12 Symptoms You May Not Know Are Connected

Business Leaders and Managers regularly scan the health of their organizations. Even the most well-run businesses are embedded in a complex eco-system, one with many influencing factors. Certain sub-optimal signals and symptoms may show up from time to time.  When this happens, managers first look for the root cause which is often buried among multiple signals across several value streams. If there are multiple issues, are they interrelated, or stand-alone? Are the stakeholders aligned or conflicted?  What is the best path towards discovery and resolution?

The list below is a collection of 12 symptoms pointing to scheduling, suggesting that perhaps the system is ripe for a shiftwork structure change:

  1. High absenteeism
  2. Stockpiles and shortfalls within a Value Chain
  3. A steady decline in product quality
  4. Low responsiveness to customer demands
  5. Instances of overstaffing and understaffing
  6. Increasing schedule dissatisfaction voiced by the workforce
  7. Poor quality employee engagement, especially with non-day shifts
  8. Overtime adversely affecting employee morale and productivity
  9. Difficulty in retaining new employees, especially on non-day shifts
  10. High employee turnover
  11. Lack of flexibility needed to respond to variable workload
  12. High FMLA

The list doesn’t end here. Further examples include poor communication between shifts and crews, rising safety issues, especially related to alertness or low maintenance accomplishment. 

If you have questions and want to find out if the symptoms in your organization point to a need to transform your current shiftwork structure, let our experts help to connect the dots.  Give us a call at (415) 858-8585 for a free consultation.