Author: Jim

What does the New Year Bring to a Tight Labor Market?

During our 30+years of cross-industry experience we have found that once unemployment drops below 6%, companies find it hard to staff adequately to meet production demands.  At the current 3.6% unemployment rate [1] a labor shortage is the single biggest production problem many companies are facing. For as many as eleven states, unemployment falls to between 2.3% and 2.9%.[2] What this means, is that almost everyone who wants a job has a job.  No wonder, if you ask any production or human resource manager: “What was the biggest challenge last year?” they will almost certainly give some version of “It’s becoming harder and harder to find employees in this ever-increasingly tight labor market.” They are most likely fighting this battle on two fronts:

(1) Getting quality employees to join their company

(2) Keeping those employees satisfied enough to keep them from leaving.

When it comes to attracting quality employees, the beginning of the year, however, represents an opportunity to jump-start your hiring efforts to hire quality employees ― without “poaching” from the company down the street.  According to the BLS, more than 600,000 temporary jobs were added for the holidays nationwide in 2018.  Most of these new hires were let go by February of 2019.  Given this seasonal pattern for the new year, we can expect that there are going to be a lot of people looking for work this January and February.  Keep this in mind as it may be a good idea to strike while the iron is hot. 

When it comes to keeping quality employees, it is always preferred to keep them rather than trying to constantly replace them.  When you slow down turnover, you immediately take a huge burden off of your recruiting and training efforts.

How to do that? Here are some insights for a shift work environment: 

  • Why Your 12-hour Schedule is More Attractive than You Think?
  • What is important about work-life balance?
  • What do you need to know about overtime?
  • 12 Unexpected Insights: do you know what you don’t know?
  • Why should you consider changing your shift schedule?

Our experts at Shiftwork Solutions have looked at the reasons why employees leave companies, such as inclusiveness, work-life balance. Their workforce survey is an integral part of their solutions which leads to happier employees who feel valued and are instrumental in delivering on growth targets.

Give us a call at (415) 858-8585 and talk to an expert for free.  We can help you to succeed.

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Footnotes:

[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), January 1, 2020

[2] Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) January 1, 2020

Have you Made Your Business Resolutions Yet?

If you want happier employees this year, you may consider doing some things differently than last year. Otherwise, if you do what you did, you’ll get what you got. Employee engagement, better-work life balance, and improved communication might be at the top of the wish list. But what comes after establishing these resolutions? How to execute on those? You may start collecting a set of SMART goals1 that support the resolutions the best. However, before starting to jot down your goals for the year, let us borrow James Clear’s thoughts on goal setting. Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, claims that “goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress. Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually, a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference.” 2  

An example: if you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book by a certain date. Your system is the daily writing schedule you follow. Committing to writing a blog every day is a process that makes a writer confident (s)he is going to get to his/her ultimate goal of publishing the book.

It is also true for a shift work operation. Goals are useful and needed for setting a direction, but you need a system in place to make progress. Deploying a vetted, transformed shift work system is the way to achieve many of the high priority goals.  Changes in the outcome require changes in the process.

If some indicators have revealed that workforce and schedule related changes are needed for your business success, you might be ready to implement some change. A well-designed, transformed shift work system will ensure that the desired changes happen, and your resolutions come true. It will support numerous underlying goals, which include:

  1. Reduce employee turnover
  2. Improve overtime distribution policies
  3. Reduced absenteeism
  4. Increase employee involvement
  5. Improve work-life balance
  6. Eliminate unnecessary labor costs
  7. Improve communication with the workforce
  8. Adjust supervision: optimal direct-reports ratio
  9. Increase time for maintenance
  10. Fully staff all non-day shift positions
  11. Improve shift turnovers
  12. Identify workplace issues that employees find problematic
  13. Solve staffing needs for a seasonal workload
  14. Maximize productive time per line
  15. Maximize employee schedule satisfaction
  16. Build training time into the employee work schedule
  17. Implement interactive electronic employee schedule management system
  18. Increase schedule flexibility
  19. Improve technical support for non-day shift operations
  20. Increase workforce involvement in problem-solving exercises

That is how the right schedule in place can bring about happier employees. Side effects may include improved responsiveness to customer demands, an increase in revenues, a good grip on overtime, product quality improvements, and more effective communication with the workforce and within teams.  

