human resources – Page 7

November 17, 2020

Retaliation under the FFCRA is as illegal as is retaliation under any other employment statute

MaryJo Delaney is suing her former employer after it demoted her from her management position following her return from a COVID-related layoff, for which she had volunteered so that she could stay at home with her 9-year-old son whose school was closed.

When her governor locked down the state early in the pandemic, her employer remained open as an essential business. It offered a voluntary layoff to anyone who wished to avoid the risk of contracting the virus. Delaney chose that option to care for her son.

She returned to work in May when the company recalled all laid-off employees. She requested to work limited hours, again because of her need to care for her son, but was told that reduced hours would result in a demotion. Instead, her employer permitted her to shift her hours to account for her child-care needs.

According to her complaint, however, her employer started to “overly scrutinize and nitpick [her] work performance and subject[ed] [her] to unfair criticism” upon her return to work. That criticism led to her demotion, which led to her resignation, which led to her lawsuit claiming violations of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

If your business has fewer than 500 employees, your employees have a right under the FFCRA to take leave to care for their child(ren) whose school is closed or whose childcare provider is otherwise unavailable because of COVID-19. If you interfere with that right or retaliate against an employee who takes such leave, you are violating the FFCRA.

That said, an employer isn’t powerless in this situation.

You can offer remote work for employees who can perform their jobs away from the workplace. If you make remote work available, an employee does not qualify for FFCRA leave.
You can offer a flexible work schedule to allow an employee to flex his or her hours around their childcare-related needs, which would also obviate an employee’s right to FFCRA leave.
If you have fewer than 50 employees, you might qualify for the small-business exception to the FFCRA’s childcare-leave provisions and may not have to offer such leave at all.

What you cannot do, however, is outright deny leave if an employee qualifies or retaliate against an employee who takes such leave. That’s illegal and will get you sued. Take heed, because as COVID number skyrocket, if this isn’t an issue with which you’ve had to deal, it’s more than likely that you will and soon.

November 16, 2020June 29, 2023

The 11th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020 is … the horrific human traffickers

Today’s nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020 is beyond description. NBC Bay Area provides the details:

A Gilroy (CA) couple has been charged with human trafficking after forcing a man to work 15-hour shifts seven days a week for no pay at their liquor store and then locking him inside the store overnight, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said Monday.

The victim slept in a storage room and bathed in a mop bucket, authorities said.

Amarjit and Balwinder Mann, both 66, allegedly threatened the victim with deportation if he reported them to law enforcement. The Manns have been charged with felony human trafficking, witness intimidation and wage theft involving four victims, the DA’s office said. They face prison time if convicted.…

The victim had flown from India in 2019 expecting to travel to the U.S. with the couple. Instead, the Manns took his money and passport and put him to work without pay or a key to leave the store at night, investigators said.

You’d think I’d be numb to these atrocities by this point, but this level of cruelty just leaves me speechless.

Voting for this year’s Worst Employer will open on Dec. 1. This year, however, we will have two categories and two winners—The Worst Employer of 2020, and the Worst COVID Employer of 2020. Please come back then to make sure to cast your ballot.

November 14, 2020June 29, 2023

VF Corp. invests in empathy and resources for working parents

Challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected most people in the workforce in one way or another.

Working parents have not only coped with their own retooled job responsibilities as many of them adjust to working from home, but in many cases they have also added daycare worker and classroom instructor to their resumes.

New research from Microsoft Corp. revealed that 54 percent of parents reported that it’s been difficult balancing household and professional demands while working from home. And according to a recent WalletHub study, 54 percent of parents with young children at home don’t think they are being more productive at home than they are in the office.

VF Corp., a Denver-based publicly traded global company of 50,000 employees, realized the plight facing many of their workers as summer was ending and as parents faced the specter of another school year of distance learning for their children. Leadership of the apparel and footwear company, whose brands include The North Face, Vans and Dickies, quickly prioritized providing educational resources to alleviate the extra pressure and stress that working parents whose children would be learning remotely may be experiencing. The pandemic created significant uncertainty and posed new challenges for everyone, said Anita Graham, executive vice president, chief human resources officer and public affairs at VF Corp.

