managers – Workforce

April 24, 2023August 24, 2023

The hidden costs of disengaged managers

Summary

While employee disengagement is a common problem grappled with by HR, a much more costly problem is managerial disengagement.
The cost of manager disengagement takes the form of failed initiatives, underperforming company culture, and higher safety violations.
Address manager disengagement early on with daily feedback initiatives.

Most of the employee engagement discussions have focused on front-line workers; after all, they are the staff getting the core work done. What often gets forgotten is the engagement of front-line managers, where up to two-thirds are disengaged. In fact, manager disengagement is even more detrimental to the success of hourly workforce businesses.

This probably stems from a few key misconceptions about a front-line manager’s job. Maybe it’s under the guise that they must be bought in because they’re willing to take on more responsibility. Maybe it’s because they’re willing to work overtime without being paid extra, and only someone that really enjoys their job would do that. Or, maybe it’s from the belief that managers are incompetent and only do busy work, so any investment into their engagement wastes resources.

Based on the last belief, Google undertook some of the most comprehensive field research to prove the hypothesis that managers don’t matter. Many of their individual contributors were frustrated with their overpaid and meddling managers, and they probably became even more frustrated when Google released the results.

The managers at Google were shown to significantly increase employee performance and decrease turnover when they were good managers. This distinction is essential because when front-line managers become disengaged, their performance slips, and they can become bad managers, whether they work in software or hospitality.

So what are the most significant costs to companies when front-line managers become disengaged and ineffective?

The hidden costs

Manager turnover immediately comes to mind as a significant cost amid rising disengagement. This is because one day the manager was there, the next they’re not – you can physically see the change.

What often doesn’t get noticed is the degradation that leads up to the resignation – where the manager is still there, but they’re not present.

A disengaged manager incurs significant hidden costs long before they even leave a company.

New initiatives fail and don’t roll out

The top reason new initiatives fail isn’t that they’re inherently a bad strategy, it’s because they weren’t executed well and never get adopted. It’s a failure to execute the change. If you reflect on your working experiences, this seems self-evident, but it isn’t the narrative on LinkedIn and other expert circles.

Once you’re operating across multiple locations or above 100 staff, the complexity of rolling out a new initiative will require some form of basic change management. In fact, this complexity creeps up much sooner than most would expect.

A graphic showing increasingly complex lines of communication — The nature of how lines of communication scale mean that change and learning by osmosis only works for small teams.

For this to work, front-line managers must be bought in and eager to see this change through. While you can conduct the initial training, roll out the software, and run progress meetings, you won’t have the capacity to ensure all your front-line staff are following it. You need your front-line managers to step up to make sure everyone is doing the right thing every shift.

When front-line managers are disengaged, they’re less likely to go above and beyond. Instead, they will do the minimum work required. In change management terms, this means they become ‘resistors’.

Ultimately, if your managers are disengaged, they will resist change because they don’t care to make the extra effort, and they won’t make sure their team is doing the right thing. This apathy leads to many well-designed initiatives failing and incurring massive costs.

Firstly, the investment in the initiative itself. This includes the upfront cost of resources such as software, materials, and consultants, as well as the ongoing costs like staff training, progress meetings, and reviews. When the initiative fails to materialize, it means all of these costs were for nothing.

ckup image of a Google Meet invite depicting the financial cost of having it — Unfortunately, this is only a mockup, though many meetings would probably become emails if this were made.

Secondly, the opportunity cost of not being able to do the initiative. Hopefully, the initiative was prompted because rolling it out meant it would resolve a major issue to hit a key business outcome. When you compare the cost of not hitting the business outcome, it’s usually even higher than the initial investment (i.e. it had a positive ROI). This can manifest into serious long-term consequences, such as declining market share, lower customer satisfaction, and reduced profitability.

Quickly infects company culture and lowers performance

Not only can manager disengagement prevent you from tackling new business priorities, but it can even take your organization backward – rapidly.

Gallup research found that disengaged managers had a greater negative impact on their team’s performance than engaged managers had a positive impact. This caused lower worker productivity, higher absenteeism, and more staff turnover, even when the staff members were engaged in their own right.

