Dear Retailer #11 - The Path to Automation, part 1 - Teams

Dear Retailers,

We’re rapidly approaching the end of Summer and it’s time to start looking ahead to our next update. With “Rise to the Top” last month, we looked at Building and Designing and saw some incredible designs. But the next update is on the way.

That being said, we have an enormous amount of work ahead of us, so while we are looking forward to a definitive “Red Letter Day” to get everything live, a lot of these releases will be coming out progressively over the next few weeks.

So as such, I’d like to start revealing some of the new systems coming into play with the next update, and how those pieces will eventually come together.

The Challenge: Simulating Reality

Throughout the pre-release and release of King of Retail 2, everything players do happens and responds in real time. In-game sales occur when an in-game customer picks up an in-game article from an in-game display, and so on.

In summary: everything happens as a consequence of something else, which is turned influenced by a huge number of environmental and contextual factors, right down to the mindset of the customer and the work attributes of your employees.

In short: simulating this when you’re not around is quite difficult. Our end goal is to create simulated and automated store activity for stores not under operation, using as much information based on player decisions, designs, and – for the purposes of this update, a look at how Employees will keep the lights on when you’re not around.

Employee Teams - Putting the MEAT in TEAMS

At this stage, employees follow what we call on the business side a “Flat Heirarchy”. All employees are equal to one another and share responsibilities, roles, and functions. The player character is the exception to this rule, leaving all employees answerable to the player.

A preview image of how players will be able to craft their own team heirarchy

Employee teams will be your day-to-day employees, assigned by store, that allow you to begin building workforces that work when you’re off doing something else. The structure will develop as automation is added, but in the short term, we’re adding functionality to:

• Build, customize, and assign teams within your stores.

• Assign the Manager role: the individual representing the store while you're away.

• Build out a hierarchy for your team, including Assistant Managers, Team Leaders, and basic Employees.

This is where it begins, but where it can go opens up many, many opportunities for store automation.

Team Dynamics are Everything

The level of detail we’re building into Team Dynamics will as comprehensive as our parameters allow, and knowing how we’ve strurctured employee attributes, each individual employee will work differently with other employees, simply down to personality differences and shared (or differing) values.

Relaxed employees may not jive with hardworking employees. Cleanliness-focused employees won’t appreciate working under a slob of a manager. And slackers of all kinds can drag down the team dynamic and spoil everyone’s work ethic in the long run.

Conversely, employees can build bonds through shared values over time, energizing them to go above the call of duty and put in extra effort in turning a profit for your businesses.

Scheduling and team sizes also come into play. The ratio of Leaders to Workers is essential to running a healthy team! Too many managers? Wasted time and money on oversight, and too little actually getting done. Too few? Managers will get overloaded and overworked. Team Leaders and Assistant managers step into this