“Through conversations with associates and responses to our employee surveys, we knew that many of our associates were struggling with balancing work and the responsibilities of caring for their families,” she said.

Technology partnerships ease remote learning

One program, Laptops for Learning, provided more than 500 reconditioned laptops at no cost to eligible U.S.-based employees at VF Corp.’s distribution centers, retail stores and customer service centers, providing children with the technology necessary to participate in distance learning. The organization also implemented Rethink, a resource for parents with special needs children, Graham said. Another initiative, Guidance Now, provides employees with access to tutoring support and free access to SitterCity to help identify baby-sitting resources that could serve as a substitute for traditional child care.

Case study: PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

“We believe that a good education is a critical and significant stressor for parents, and we wanted to help alleviate the added stress,” she said. “Virtual learning has posed challenges that working parents haven’t previously encountered. How do associates keep their children engaged in virtual school while also doing their own work? How do they afford reliable technology needed for virtual learning? The laptop program emerged from this need.”

A boost for those needing elder care

VF Corp. also amped up its communications so that employees were aware of resources such as telehealth and the benefits available through a partnership with Bright Horizons, which provides backup child care as well as elder-care support.

“The coronavirus pandemic has been particularly impactful on older communities,” Graham said. “Adult children have had to take on more responsibilities for their elder parents, from running errands to providing full-time care. Our partnership with Bright Horizons has provided help to those employees who are providing elder care.”

Through the partnership, employees can take an online needs assessment, find information on selecting elder care resources, and utilize a search tool for finding and evaluating care providers, Graham said.

Moving to flex schedules and remote work

The pandemic has tested organizations’ agility to adjust to new ways of living and working. VF Corp. recognized early in the pandemic that it would need to introduce new programs and resources to keep morale up and employees engaged. Placing emotional and physical well-being at the forefront, they partnered with employee assistance program provider ComPsych to offer emotional well-being webinars to equip employees with the tools to keep themselves mentally healthy.

They also implemented new schedules and training programs to help employees put themselves first. Understanding that working from home poses child- and elder-care challenges, VFCorp. encouraged employees to rethink the traditional workday and create a flexible schedule that works best for them and their families.

Case study: COVID-19 causes Radial Inc.’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

“The flexible scheduling program is an initiative we introduced at the start of the pandemic as a result of the stressors we were hearing from employees,” Graham said. “An employee can work with their manager to develop a schedule that allows them to take afternoons off to take care of children before resuming work in the evening.”

Considering that within the United States 70 percent of VF Corp. employees are hourly, 17 percent are salaried and 13 percent are contingent workers, Graham said they are sympathetic to accommodate employee needs while maintaining organizational operations.

“We have a wealth of initiatives and programs available to all our employees, no matter their role, location or level,” she said. “However, we do recognize that there are different needs across the enterprise, so we have developed unique programs for employees in retail stores and distribution centers.”

Remote work into the future

Rather than declare an “at least until” date, VF Corp. intends to remain flexible as a permanent approach and launched a future of work workstream called “Workplace Next” to define their vision for how they work in the future. The outcomes will be shared with employees in early 2021, Graham said.

Placing the needs of employees at the forefront of their actions is crucial to VF Corp. successfully navigating the pandemic, she said. It’s important to listen and it’s OK to over-communicate, she added.

“By listening to our people and taking action, we have been able to successfully keep morale high and our employees engaged and ultimately meet our consumers’ needs, and we’ll continue to listen to them to understand how we can help support them moving forward as our world continues to change.”

Whether you have 10 or 10,000 staff, building schedules is easier and faster with Workforce.com’s scheduling platform. Optimize and automate your complex scheduling patterns and provide peace of mind and know that you are in compliance.

November 11, 2020

Working in an office instead of working from home doubles the risk of contracting COVID-19

coronavirus, remote work, COVID-19, remote workforce

You are literally making COVID-19 worse if you are refusing to permit employees to work from home.

According to a recently published CDC study, employees who work in an office setting are nearly twice as likely to contract COVID-19 than employees who work from home.