What might actually be the most concerning aspect is that a disengaged manager can quickly infect the rest of the organization. Unsurprisingly, managers have a greater presence and influence in the organization based on the nature of their role in interacting with more staff. It means their impact on company culture, good or bad, is heavily amplified within the rest of the organization.

Unengaged managers can also become bottlenecks for other teams, where their lower performance makes it harder for other teams to complete their own work. When executives don’t address these manager bottlenecks, their colleagues become frustrated, and it can create a disengagement loop across teams.

For example, a Head Chef is disengaged, creating an environment where meals are prepared slowly. This makes it harder for the Head Server and their team to get orders out promptly. Senior Management is reluctant to replace the Head Chef because they’re talented, and it would be difficult to replace them. Now the Head Server sees the problem is unlikely to be resolved, so they become disillusioned, and their team morale and engagement drop off.

Teams that interact with and rely on the Head Chef or Server (e.g. Maintenance, HR, or Payroll) are also likely to fall victim to the inertia of this disengagement. The more it spreads, the harder it is to rein in, and it spreads significantly faster when it’s the front-line managers that are disengaged.

This is why it’s vital that front-line manager disengagement is not only addressed but is fixed as soon as possible.

Increased safety incidents

When it comes to safety, the bottom line is that disengaged managers and staff lead to 3x the number of safety incidents.

This arises from reduced attention to detail and apathy toward following safety rules. When a front-line manager displays this lax attitude toward safety, it further compounds the lack of care from the rest of the team. This managerial apathy indirectly signals to junior staff members that it’s okay to disregard essential safety measures.

Any decent person should care about the safety of their team without qualification. Morality hasn’t always been a strong business case regarding safety. If you are trying to put a cost on safety, it’s approximately $1,100 per worker (not per injury).

Outside of direct incident costs, safety issues can cause public relations fires that lower revenue from customer boycotts, make it harder to hire staff, and start OSHA investigations and civil lawsuits.

How to prevent manager disengagement

The most crucial aspect of avoiding manager disengagement is to find the underlying issues that are actually causing the issues. Applying general employee engagement programs may help, but it won’t be permanently solved unless the root causes are unearthed and addressed. While there may be patterns in the causes of disengagement, any program designed to fix them should be tailored to the individual manager.

You can find the issues first by ensuring you are measuring managers’ engagement. This takes two forms:

Running standard satisfaction surveys or eNPS to identify which managers aren’t engaged
Getting regular feedback from front-line managers and their teams so you can find issues

Satisfaction surveys will only help you find who is having issues. Collecting regular feedback will actually help you investigate what is causing disengagement.

Because of the potential of manager disengagement to rapidly infect other managers and staff within the organization, it’s vital that you collect regular feedback. That way, you can identify the issues, investigate further, and resolve them before they snowball across the rest of the company.

Fixing manager disengagement may seem daunting – but the best time to solve it is now. Address it early on with daily feedback to prevent the hidden costs from getting out of control.

If you are interested in learning more about improving manager engagement, check out our webinar below:

Webinar: How to Increase Manager Engagement & Retention

December 6, 2020April 11, 2023

Labor analytics and reporting starts with access to the right data

Labor analytics and reporting are vital to making informed decisions for better efficiency and cost savings.

However, it might be easier said than done. Companies grapple with numerous issues surrounding labor analytics, from tracking the information they need to generating reports to making timely decisions that will actually impact their bottom line.

Lack of insight and failure to share analytics with frontline managers

It all begins with access to the right data. A common problem among companies is that they don’t have enough information to help them run an efficient operation and save money.

“While most companies know how much labor hours they’re scheduling, they face a challenge with comparing that with other vital areas such as budgets, predictable revenue and historical information,” said Travis Kohlmeyer, vice president of sales at Workforce.com.

Also read: The fair workweek squeeze on employee scheduling

Another issue is providing frontline managers with access to analytics, the very people who are creating the schedules and running operations. It’s crucial to provide them the analytical information before the fact or else data can only help after the money has been spent.

“If you don’t give managers the tools they need to schedule more effectively, historical costs tend to repeat themselves,” Kohlmeyer said.

Inability to capture data in real time

Leveraging labor analytics has a lot to do with how timely it is acted upon. Most companies face difficulties with capturing data in real time.

