Workforce Scheduling and Flexible Working Arrangements
This document highlights the problems businesses face, and how the right workforce scheduling software should engage the management skills of line supervisors and business managers when and where it is needed most.
Introduction
Some managers may ask the question: "Why should I be interested in workforce deployment and staff scheduling?" For many this question never even gets raised, and there lies the danger.
The business world is used to the analogy of "Sharks" to signify the dangers to good business. The business that takes a "Shark-bite" can easily be finished off in one go.
That is why conscientious managers usually do a good job of steering their business away from the high risk of deep "shark-infested waters".
However there lurks an equally and more common danger in the "calmer - almost comforting - waters" of familiar low-risk daily business routine.
The Piranha is a smaller fish in shallow waters which is harder to see and with a little bite, but when there are enough of them they are just as deadly as evidenced by the sudden, frantic and painful "splashing around" of job cutting to get profitability back on firmer ground.
Workforce deployment and staff scheduling is about avoiding both the "Shark-bite" and the smaller repeated "piranha-bites" to profitability that will almost certainly hurt or may even take the business down.
In 2006 Malaysian Airlines System Berhad (MAS) discovered issuing a memorandum to department heads about new shift hours isn't the same as doing something about it.
So when over 100 staff worked an extra 30 minutes a day because no one reduced their shifts the cost of over half a million dollars was one they could ill afford.
Workforce deployment and staff scheduling is directly linked to business profitability which requires good proactive management skills.
The problems and obstacles faced by business managers struggling to meet their workforce scheduling requirements is now greater than they used to be, made more complicated by growing labor trends that demand flexible working arrangements.
This article highlights the problems businesses face, and how the right workforce scheduling software can focus the management skills of line supervisors and operational managers to deliver proactive cost-benefit strategies for staff scheduling in place of the reactive cost-cutting approaches of up-line senior management.
About Workforce Scheduling
The biggest single benefit of staff scheduling is the ability to plan farther ahead. The further you can plan ahead the more time you have to think about what you need to do. Conversely the further people know what they are working the better planning they have for their lives outside of work.
A recent posting to a web site for Community and Corporate Ethics1 demonstrates the insight of at least one US worker had about the purpose of scheduling:
"Regular schedules ... ensure that associates can plan things around their regular days off. If there are regular schedules, it helps lessen the amount of time you have to ask off, therefore helping the company stay ready for the business it needs. You can rest assured that the higher ups in the company have a regular schedule".
Scheduling is generally about keeping production and service industries turning long after people need their rest - which means coordinating people.
What can often make scheduling difficult is people all want the same things. In some cases, like week-end working, it is probably understandable most people want their week-ends off. So scheduling is also about sharing poor shifts with good shifts across the workforce - that means teamwork. However different people with different circumstances may well have different priorities or values that are not commonly shared making such assumptions outmoded and outdated.
For example people are quite happy to work permanent nights, or at weekends, if this fits in with study schedules or a family care commitment.
A good manager needs to be seen addressing these kinds of preferences. Where it often goes wrong is when preferences are not balanced with the needs of the business requirement and expectations become confrontational.
A great way for a manager to head this off is having the ability to demonstrate alternatives that give people a choice. In the event no "perfect solution" exists one that meets "half-way" can go a long way.
Exploring alternative ways of working enables both employer and employee feel less like being "trapped" in old traditional conflicts.
Who's Responsible?
Workforce deployment and staff scheduling is a management skill that lies strongest and is at its most effective when exercised at the Business or Operational Line Manager level.
"Decentralized management by foremen, secretaries, and team leaders is a must for us," emphasizes Helmut Tammen, who holds responsibility for time-management processes at Volkswagen. "After all, the knowledge is on site. The foreman has the best knowledge of when and where to assign a particular employee, notices that someone is missing more quickly than anyone else, and decides on the organization of employees and tasks immediately and independently."
Staff scheduling directly affects business profitability. The Manager who delegates the process elsewhere is effectively relinquishing an important control of the business and its profitability to another.
That doesn't mean to say the task cannot be delegated, but it does mean care must be taken as to where it is delegated because they will effectively be controlling the most expensive resource in the business.
Poorly coordinated staff is probably the single and greatest reason why staff become de-motivated and businesses performs poorly.