ABC News summarizes the study’s methodology and findings:

Researchers interviewed roughly 310 people who took a COVID-19 test in July, about half of whom tested positive, and compared them to a control group of people who tested negative. The majority of both groups, all adults, held full-time, non-essential jobs outside of critical infrastructure and had similar community exposure to COVID-19 independent of work.

The groups had some differences in behavior: Only a third of the COVID-19 group reported working from home or teleworking at least part of the time before their diagnosis, while half of the control group participants reported at least sometimes working remotely. In the two weeks prior to getting sick, members of the COVID-19 group were more likely to report that they exclusively went to the office or to school than control group members were. Researchers also found an association between going to the office regularly and attending church or religious gatherings.

What does this data tell us? In the words of the CDC, “Businesses and employers should promote alternative work site options, such as teleworking, where possible, to reduce exposures.”

Unless you absolutely need employees to perform their work from your workplace, let them work from home. COVID numbers are not getting any better.

In fact, they are getting exponentially worse and are predicted to continue to do so until plateauing as late as January or even February. We all have a role to play in stopping the spread of this deadly virus.

Allowing employees who are able to work remotely to do so is just about the least you can do.

October 28, 2020

The 10th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020 is … the whistleblower whacker

The Society for Human Resource Management describes itself as “the foremost expert, convener, and thought leader on issues impacting today’s evolving workplaces.” Physician, heal thyself!

According to a recent lawsuit filed against SHRM (as reported by The New Yorker), SHRM may have a huge whistleblower retaliation problem on its hands.

Here are the key allegations, which SHRM denies:

Bailey Yeager, a former director-level employee with a history of glowing performance reviews and promotions, expressed concern when the organization asked her in May for feedback about its proposal to return employees to the office after two months of working from home.
Expressing concern about potentially infecting her two daughters, she requested that she be allowed to continue working remotely “until returning to work is both more widespread regionally and there is a decline in the metrics regarding cases/hospitalizations.”
She also asked to see SHRM’s plans for reopening safely.
Two weeks later she, along with three other employees who had expressed similar concerns (including two with pre-existing medical conditions), were fired.
According to her OSHA complaint, SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. held a conference call during which he outlined plans to “outsource” job functions in departments in which employees had expressed resistance to returning to work in person.
Yeager’s complaint also alleges that Taylor bragged that he had spoken to his friend Eugene Scalia, the Secretary of Labor, and that an OSHA representative contacted Yeager to implore her to withdraw her complaint. (To be fair, it unclear if there is any nexus between Taylor’s call to Secretary Scalia and OSHA’s call to Yeager, but it is definitely implied in her complaint).

If you fire employees who reportedly dare ask for the ability to continue working from home, and potentially wield your influence with the federal government in an attempt to leverage the dismissal of the resulting lawsuit, while at the same time holding yourself out as the “foremost expert on issues impacting today’s evolving workplaces,” you might be the worst employer of 2020.

October 14, 2020June 29, 2023

COVID-19 causes Radial Inc.’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

seasonal hires, distribution center, COVID-19, fulfillment center

It’s a common headline this time of year: Retailers and distribution centers staff up as holiday shoppers begin their quest for the perfect gift.

While the news is a huge relief, particularly during a time of record unemployment, 2020 brings new challenges for companies that sell and ship sought-after holiday gifts like Fingerlings, ugly sweaters and smart gardens (yes, it’s a thing) across the country. Recruiting and training tens of thousands of new employees is one thing; doing so in the midst of a pandemic is compounded with an extreme new level of health and safety risks.

Radial Inc., which provides multinational e-commerce services to retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Keurig and GameStop, announced in September it is adding 25,000 seasonal employees to its fulfillment and call centers this holiday season. The Pennsylvania-based company emphasized the safety measures it is implementing in its 20 distribution centers and eight call centers, five of which are in North America.

“The executive team has been proactive about addressing COVID-19 safety concerns since the very beginning of the pandemic,” said Eric Wohl, Radial’s chief human resources officer and senior vice president. “We’ve revamped processes and procedures and researched and tested numerous types of emerging technologies to enforce social distancing and maximize safety.”

