Tag: staffing

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What is labor forecasting? A two part equation

Summary

  • Labor forecasting helps businesses determine where, when, what kind, and how many employees are needed to meet predicted customer demand.

  • Together, demand forecasting and labor modeling make up what is known as labor forecasting.

  • Labor forecasting software lowers labor costs, reduces burnout, improves customer satisfaction, and improves hiring.

Labor is a significant expenditure for any business – at times being the largest. Typically it constitutes about 35% of gross sales; however, in some industries, it can be much greater.

Knowing how to keep labor costs from chewing up more of your revenue than necessary is a tricky game. So, how do you win this game?

It all comes down to predictable labor allocation. Knowing where and when to schedule staff helps you spend smarter, keeping you on budget. But more than this, it lowers employee turnover costs.

Data from a recent study suggests businesses with highly unpredictable hours that provide schedules less than ten days in advance suffer the most from employee turnover. Retaining workers is more important than ever in today’s economy, and many are turning to labor forecasting to help.

Indeed, labor forecasting has arrived – and it is here to stay for hourly workforces. But what exactly is it?

What is labor forecasting?

In short, labor forecasting is a process that helps businesses determine where, when, how many, and what kind of employees are needed to meet projected customer demand.

Okay, so that is a basic definition. But what does labor forecasting really involve? Perhaps an easier way to understand labor forecasting is to break it down into a simple equation.

The labor forecasting equation

Don’t worry; this math is about as easy as it gets. Labor forecasting can be broken down into the following equation:

 

Demand forecasting + labor modeling = labor forecasting

 

Without a proper demand forecast, a business is simply left with a labor model blind to the external habits of the market. This is not a complete labor forecast.

Without a labor model, a business merely has a mess of forecasted demand data with no real plan to quickly and efficiently deploy staff to meet that demand. Again, this is not a complete labor forecast. 

To properly forecast labor, a business first needs to predict future demand, and then it needs to build out a model to distribute employees and shifts according to that demand.

Now that we have established a broad understanding of labor forecasting, let’s take a closer look at its individual parts. 

Demand Forecasting

The more widely known of the two labor forecasting components is called demand forecasting. It helps organizations project things like sales and foot traffic for upcoming weeks, giving them a better understanding of their staff and scheduling requirements. 

Here are a few different demand forecasting methods: 

Qualitative Forecasting

The most basic of demand forecasts, qualitative forecasting, is for when a business doesn’t have enough historical sales data to use as a reference. It primarily involves conducting market research on industry trends, seasonality, and targeted customers to generate extremely broad predictions in demand.

Average of Past Dates

One of the most common forms of demand forecasting, the average of past dates method, creates basic demand predictions in the hospitality, food and beverage, and retail industries. Its accuracy is quite limited, however, as it only uses sales data from your POS system, omitting many variables that come into play when forecasting customer demand. 

It works by averaging historical sales data across a specified date range, using these averages as rough predictions for demand going forward. 

For instance, a user might choose to average out their sales from last year’s Black Friday weekend to use as a forecast for this year’s upcoming Black Friday. Or, they can simply take sales averages from the past three weeks and project them forward on a continual basis. 

AI Forecasting

Recent developments in AI and machine learning offer the most accurate options for demand forecasting currently available.

AI forecasting works by feeding customer data (sales, foot traffic, orders), external data (weather, holidays, events, etc.), and demand patterns (seasonality, trends, weekdays) into a machine learning algorithm. This algorithm then learns the relationships between all the different data sources to create demand predictions up to four weeks out. 

This technology makes it possible to incorporate a wide range of demand-influencing factors in your forecasts – something more basic demand forecasting software cannot do.

Labor Modeling 

Once you have your demand forecast, it’s time to put together an effective labor model. Doing this gives you insight into your current labor supply and the supply of labor you’ll need going forward. It also helps you determine the best way to distribute staff across your business. 

Simple internal modeling

This form of modeling simply looks at your staff availability and business operating hours. Its purpose is to keep just enough staff on hand to operate the business during operating hours, nothing more.

Since it heavily focuses on internal requirements and excludes external demand variables, simple internal modeling often results in problems with understaffing and overtime. 

Delphi method

A step above internal modeling, the Delphi method anonymously surveys many different team leaders and decision-makers in different locations to get an aggregate understanding of an organization’s labor needs. 

While the Delphi method takes into account much more than just employee availability and operating hours, it is still quite inefficient due to its qualitative and anonymous nature. 

Ratio-based

With this advanced model, AI creates ratios of required labor to meet forecasted demand down to specific teams, locations, and roles. These ratios guide scheduling managers away from potential over/understaffing issues and reduce overall labor costs. 

For instance, for every 20 pizza delivery orders a business receives on a Thursday, this model might suggest a ratio of 3 delivery drivers and 2 cooks to properly meet that demand. These ratios take the guesswork out of labor models, helping managers plan their staffing around customer demand and not just internal requirements. 

Benefits of effective labor forecasting

As labor forecasting becomes increasingly more intertwined with employee scheduling and workforce planning, businesses everywhere are beginning to reap the benefits of optimized forecasts. 

Here are some of the ways proper labor forecasting directly improves your bottom line:

  • Lower labor costs: Matching staffing levels to accurate demand forecasts eliminates accidental overstaffing and cuts down on incurred overtime costs.
  • More purposeful hiring: Labor forecasting reveals gaps in your workforce, helping you hire employees with the right skills and availability to meet your labor model needs. 
  • Higher customer satisfaction: When you consistently have proper staff coverage all day, every day, for every shift, customers notice. Knowing your upcoming demand and reacting appropriately ensures your customers are never met with poor service, long wait times, or annoying mistakes. 
  • Less employee burnout: Just like your customers, staff will also benefit from labor forecasting. Predicting demand and knowing your labor ratios on a granular level prevents understaffed schedules, meaning employees will always have the support they need during busy shifts.