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If you have questions or want to find out more, contact our team.  Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585 to discuss your operations and how we can help you achieve your goals. You can also complete our contact form and we will call you.

Shiftwork Solutions’ Consulting Services creates a shift operation framework that enables business operations leaders to increase production and attract a skilled workforce into a custom-designed schedule. Our experts bring in best practices from wide-ranging industries with complex operations to tailor solutions for specific operational needs. Our data-driven processes, communication centered approach and project execution bring about the changes needed to improve business operations and production output, and reduce per-unit costs, while workers feel empowered to help the organization achieve its goals.

Footnotes:

1. SMART ― specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.

2. James Clear on goal setting https://jamesclear.com/goal-setting

12 unexpected insights ―When it comes to shiftwork, do you know what you don’t know?

All companies are unique. We found this to be true while working with hundreds of organizations across multiple industries. However, commonalities do exist. The following 12 insights tend to be universally true in a broad sense. Interestingly, some of these insights may run counter to your intuition. There are always variances, exceptions to the rule; nonetheless, in general, you can count on the following:

  1. There is a predictable portion of your workforce that wants all of the overtime they can get.  There is an equally predictable portion that never wants to work a single minute of overtime.
  2. When going to a 24/7 schedule, the number of employees that say they will quit is an order of magnitude greater than those that actually end up doing so.
  3. Changing schedules around the holiday season is problematic, as your workforce has already made plans based on their current schedule. There are three “best times” to implement a schedule change.  (Can you guess which ones they are?)
  4. Differences across industries and geographical locations play a surprisingly small role in employee preferences. A chemical plant operator in West Virginia wants the same features in a shift-schedule as an underground coalminer in Australia.
  5. What day shift people want in a schedule is different from what night shift people want. 
  6. As shift workers age, they don’t want to move away from 12-hour shifts.  However, they do want to work fewer days in a row.
  7. Poor communications are the most cited problem that shift workers have with their company.  The rate of pay is a distant second.
  8. Allowing employees to nap during lunch can have a major positive impact on their alertness for the rest of their shift.
  9. Fear of the unknown is the single biggest obstacle to changing shift schedules.
  10. Shift workers don’t like to be told what to do. On the other hand, employee engagement creates ownership of a new schedule.
  11. Maintenance accomplishment goes up on a 24/7 schedule since maintenance is no longer tasked with fixing everything on Sunday ― when everything is idle.
  12. The right balance between hourly workers and supervision plays a major role in employee satisfaction.

Use our industry-wide expertise when evaluating and changing your shiftwork structure.  Give us a call at (415) 858-8585 for a free expert consultation about your situation.

12 most frequently asked questions from business leaders before undergoing a schedule change

Once Operations and Human Resource Managers realize that some pain points may have a common root-cause, they may put their heads together and come to an agreement – their shift schedule may be causing many of their biggest problems.  Some proactive steps must be taken. As an exploration gets underway, questions arise from seemingly every direction. These questions should be embraced. And, there are numerous questions that must be addressed.  Failure to do so doesn’t make the change process easier; it dooms it to failure or, at the very least, sub-par performance. Here is a sampling of some of the most common questions companies have when they start looking into a schedule change:

  1. How many people will leave if we change schedules? ― your guess is probably higher than reality.
  2. What will the new schedule look like? ― shift length, pattern, staffing all to be considered.
  3. How much overtime should we be using?  ― understanding the right level for our workforce and the cost implications.
  4. We are competing with companies that are all doing the same things we are doing to attract employees.  How can we attract and retain quality employees in a tight labor market?  How can we set ourselves apart?
  5. What can we change about our schedule to lower employee turnover? Is there a schedule that makes people want to stay with a given company?  ― employee participation is key to answering this question.
  6. When is the best time to implement a new schedule?  ― the timing can influence the success of the change process.
  7. What policies need to be adjusted to accommodate a 12-hour schedule? ― holidays, vacations and industry standards are part of the answer.
  8. What is the difference between a young workforce and an older workforce? ― understanding the implications of employee demographics is important.
  9. Should we be using Temporary or Part-Time workers in certain areas?  ― labor costs are important but so is productivity. 
  10. How do we staff and schedule for a variable workload? ― options should include overtime, temporary labor, and complementary/discretionary work.
  11. How do I not disturb the workforce by such a change when implementing change inherently disturbing? ― start with employee engagement.
  12. How do I manage a complex and overwhelming change process successfully?

How you answer these questions and dozens of others will be sure to come up.  This is where Shiftwork Solutions comes in.  Our experts and recognized change leaders have 60 combined years of shiftwork consulting experience, helping business leaders to capture market share, increase profits while attracting and retaining a quality workforce.  We can work with you to create a schedule that promotes your goals. Give us a call at (415) 858-8585 and talk to an expert for free.  We can help you to succeed.

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.

Seasonal and Unbalanced Scheduling: A Case Study

Operation Managers and Human Resource Managers know that if your workload has seasonality, then you need a plan to deal with it.  Maybe your strategy is to maximize gains or maybe its to minimize lost opportunities.  Whatever your priority is, we can help you develop a staffing and scheduling strategy to achieve it.

The case study below is just one of the dozens of sites that we have worked with to help with their seasonality.  

The situation:

  • A distribution center with 350 employees
  • Last year they ran 38 Saturdays
  • Highly seasonal with 3 months having no weekend work
  • Local unemployment is around 3%
  • The workload is dictated by upstream sources outside of the distribution center’s control
  • The lack of predictability coupled with few days off was resulting in high attrition
  • High turnover and high training requirement resulted in a dramatic drop in productivity causing more overtime

What we did:

  • Evaluated the “shape” of the workload; identifying where in time the work took place.
  • Evaluated the cost of labor: straight time, overtime, temporary workers and part-time workers
  • Involved the workforce through a series of surveys
  • Educated the workforce about different schedule solutions to their current situation.

What we found:

  • The workload that fell on Saturdays could be split between Saturdays and Sundays without penalty
  • The workforce consisted of:
    1. Those that never wanted to work overtime
    2. Those that loved overtime
    3. Those that wanted a 12-hour schedule for more days off

What we implemented:

  • 30% of the workforce went to a 7-day, 12-hour schedule
  • The 12-hour schedule paid more and had 78 more annual days off
  • The 12-hour schedule workers were guaranteed that their schedule weekends off would be off
  • 70% of the workforce stayed on a 5-day schedule.
  • The combination of schedules coupled with the staffing levels left enough weekend overtime for those that still wanted it while dramatically lowering overtime that was assigned to those that didn’t want it.

In the end, the people that wanted more predictability got it.  Those that wanted more days off, got it.  Those that wanted their weekends off, got it.  Those that wanted a lot of overtime, got it.

Call Us and We Can Help you develop a staffing and scheduling strategy to accommodate your seasonality.

Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585 to discuss your operations and how we can help you solve your shift work problems. You can also complete our contact form and we will call you.

Shiftwork Solutions Survey System

Shiftwork Solutions uses surveys to engage the workforce as well as to find out what is really going on from their perspective. This process facilitates the identification and implementation of the ideal shift schedule solution.

If you are like most successful companies, you have made Employee Engagement a top priority.  You have a participative environment that invites the workforce to share in the creation and therefore, ownership of solutions to operational issues and problems.