Since the annual holiday shopping crush comes as a surprise to exactly no one in the retail industry, Radial is skilled at scaling its workforces four to five times the normal size every peak season to handle the increased demand in e-commerce.

“We expected that there would be even more e-commerce demand this holiday season as the impact of COVID-19 has made shoppers more comfortable buying online,” Wohl said. “We developed hiring projections and safety protocols to account for that going back to the second quarter.”

Wohl said that all seasonal employees being hired for the holidays are hourly workers. Of the current Radial employees, the hourly population represents around 75 percent of its workforce. Including the seasonal staff already onboard, hourly workers account for over 85 percent of all workers at Radial. In peak season, that percentage is even higher, he added.

Implementing mobile tech on a large scale

Technology is aiding Radial’s safety measures for current employees and new hires. Radial has thermal temperature devices and Instant-Trace Contact Badges, Wohl said. The badges utilize Ultra-Wideband technology for proximity measurement to help enforce social distancing requirements by alerting the wearer if someone else is within six feet.

“As we scale for peak season, these technologies are incredibly valuable to ensure safety procedures are carried out in traditionally high-traffic areas, such as training groups,” he said.

Also read: Labor analytics add power to workforce management tools

Enhanced robotics in distribution centers utilizes autonomous mobile technology to assist employees who are packing and shipping orders as they comply with socially distanced headcount capacities and reduce interaction with one another, Wohl said.

Visual camera projection systems at certain sites are also helping onboard new hires with mobile training stations that optimize training layouts and processes to ensure safety. Wearable microphones and speakers also help workers more easily hear their managers across the warehouse while remaining socially distant, he said.

Creating virtual call centers

Call center employees have transitioned to a largely remote workforce, Wohl said.

“Radial is offering more work from home positions than ever before and moved to proactively transition the majority of our team to home in March and April,” he said. “We are looking to have 50 to 70 percent of our customer care workforce work remotely this holiday season, which is over 2,500 employees nationwide.”

Radial also has implemented changes to the interview and training process for call center employees, including virtual formats to reduce the need and number of seasonal workers in previously onsite-only training classes.

Training for COVID-19 and the holiday rush

Still, training 25,000 new hires not only in how to do their new jobs but also in how to act in a COVID-19 work environment can be a challenge. Wohl said that starting with the interview process, they have worked closely with staffing companies to provide low-contact, socially distant interviews at agency offices, drive-through job fairs and other interview formats.

“We have also invested in socially distant interviews and virtual training so customer care and fulfillment workers are set up for success on the job,” he said. “Each site has the resources to ensure socially distanced training of new-hire groups through several voice and visual training projection solutions for trainers, along with Instant-Trace badges.”

Distribution and call centers have their own dedicated training teams for seasonal and full-time employees, he said, retooling their entire process and technology platforms to manage COVID-19 impacts.

Case study: PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

Radial’s human resources department, which consists of 47 employees as well as 13 employees on the HR Partner team, also has played a pivotal support role ensuring that training teams and new hires have what they need to be successful, Wohl said.

“We conduct regular assessments of training and onboarding effectiveness for continuous improvement and partner with our training teams to share best practices and collaborate on program development,” he said.

Support for all employees

Everyone has a role to play in slowing the spread by following basic precautions and looking out for one another, Wohl said. Radial has assigned a social-distance champion at distribution centers who regularly monitors the facility to help remedy problems through coaching or procedural changes.

“We’re also continuing to find ways to adapt perks to boost morale and in ways that fit in with today’s new circumstances including flexible work schedules and enhanced support for employees dealing with the impacts of COVID personally or within their family,” he said. Boosting morale also is important, he said. Trivia contests, raffles, quarterly awards and dress-up days have helped, he said.

“We try and maintain a family-like environment in all our sites and teams,” he said. “We listen to our employees. We ask for regular feedback on how we are doing to support their needs during COVID and adjust our plans when we can.”

Retailers still must hire seasonal workers to help ramp up for the holiday season. Data shows that despite the impact of COVID-19, shoppers won’t significantly change their holiday spending compared to 2019. With this high level of activity in mind, employee health and safety must be the top priority for every retailer right now, Wohl said.