“This means managers and team leaders can’t make game-time decisions,” Kohlmeyer said. “If a company has to wait for 30 days to get their labor analytics, it’s basically useless. Yes, you can tell your employees to shape up here and there but not providing the insight to help them in the process tends to be less effective.”

Managers can better optimize operations when they’re able to see real-time costs and revenue throughout the day. With this insight available, managers can quickly see the peaks and valleys, decide whether to ask more employees to come in or let staff go home and ensure that the operation as a whole is cost-efficient.

Difficulty in generating and customizing reports

Reports out of data analytics provide a big picture view essential for labor forecasting and making organizational decisions. Sometimes companies fail to do this because generating and customizing reports tend to be a tedious task, automated reports don’t match their needs or they don’t have a mechanism for it at all.

“Every company is different, even those in the same industry,” Kohlmeyer explained. “Typically, most solutions can provide basic cost reports, but you need more than that to better optimize your operation. Having the technology that generates reports specific to key components of your business is harder to come by and where the bottom line is lacking.”

Overcoming labor analytics and reporting challenges

Having the right technology can address pain points that come with labor analytics and reporting. “One of the key advantages of the Workforce.com platform is its ability to give customers accurate labor expenses real-time. With the real-time alerts and advanced reporting, customers gain insights into their labor expenses and proactively plan ahead in the moment and in the longer term,” said Leon Pearce, lead software engineer at Workforce.com.

Being able to interpret labor expenses is helpful, but when you’re able to do so in real-time, it’s a game changer. With live insights, Workforce.com analyzes and interprets labor data even when staff are still on their shift. “It empowers managers to make strong decisions on the fly, think like a business owner and keep staff levels optimal for demand,” Pearce said.

Labor analytics are also crucial to anticipating demand and staying on top of a budget. Workforce.com gives a strong projection in that regard, allowing companies to add in their actual labor budget in dollars.

“This means that the platform can project real expenses of your schedule based on actual labor interpretation, giving you confidence that your labor expenses will be aligned with your budget,” Pearce said.

Employee scheduling validations can be configured into the platform to help managers avoid building schedules that can incur potential unnecessary labor expenses such as overtime and missed breaks.

Access to data and being able to get insights from it is vital to any business. For large operations, it can be harder with different areas and variables at play. Whether it’s improving clock punches, addressing understaffing leading to overtime, spotting missing breaks leading to compliance penalties, employers can handle such issues with full access to their data.

“Workforce.com’s advanced reporting gives businesses access to all of their data and provides an easy to use tool for creating reports using exactly the information they need to make strong proactive decisions,” Pearce said.

Data only becomes powerful when it is properly interpreted; this aids in better decisions and cost savings. Workforce.com is built to do precisely that. See our reporting solutions in action and book a demo or sign up for a free trial today.

August 4, 2020June 29, 2023

Knock out the practice of buddy punching for good

Clocking in for a colleague may come as a wink and a nod between coworkers. But the practice of buddy punching is time theft, plain and simple, and it can land a gut punch to managers trying to ring in their scheduling problems and labor costs.

However, advances in workforce management technology and mobile solutions are pulling no punches against those clocking in for a colleague who is running late or worse, randomly decides to take an unauthorized day off.

What constitutes time theft

It may start innocently enough. The train is stuck. The babysitter arrived late. But without a manager’s approval, time theft is easily defined.

Employees start shifts late.
An employee leaves shifts early.
They take breaks that are longer than scheduled.
They work overtime that wasn’t authorized
An employee engages in personal or non-work-related activities while on the job.

And then there is buddy punching.

The financial sting of buddy punching

Time theft puts an alarming drain on an organization’s finances. One 2018 estimate pegs the cost of buddy punching at over $370 million in payroll costs annually, and according to research by the American Payroll Association, buddy punching affects about 75 percent of U.S. small businesses.

Also read: Make managers more successful with the tools to retain and engage their employees

Additionally, businesses lose 5 percent of their annual revenue to employee fraud, and buddy punching is fraud. Businesses with fewer than 150 employees are more likely to take it on the chin due to employee fraud schemes like time theft.

What leads to buddy punching

Some employees simply will take advantage of a situation when they know they can. A lack of adequate technology with proper checks and balances often sets the path to one worker punching in for another. Even implementing a system with RFID cards or passwords can be manipulated.