Then, one day along comes the need to look at your shift schedule.  Perhaps you are running too much overtime, or you are out of capacity.  Maybe your product flow is not optimized, or your employees are dissatisfied with the current schedule.  For whatever reason, you come to the point in time where there is a need to consider changing your shiftwork structure.

Many companies find that changing shift schedules generates a surprisingly visceral response from their employees.  There is a reason for this; an important reason.  Shift workers don’t judge a schedule by the hours it makes them work.  They judge a schedule by the hours it DOESN’T make them work.  In other words, their schedule tells them how they can structure their lives outside of the workplace.

If you change a schedule, you are changing the lifestyle of your employees. This makes it personal.

With a change like this, standard practices can become stretched or even non-functional.  Employee Engagement practices that worked before are now viewed through skeptical eyes.

Shiftwork Solutions has helped hundreds of companies and their employees through this time of high anxiety. We have created a solution, a Survey System, which helps overcome disruptions of this kind.  This is an Employee Engagement Tool with quantifiable results.

Our surveys are administered online and can be accessed through a computer or an employee’s cell phone.  Introductory and explanatory videos are part of every survey.

Edward Deming famously said, “In God we trust; all others bring data.”

The Shiftwork Solutions Survey System consists of three separate surveys; each sequential one building on the results of the previous surveys. The surveys themselves are designed to find out what the workforce is looking for with regards to a work-life balance.  How much overtime do they want?  What types of patterns do they prefer?  What is their favorite shift to work?  The surveys also find out about attitudes towards the company as well as how they are dealing with alertness and sleep issues. The data collected by the survey system allows us to drill down to the important issues as well as identify hot spots.  Results are tabulated in different ways, including (1) By shift, (2) By length of service, (3) By department and (4) By current shift assignment.

The administration of the surveys includes comprehensive communications with the workforce.  We make sure that everyone is well informed.  They will know what is going on, why things are happening, when things are happening and, most importantly, what level of input is needed from the workforce. Remember, the schedule is about their quality of life away from work.  If you want to know what that looks like, you need to ask.

Why are the surveys important?

Beyond the fact that they get the workforce involved, they allow us to create a shiftwork structure that meets their needs.  Beyond that, the surveys also help find solution best supporting your strategic business direction.

The Shiftwork Solutions Survey System, administered by our shiftwork experts, is what you need to keep your employees focused and engaged as you work through a major change in your shift schedule.

Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585 to discuss how our survey system can help you find the key to satisfying your employees’ work-life balance needs while, at the same time, achieving your business goals.

Why Your 12-hour Schedule is More Attractive than You Think

If you are a Human Resources Manager, then you are well aware of the difficulty in finding quality employees in today’s tight labor market.  You and everyone else in your local area are competing for an ever-shrinking pool of potential employees.  You have a 12-hour schedule and, at first glance, this seems to be putting off new hires before they even start.

If this is true for you, then you may find yourself asking, “Maybe an 8-hour schedule would be better for attracting employees.  Should I try that?”

The answer to this comes from recognizing your audience and the motives of those you are trying to recruit. You might be on a winning track if your offering, is based on the appreciation for your candidate’s goals and showcases the values and benefits of a 12-hour schedule in comparison to an alternative employer and schedule that your candidate may be considering.  Often you will find that your 12-hour schedules are just not “packaged” right in order to make the point that you are the better offer.

Let’s take an example.

The facility across the street is offering an 8-hour day shift with every weekend off.  They are also advertising “No overtime!”  The final nail in the coffin is that they are offering 10% more per hour than you are.

How can you compete? You could point out:

  • the great healthcare plan you have, but if your potential employees are young enough, they are on their parent’s plan.
  • the great retirement benefits but again, younger employees will see retirement as a very distant issue. They want more immediate compensation.