“If they can’t keep their employees safe, they can’t deliver on their promises to customers,” he said. “Fulfillment and customer care centers are where the behind-the-scenes holiday magic happens. Dedicated employees are behind every package, phone call or text.

“For retailers to meet their holiday goals and make sure packages arrive on time, safety needs to be the mantra at every single store, warehouse, customer care center and delivery center.”

Whether you have 10 or 10,000 employees on staff, make building schedules an easier and faster process with Workforce.com’s scheduling app. You can optimize staffing levels, forecast wages and manage shifts with ease.

October 7, 2020June 29, 2023

COVID-19 contact tracing goes mobile to keep BNBuilders employees on the job

Mobile technology continues to help remodel the construction industry.

From drones snapping aerial photos to safety improvements to employee clock ins, construction sites have become far more efficient in their day-to-day operations in part because of mobile technology.

Few construction executives, however, could have predicted that mobile technology would play such an important role as COVID-19 disrupted job sites across the nation. Employee safety was the primary concern for construction company BNBuilders. And Shawn Namdar, solutions engineer for the Seattle-based company, was deeply involved in creating a novel form of mobile technology that allowed his employer to keep people safe on the job.

Also read: Time and attendance management implementation is about more than just punching a clock

“When the initial lockdown went into effect in March, a small subset of our jobs and workers were categorized as essential, so we needed to determine a set of procedures for keeping them open and active while maintaining social distance and the recommended health checks,” Namdar said.

Contact tracing mobile solution

Contact tracing presented a particularly difficult prospect to monitor, Namdar added. BNBuilders executives realized they needed a process to document people on location. With 850 total employees — 485 of whom are hourly and 730 assigned to job sites stretching from Seattle to the Bay area, Los Angeles and San Diego — they needed to track who came in contact with whom and whether anyone had been exposed to someone with symptoms.

Senior leadership sent everyone home and met for back-to-back working sessions to come up with a solution “fast,” Namdar said.

Also read: Automate how your staff clocks in and out

The meetings helped determine and establish a safe standard of job-site processes and operations that are compliant with government regulations, he added.

Separate solution from clocking in

“It was clear that we needed a sign-in process for all individuals on a job site,” Namdar recalled. The company had transitioned to digital time cards about six years ago, so this was a completely separate challenge, he added.

“Our IT director was in the meeting and interjected that a technology-based solution would allow us to maintain social distancing and prevent the spread of germs through shared pens and a sign-in sheet. That’s where I came in,” he said.

In one day, Namdar pulled together an on-site mobile check-in form developed using process automation software Nintex and presented a demo to his HR director and executive superintendent.

mobile technology — Shawn Namdar, solutions engineer for BNBuilders.

“The next day, the executive team approved the process and we were off to the races on the production side,” he said.

Also read: Building a safety policy was vital to Shawmut Design and Construction’s health.

When workers arrive at a job, there is a specific QR code and once scanned, the form populates with the specific information for a particular job site. Namdar also created a database for workers, and by just typing in their phone number, their information is pulled so multiple pieces of information don’t have to be re-entered each day.

“In just a few days, we went from zero entries to thousands,” he said. “In the six months since implementing this mobile check-in process, we have seen 144,000 form submissions.”

Complying with government guidelines

Initially HR played a large role in ensuring that the processes were compliant with government regulations and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, he said.

“They paid close attention to the types and phrasing of the questions we asked,” Namdar said. “HR had a big hand in the vetting and rollout process to make sure it was a solution that was easy to use by all.”

As a general contractor, BNBuilders executives are responsible for the safety of everyone on the job site. Safety is the absolute top priority on their job sites and the contact tracing process is one key reason they can continue operating, he said.

BNBuilders’ offices are operating at minimal capacity and serving as a command center for safety and critical departments such as IT and accounting, he said.

Case study: Hoffer Plastics’ ‘family first’ philosophy puts people over profits.

“We’ve seen a lot of success with our office workers working from home,” Namdar said. We didn’t experience the initial productivity slump that was common within the industry because our organization had prioritized digital transformation before the pandemic.”