Lacking proper technology, multiple employees can utilize passwords and credentials to punch in for one another if the system does not detect who uses the password, and employers have a difficult time proving time theft.

Employers also naively foot some of the blame. They can develop a false sense of security since they may have hired and gotten to know the people working for them. And, because they know them, they are confident that none are bad people who would steal from them. Adequate workforce management software creates a more objective, unbiased approach to the time and attendance process.

Counterpunching time theft

There are solutions to sparring with buddy punching. By automating how staff members clock in and out with mobile solutions, not only can time theft be curbed but hours of needless administrative tasks be cut back.

Record when your employees punch in and out with Workforce.com’s time clock. From ensuring the right person clocks in for the shift to paying staff correctly, it starts with the mobile time clock app.

Such a solution assures that the right person clocks in for the right shift through electronic photo verification and unique passcodes. These, along with payroll add-ons, also let employers do away with lengthy steps in computing payroll.

Going mobile

Mobile time and attendance solutions also help manage employees remotely without having to question time and attendance records. Such automated solutions also build trust. By not relying on pen and paper bookkeeping, employees gain the confidence to know they won’t have to follow up or scrutinize recordkeeping to make sure they are being paid fairly for their work.

Why pay for hours that weren’t worked? Make the practice of buddy punching tap out and fight the scourge of time theft with Workforce.com’s time clock app.

June 16, 2020June 29, 2023

Give managers the time they need to sharpen up their all-around skills

timeclock, wage and hour, schedule, timesheet rounding

How to improve manager effectiveness seems like a loaded question.

Sure, there is always room for improvement. But how do you improve the effectiveness of a manager who shares responsibilities in almost every aspect of the business process? There are business operations including onboarding and offboarding, compliance and regulations, and scheduling shifts.

A manager also is involved in training, coaching and motivating staff. Sometimes they even play the role of staff psychologist. In short, a manager is an organization’s Swiss army knife.

Which leads to another question: If you are seeking ways to improve manager effectiveness, what blade of the knife gets sharpened first?

Manager basics

At its core, a manager’s job description lists overseeing daily operations, ensuring employee productivity, monitoring efficiency of all processes and creating a positive workplace environment. Because there are nuances to every aspect of a manager’s responsibilities, freeing up time could be the biggest perk an employer could provide for their supervisorial staff. By implementing workforce management solutions, employers empower their managers to make the right business decisions in less time through software solutions.

For those managing an hourly workforce, Workforce.com’s Live Wage Tracker software allows supervisors to see wage costs in real time and adjust staffing levels and assignments to drive profitability. Every shift becomes a profitable one, and because sifting through endless reams of paperwork is no longer necessary, a manager can concentrate on other ways to drive productivity and trim costs.

Creating effective managers

Managers rarely just materialize. A high-performing employee doesn’t necessarily make a great manager. The process takes patience and time — a rare commodity for managers in most businesses.

According to Great Place to Work, effective leaders should define the most important behaviors for great managers at an organization. While certain characteristics of manager effectiveness are universal, the best insights come from identifying the unique behaviors that align with an organization’s mission, culture, customer needs and strategic goals.

Find the managers inside an organization who build high-trust relationships.
Interview these managers and ask them how they did what they did.
Use this information to identify behaviors that create a great work environment and share them across the organization.

Once company leaders identify managers and their best practices, instill in them these ideals:

Work with teams, seek ideas from team members and involve them in decisions that affect them.
Recognize employees, especially by calling out accomplishments and helping employees get ahead in their careers.
Inspire employees to follow by showing them that leaders are competent, honest and reliable.

What managers need from employers

Equip managers with the solutions to work smarter so they will be more productive throughout their work day. The result is an efficient workplace and a supervisor who can create a work/life balance for themselves.

Managers are constantly looking for ways to be more efficient with their time. Provide the leadership and perspective to manage their time. Encourage and help managers to:

Establish their priorities.
Break big projects into small tasks.
Use a to-do list in the right way.
Eliminate distractions.
Avoid procrastination.

Perhaps the most important tool in a manager’s arsenal is time. Through workforce management software, time becomes an ally for a manager rather than an opponent. Implementing Workforce.com’s Live Wage Tracker platform provides actionable data that empowers managers to react quickly and confidently to unexpected changes and keep things running smoothly throughout the day.