This may feel hopeless but in reality, you may be holding the winning hand; that is if you can get the right message out. Try this instead:

  • “Our schedule has the same annual pay as the company across the street.” You can say this because a 12-hour schedule averages 44 pay hours a week instead of 40 (like the schedule across the street).  The extra pay hours make up for the lower rate of pay.
  • “We don’t have mandatory overtime, but we do offer overtime to those that want it.”  This will appeal to those that don’t want overtime as well as those that do.  The ability to work a lot of overtime is a big attractor for at least 20% of your potential new employees.  Point out how much more money this is. “This can add as much as $XXXXX on an annual basis.”  Remember, they may have a 10% higher wage across the street but overtime pays 50% more!
  • “Our schedule has 78 more days off than the schedule across the street.”  This is a key benefit of 12-hour shifts.  Yes, the days are longer but 78 more days off is very, very attractive.
  • “We offer a 10% shift differential for those that work on the Night shift.”  If your shift differential is not this high, then consider changing it.  10% is the minimum rate it takes to attract people to non-day shifts.
  • “You can use 24 hours of vacation and get a week off.”  This will depend on the schedule pattern, however, a better vacation using fewer hours is a lesser-known benefit of 12-hour shifts.

Depending on the specific 12-hour schedule that you are using, there can be several other benefits that might help you appeal to potential new employees.

Let us help you design a shift schedule that makes you the employer of choice.  We can transform your work environment.  Our employee engagement process ensures maximum support from your workforce.

Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585 to discuss your operations and how we can help you solve your shift work problems. You can also complete our contact form and we will call you.

 

When should your shifts start?

As a Plant Manager or Human Resources Manager, in a shiftwork operation, you’ve certainly heard “Everyone that I know wants to start the shifts at such-and-such a time.”  You hear this but the question is – What do you do about it?

Should you survey the workforce and let them choose?  Do you have your own idea that possibly is soundly based on a certain business needs?  Can you have multiple shift times?  Can you try one time and then a different time and see which people like best?

This can be a complicated issue.  It can also have a profound impact on how your workforce views their workplace.  If you “impose” a start time then expect to hear a lot of “What we want doesn’t matter.”  If you leave it up to them, then be ready for them to choose something outside of your comfort zone as a manager.

I would like to make two simple points with this blog.  

The first point is, it is always a good idea to look for ways that the workforce can control their work environment.  Letting them choose something as small as a start time for their shift says, “We, as a company, believe that you know best what start time works for you.  You pick it and we’ll support it.”  This is a great message.

The second point is to make sure that you will be okay with what they choose.  This is true with start times or lunch menus or whatever you want them to pick.  

My rule of thumb on start times is that the Day shift shouldn’t start any earlier than 6:00 am.  If you think this is a good idea (read below) then you would make that a condition when you let them pick a start time.

So, what’s wrong with starting before 6:00 am?  Most 8-hour operations have the day shift start between 6:00 am and 7:00 am. The afternoon shift would start 8 hours later; the night shift, 8 hours earlier. For 12-hour shifts, employee preferences for start times tend to be about 30 minutes earlier than their preferences for 8-hour shifts. So, if you are on an 8-hour schedule that has a day shift that starts at 6:30 am, expect the workforce to want a 6:00 am start time for 12-hour shifts.

Our research has shown that employees starting at 6:00 am get about 20 minutes less sleep per night than those starting at 7:00 am. Before you run out and change your schedule, consider the following: (1) shift workers are typically locked into whatever start time you currently have. They will resist change. (2) The later the day shift starts, the later the night shift gets off. This is the trade-off. Ideally, a night shift would end early enough to allow the night shift to get home before the sun comes out. This means getting off earlier rather than later.

Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585.

Overtime: A Grab-Bag of Information

If you manage a shiftwork operation or if you are a Human Resource manager in a shiftwork operation or if you are a shift worker then – Overtime is a big deal

Based on my 30 years of experience working with shift workers and shiftwork operations, I consider myself to be an overtime expert.  I have worked with companies around the world for more than 25 years helping them address staffing and scheduling issues, most of which have some level of overtime as a component of the overall situation.