Adopting the mobile check in

Pivoting so quickly to the on-site mobile check-in process happened quickly since they had previous success with Nintex digital forms and workflows, he said. “Without it we would have been contact tracing with pen and paper and manually inputting that information at the end of each day,” he said. “I could create a custom web app in only a day, which could have taken three to four weeks if I was starting from zero.

“Technology speeds everything up and if organizations aren’t leveraging it, they are limiting themselves.”

Use a mobile solution to build and send your employee schedules in seconds. Workforce.com’s leading scheduling app allows you to optimize staffing levels and manage shifts with ease.

October 6, 2020

Fired for COVID-19 or fired for irresponsibility?

COVID-19, coronavirus, public health crisis

Prada v. Trifecta Productions, filed a few weeks ago in federal court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, asks whether an employer can legally fire an employee with COVID-19 based on the perception that the employee’s out-of-work activities placed the business at risk.

The facts are fairly simple. Nicolas Prada worked as a waiter and assistant manager at Tomukun Noodle Bar. On June 24 he began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and stayed home from work. He tested positive three days later. After 14 days of isolation, Prada texted his employer about being medically cleared to return to work.

During a follow-up phone call, Prada claims the restaurant’s owner interrogated him about his activities before falling ill. According to the complaint, “Mr. Yon asked Plaintiff how he contracted the virus,” interrogated him about whether he had “been out partying and acting irresponsible,” told him “there was evidence on social media of Plaintiff being in a crowd,” and that he should “begin looking for work” because for “PR reasons” it was best for him “not to come back to work.”

Prada quit the next day, and later sued for interference and retaliation under the FFCRA.

In a vacuum, Prada had a right to job restoration under the FFCRA. However, there is at least one key fact missing from his complaint — was he “out partying and acting irresponsibly” before contracting the virus. If so (and it’s a big if), his employer had a legitimate non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory reason for terminating his employment.

I’m not sure I’d terminate in these circumstances, but I can understand why an employer might. Here’s what I wrote two months ago discussing the Cleveland Indians’ suspension of two pitchers for violating team rules during a road trip by leaving the hotel to party:

Your business may not be able to dictate how your employees spend their free time, but you can hold them to consequences if they choose to act irresponsibly when “off the clock.” We are living through a pandemic. Every employee has a responsibility to their employer, their co-workers, and the business to make sure that they do what they can to avoid bringing COVID-19 into the workplace, and every employer has the same responsibility to take reasonable steps to prevent an at-risk employee from entering the workplace when it’s discovered.

These are strange times for sure, and I will not fault any employer that errs on the side of caution in how it manages its employee respective to mitigating workplace coronavirus exposures. I’m not advocating for, or in favor of, employer monitoring of employee off-duty conduct. If, however, irresponsible, reckless or dangerous behavior comes to an employer’s attention, it shouldn’t ignore it in the name of privacy either.

In this case Prada had served his isolation, and according to his complaint was medically cleared to return to work. The risk this employer was mitigating was not the risk of an employee bringing an active virus into the workplace, but according to the complaint, the public relations risk of an employee being seen partying on social media. For a public-facing employer, I’m not going to backseat-drive its decision.

This will be a fascinating case to watch, which I’ll be updating everyone as it winds its way through the courts.

September 29, 2020June 29, 2023

The 9th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020 is … the COVID denier

COVID-19, workforce management WFM 2.0, ethics

The human resources manager for a New Hampshire company is suing her former employer after she sent an email about COVID-19 to employees and required two employees to stay home for one week after going on vacations to China and Malaysia.

She claims company officials told her she was being fired for “exaggerating ‘the China Virus.’”

The New Hampshire Union Leader has the details:

Debra Di Nola worked for Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies Inc., a German company, since 2014. …

On Jan. 29, two managers asked Di Nola to advise them on two employees returning from China and Malaysia, respectively, out of concerns about COVID-19. After looking into recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health and Human Services, Di Nola required the two employees to stay home for a week, according to the suit.

Di Nola claims a vice president of the company said “he could not work with her and did not trust her” during a meeting on Feb. 11. She was asked to leave.

