need, but also the types of workers and how they will be deployed, because workforce planning has evolved beyond mere headcount and spreadsheet arithmetic.
Even the most experienced warehouse managers can’t solve labor shortages or shift volatility by gut feel alone. That’s why leading distribution and logistics organizations are turning to workforce planning tools, integrated in modern ERP systems like Kinetic, to forecast needs, model different labor scenarios, and streamline staffing in real time.
With AI, warehouse managers can move from historical scheduling patterns to more intelligent forecasting, automatically adjusting shifts based on current volume, worker availability, and even workfloor conditions like humidity levels or heat risk.
This is a critical advantage because the traditional manual approach to planning simply can’t keep up. In a McKinsey survey of more than 80 North American distributors, nearly half said they had not implemented key digital tools like advanced planning systems (APS) or warehouse management systems (WMS), and most were still using spreadsheets to manage labor and inventory workflows.
That digital gap comes at a real cost. Without integrated planning tools, it’s harder to:
With the right system, warehouse leaders can simulate future labor scenarios and plan accordingly, just like they would with inventory. AI-enhanced ERPs, like Epicor solutions, can even recommend shift adjustments, flag skill mismatches, or help re-route tasks based on worker availability and capability.
And companies are investing in such operational agility in action. In a 2024 McKinsey survey, 70% of logistics and supply chain leaders said they plan to invest $100 million or more in warehouse automation and labor optimization over the next five years (McKinsey & Company: Navigating warehouse automation strategy for the distributor market).
As Deloitte puts it, the best-in-class supply chain organizations aren’t just more trusted; they’re six times more effective at performance when they pair human-centered strategies with tech-enabled visibility (Deloitte: Building trust in supply chains: Why humanity matters).
In short, digital workforce planning is the lever for doing more with less and making smarter labor decisions at every step.
Without proactive workforce planning, even the most advanced operations run into predictable, and wholly avoidable, issues.
Labor costs balloon. Warehouses overhire during slow periods or scramble to fill gaps with expensive temp labor. McKinsey found that nearly a quarter of distributors still consider worker turnover their biggest operational issue, and many are simply reacting to churn, rather than forecasting and planning around it (McKinsey & Company: Operational efficiency: A clear path to outperformance in distribution).
Poor planning also impacts employee morale. Overburdened existing teams who have to work irregular or additional shifts face increased burnout and safety risks. Inconsistent staffing can also lead to delayed shipments, missed SLAs, and unhappy customers, especially in peak demand seasons.
The downstream effects ripple out fast and can be measured in higher rates of absenteeism, declining productivity, lost revenue, reputational harm, and in some instances, compromised worker safety.
Most AI systems can crunch numbers. Epicor goes further, turning warehouse data into actionable, insightful recommendations you can trust. Here’s how Epicor sets itself apart from plug-and-play planning tools:
Epicor doesn’t rely on generic scheduling templates. It syncs labor forecasts with the actual rhythm of your day-to-day warehouse operations, factoring in inbound and outbound volume, machine downtime, production schedules, delivery SLAs, and known bottlenecks. This means fewer surprises and smarter headcount planning during peak seasons, holidays, demand slumps, or equipment issues.
While other systems might autofill shifts based on availability, Epicor considers worker certifications, equipment access, and physical proximity to the work. It intelligently assigns tasks for the right job and the right person. This leads to faster workflows, less downtime, and fewer safety risks.
Epicor gives managers real-time dashboards that show how staffing decisions impact throughput, cost per unit, and customer SLAs.
With this data visualization, you can easily spot patterns like recurring OT spikes, over-reliance on temp labor, or skills gaps before they disrupt performance. Epicor delivers insights you can act on today.
Industry leaders are actively investing to improve supply chain efficiency, and we’re seeing a continual realignment of people and processes as new technologies emerge.
Leading distributors that outperform their peers by wide margins are taking a combined approach that leverages technology advancement, training, and optimized workforce planning.
In one example, a food service distributor restructured its work shifts to include flexible part-time and four-day schedules, significantly improving retention and morale.
Others are heavily investing in improving the employee experience and cross-training to fill skills gaps. These efforts continue to bear fruit; companies that actively prioritize employee development are more than three times as likely to be considered top performers in supply chain operations.
Warehousing is getting more complex, not less. Labor is scarcer, customer expectations are higher, and punishing volatility is the new normal. The distributors who thrive won’t be the ones who hire faster or push harder; they’ll be the ones who plan smarter and keep workers and worker morale at the forefront.
Epicor helps warehouse and distribution leaders move from reactive to proactive workforce management by matching labor needs to demand, reducing excess staffing costs, retaining skilled workers, and confidently scaling.
In a relentless marketplace where even fractional gains in efficiency and agility are meaningful, AI-enhanced workforce planning from Epicor is a workforce multiplier.
Ready to build a smarter, more resilient warehouse workforce?
Epicor helps you move from reactive labor management to predictive, AI-enhanced workforce planning—at scale. Talk to our team.