A more subtle delegation line is technology, made more attractive as it suggests less managerial involvement. Indeed this may be the case, but less does not mean best when it comes to management.
Self-rostering technology is one such example where scheduling is delegated to staff so they can ostensibly maximize their own working preferences.
In the UK National Health Service (NHS) a strong tradition of self-rostering has evolved, epitomized by statements such as:
"The system must produce a roster that allows individual preferences to be a primary consideration ."
Currently the primary consideration of the NHS is to reduce over $1.52B in debt and hence is set to reduce over 30,000 jobs to bring costs under control.
Even with the aid of a computer, scheduling without management skill will always fail the business.
Scheduling with management skill will succeed the business and good scheduling software will significantly increase the probability of that management success.
Scheduling software should augment management skills not replace them - anymore than spreadsheet software can replace financial skills.
Why We Need Flexible Working Arrangements
In the new world economy, many businesses are now global, perpetually open for business. Scheduling multiple teams of people across several operations can be daunting enough; add in flexible working arrangements and the task gets many times more complicated.
What workers, and most employers, want is balance; specifically, a work-life balance. A cynical view would say the employer wants more work, and the employee wants less work.
Simply stated it is the balance between work and life. The time one spends at work and the time spent not at work. The fact is that flexible working arrangements are something that good managers must deal with when defining their staff scheduling strategies.
The following are the main reasons why flexible working arrangements have become so popular.
Businesses are moving toward round the clock production
In recent years, there has been a veritable "explosion" in extended hours or 24 hour working as business seeks to provide their products or services in a global economy.
Even local businesses find they are part of the global distribution network. Traditional 9-5 Mon-Fri working with every weekend off is no longer the "norm" but just one arrangement out of many being worked.
Traditionally extended and 24 hour working was the working lot of the emergency services such as police, doctors, nurses and fire fighters. No longer.
Manufacturing and production lines have seen a level of automation and consumer demands that together means 24/7 production schedules or they go out of business.
Leisure and retail has not escaped and have extended hours to catch an ever increasing and mobile consumer who want services when they want and not when the supplier wants to deliver them.
Legislation to Protect Workers Rights
Where longer working hours become commonplace they also become a problem. Resisting the trend put many in fear, real or imaginary, of their jobs ready to be replaced by those willing to do the hours.
This has been considered good enough reason for legislators to pen working directives and labor laws both in Europe and the USA to protect the rights of individuals to a balanced work life.
There has been a strongly growing awareness about work life balance issues. Legislation is one of the more tangible responses by Governments of the day to endorse there is life in work, and life outside of work.
Across the globe, concern has grown about employee discrimination against employees having parenting and care responsibilities. Governments' recognizing the wider social implications has also led to legislation to ensure sufficient time is granted for such employees to have additional time off without fear of losing their jobs.
However, as employers fulfill these legal requirements they also become aware of the tension of staff that are not parents and end up working more unsocial hours.
Workplace Mobility Is Not Flexible Working
Increase in Part-time Working
Part-time working is on the increase. Parents who want to return to work, but not full-time. Older generation who are too young to retire, but don't need a full-time job.
This adds to the growing pool of labor that is not motivated solely by compensation or money. They want to work when they want to work.
This also includes "job sharing" where two people share one full-time job. This affects all industries, particularly where skills are in short demand and businesses need to "tap" into those skills.
Technology that enables workplace mobility
There is no doubt that technology is allowing people to be more mobile - especially to work at home.
The advantages often cited are a reduction in "dead" commuter time, work on email and telephone means business can be conducted just the same as if at a desk in the workplace, and a philosophy of "just give me a deadline and I will get it done" is the emerging work ethic.
It also allows employees with carer responsibility to still be a productive employee while arranging work around these responsibilities.
We do need to understand however that mobility is not work life balance, it is just working at a different place - it is still working.
Whereas work life balance is balancing the life spent at work (even at home) with the life not spent at work.
The group most benefiting mobility working appears to be executives and senior business managers because of the increased levels of communication they can access without being tied to the office.
Flexible working arrangements are about time not location. Confusion about mobility working can actually make things worse if an employee becomes permanently connected to their "work" to be called upon at anytime at anyplace.
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