“(The vice president) accused Dr. Di Nola of exaggerating ‘the China virus,’” the suit reads.

A few days later — Feb. 17 — the vice president fired Di Nola. The suit claims the vice president escorted Di Nola out of the building as other employees arrived for work.

For its part, the employer claims that it fired Di Nola for legitimate non-discriminatory performance reasons, including her lack of attention to detail, her relationship with a subordinate, her lack of engagement with employees and her repeated exaggerations and misrepresentations.

Nevertheless, if you fire an employee for exaggerating “the China virus,” you might be the worst employer of 2020.

September 29, 2020February 23, 2021

How Domino’s Israel saved 25,000 hours and increased employee productivity 11%

Domino's Israel, workforce management technology

Domino’s has always been a company that embraces and utilizes technology to make daily operations smoother. Case in point: They implemented an online delivery service in Israel as early as 2009.

Domino’s saw the opportunity in digital platforms and were strategic enough to adopt early. As they continue to leverage technology in the business, they also embrace digital information to manage their people. And they have reaped the benefits ever since.

So it’s no surprise that after rolling out the Workforce.com platform, Domino’s Israel has reported to save 25,000 hours across 42 locations, increased sales per labor hour by 11 percent, and dropped wage costs from 33.5 percent to only 29.5 percent of their revenue.

Challenges that come with business expansion

“Expanding fast means that you need to create a good and solid structure of operation and training,” said Arie Elbaz, chief operating officer and co-owner of Domino’s Israel franchise.

Elbaz, along with the rest of Domino’s Israel management team, recognized that as they open more stores, they need to have enough employees to consistently deliver quality service to their customers. Being strategic with how they create employee schedules is essential to that. It means that they need to cover all their bases in an efficient way that saves on costs and time.

“Before I was introduced to Workforce.com, every store manager did scheduling according to what he feels or believes; according to his instincts,” Elbaz said, adding that it’s not the most efficient way to schedule. They also needed a more efficient way to forecast staff availability and the amount of hours required per store per week per month.

Another challenge is adapting to higher labor costs.

“Here in Israel, we had five increases with minimum wage, and we needed to find a solution that would allow us to be more efficient on one hand, but of course, we won’t compromise on service and the number of employees that we need,” Elbaz said.

Technology and transparency

After transitioning to Workforce.com, Domino’s store managers gained better insight with the scheduling software and discovered how many staff they actually need in each shift.

“This was the first time that every member of my staff can see the same schedule. The delivery guys see what I see, what my supervisors see, and what my store manager sees. Everyone works on the same platform,” said Yonatan Taz, one of Domino’s operations managers.

Store managers also get better insights on peak and slow hours, allowing them to schedule smarter. “Before, we had a problem that I thought maybe the peak would start at 6 o’clock. But the platform showed me that it starts at 5:30,” said Idan Eini, a Domino’s store manager.

Transforming shift management for success

Domino’s Israel started implementing Workforce more than a year ago, running a pilot between December 2019 and February 2020. A full rollout of the system was completed in three weeks following the pilot. “For me, it was a revolution,” Elbaz said. He also shared three advantages of having Workforce.com

Workforce.com provides one platform for shift management. Because everyone uses the same system, it’s easier to see who’s working when and where. There’s less need to remind everyone, and managers can anticipate where the gap is going to be.
Workforce.com shows recommended hours. The platform enables managers to see recommended hours alongside with scheduled hours and actual hours. “As a result, we can better analyze our labor cost and create more efficiency,” Elbaz said.
Workforce.com gives analysis and actionable insights. The system can make sense of labor data and provide insight into aspects like savings, service metrics, etc. The team now has full control over this information.

Going further

Now that Domino’s has an efficient staff management system in place, Elbaz and his team will continue improving their online platforms and seek better ways to provide the best service to their customers as they expand.

Domino’s enables its people with technology and smart solutions to simplify once complex and repetitive processes. This allows them to focus on the more important parts of the job, build their skills, and realize the value they bring. Building up your workforce this way is one of the smartest business decisions.

Just like Domino’s, are you ready to take your workforce further? Book a demo and see how Workforce.com can help you.