I thought I would try to put all of these issues into a single blog along with my own perspective.  Wish me luck…

  1. An hour of straight time (fully loaded) costs a company about the same as an hour of overtime paid at the rate of time and one-half.
  2. About 20% of people love overtime.  About 20% of people hate overtime.  About 60% of people will work their “fair share”.
  3. When it comes to overtime, the “marginal propensity to save” is always less than one (1).  What this means is that people don’t save 100% of their overtime income.  This also means that they up their standard of living when they spend overtime income (even if this means they only bought an extra candy bar).
  4. As people adjust their standard of living, they become “addicted” to the overtime.
  5. Consistent high levels of overtime extending beyond 6 months in a row will result in “Golden Handcuffs.”  This is a phenomenon where people will complain about too much overtime ruining their family lives AND complain if overtime hours are cut because they can no longer afford to make a car or house payment.
  6. Overtime at union sites is a particularly tough problem.  Senior employees get the prime overtime during the week and the junior employees end up working the undesirable weekend overtime  The result is a high turnover of new employees who tire from never having a day off.   I typically recommend that senior people get first shot at overtime up to a certain level (56-60 hours in a week) before they go to the bottom of the volunteer list.  I also typically recommend that junior employees are the first to be forced to work overtime up to a certain level (56 -60 hours in a week) before they go to the bottom of the forced list.  This recognizes seniority while keeping people from “voluntarily” working themselves to death while, at the same time, giving the junior people time off to recuperate every week.
  7. If your workload is flat (does not change by the week, or month or season) then a good target for overtime is between 5% and 15%.
  8. If your workload is highly variable, the optimal level of overtime (considering both cost and fatigue) may be much higher than 15%.
  9. Too much overtime is less of a problem than too many days of work in a row.  We short ourselves sleep on days we work.  The more days in a row we work, the farther we fall behind in our sleep.  We need days off to catch up on our sleep.  In other words, it’s better to work four 12-hour shifts in a week than to work six 8-hour shifts.  Both have 48 hours but the 12’s have 3 times as many days off for recovery.
  10. If a machine paces the work, then moderate levels of overtime will not have an impact on productivity.
  11. If people determine the pace of work, more overtime will cause the people to slow down, even if it is unintentional.
  12. Overtime at high levels will cause drops in productivity, safety, quality, and retention.
  13. When assigning overtime, do so as far in advance as possible to minimize the disruption to the plans your workforce may make outside of the work environment.
  14. If your overtime level is zero, you are not “perfectly” staffed.  You are over-staffed.
  15. The accident rate per hour should be expected to go up between the 12th and the 14th hour worked in a day.
  16. Overtime does not make people sleepy.  Lack of sleep makes people sleepy.  Circadian rhythms also play a role in alertness.
  17. Overtime allows a company to compete for labor with other companies that may pay higher hourly rates but offer very low overtime amounts.
  18. When people work outside of their normal schedule, pay them a premium.  They are helping you on time that was originally considered to be their own.
  19. Straight time is typically purchased in 40 hour/week increments when you hire someone.
  20. Overtime hours can be purchased in any quantity you wish.  Even though it costs the same as straight time, you are actually getting a fully qualified person as opposed to hiring and training someone to provide more hours.
  21. All employees want overtime when they want it and they don’t want it when they don’t want it.  Go figure.

I welcome your questions and feedback.  If you disagree with me, first ask yourself, “Is my perspective different from the one Jim was using when he wrote these?”  I say this because I can easily find unique situations where each of the above is not true.
Call Us and We Can Help

Call or text us today at (415) 858-8585 to discuss your operations and how we can help turn overtime into an asset that your workforce appreciates. You can also complete our contact form and we will call you.