Implementing labor forecasts with Workforce.com

Understanding labor forecasting is one thing; effectively utilizing it is another.

The best way to implement a labor forecasting strategy is to use labor forecasting software. It automates the entire process for you, running predictive demand calculations and generating labor ratios in minutes. 

This kind of technology is rapidly evolving the way businesses manage their labor – and Workforce.com is at the forefront of this evolution. Here’s why:

40% more accurate forecasts

Workforce.com’s industry-leading AI uses historical sales, economic patterns, and external variables to generate intricate demand predictions that fuel your labor forecasts. This method is significantly more accurate than the typical labor forecasting platform which only uses historical sales averages. 

Granular labor ratios

With Workforce.com’s labor forecasting, managers can see the number of staff per role needed to meet expected demand for every location, team, and shift – details that far surpass most other labor forecasts that just give general staff count recommendations. 

Automatic scheduling

Managers can automatically create schedules in a single click based on their labor forecasts, eliminating hours of admin time previously spent manually plugging staff into weekly spreadsheets. 

To find out more about how labor forecasting works, check out the webinar below featuring Jack Light, a Labor Economics PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago.

Webinar: How to Forecast Your Schedule Based on Demand

To get started on implementing a labor forecasting strategy, contact us today. We’d be happy to chat.

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The Essential Guide to Shift Planning

A few too many under or overstaffed shifts. Angry team members who feel they’ve worked more night shifts in the past week than their colleagues. Labor costs through the roof to cover a high amount of overtime. No call, no show absences.

These issues, and more, are all byproducts of ineffective or broken shift planning procedures. To add insult to injury, your HR team probably spends way too much time every month navigating Excel spreadsheets and shift templates to get it right. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Employee management tools like Workforce.com are specifically designed to help guide you through the employee shift planning maze with your sanity intact. 

In this guide, we’ll run you through some of the important steps to adopt that will make shedding blood, sweat, and tears on shift planning a thing of the past.  

Planning a shift schedule

The best preparation you can do for shift planning is to know your business inside and out. Filling all your shifts is meaningless if done randomly. Here are the basics you should cover before assigning employees anywhere.

  • Monitor demand: The most efficient work schedules take into account and even forecast the unique demand patterns of your company. When are you the busiest? Which nights are typically quiet? What regular events impact your foot traffic?
  • Know your staff’s skills and abilities: This is where managerial knowledge becomes priceless. For example, knowing which workers are particularly good at handling customers or which ones are great at mentoring less experienced staff means you can always put the right people in the right place at the right time.
  • Check safety regulations: Don’t overlook the practicalities. If you’re legally obligated to have a certain number of trained first-aiders on shift or need to maintain a ratio of staff to kids in a childcare setting, this needs to be baked into your schedule from the start. 

By making these a core part of your shift management system, you’ll head off lots of future problems and build your schedules on rock-solid foundations.

Creating a shift schedule

Once you’re armed with intimate knowledge of your market conditions and predicted needs, it’s just a case of filling those empty shifts. With the right preparation, this part of the job should already be less intimidating, but here are the key things to keep in mind when you create a shift schedule.

  • Know your staff availability: Assigning workers to shifts they cannot attend isn’t just inefficient for you, but it’s also frustrating for employees. Keep track of things like childcare arrangements, evening classes, and other important things in your workers’ lives. It allows you to get your schedule right the first time and shows them that you are taking notice of what matters to them.
  • Communicate schedules quickly and accurately: Don’t leave employees in the dark about their shifts. The earlier you can inform them of their hours and the clearer the information is, the sooner you’ll identify any potential problems.
  • Use the right tools: Many companies still use spreadsheets or even pen and paper for shift planning. Not only are these methods inflexible and prone to error, but they’re also hard to distribute and make it easy to lose track of details. Specialist shift planning and time tracking software can automate the hardest parts of scheduling and send up-to-date shift information to your workers’ phones in real-time.
  • Always plan ahead: If you’ve taken all the previous steps into account, you should be able to confidently plan shift schedules at least two weeks in advance. Indeed, depending on where your business operates, you may be legally obligated to.

It can be a lot to take in, and for people new to shift planning, this is where the feeling of being overwhelmed can rear up again. Trust your data, be methodical, and even the most complex shift planning job can be broken down into manageable parts. Remember, you can always use scheduling software to automatically match employees to shifts based on your criteria.

Navigating predictive scheduling laws

If you manage shift workers and aren’t yet familiar with the concept of predictive scheduling laws, then you should brush up on the details even if you don’t operate in an area where they are in effect.

  • What are predictive scheduling laws? These laws, also referred to as “Fair Workweek,” generally require shift workers to be given at least two weeks’ notice of their schedules and mandated rest periods between shifts. This means no “clopening,” where the same employee closes up at night and reopens the first shift the next day.
  • Where are predictive scheduling laws in place? So far, one state (Oregon) and eight cities (San Francisco, Berkeley, Emeryville, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle) have passed predictive scheduling laws. Other states have bills coming up for debate. There are regional variations, so be sure to find out if these laws apply to any of your operations and, if so, what the specific requirements are.

The penalties for breaching these laws can be steep as they apply to each infraction. If you have multiple shift workers whose schedules do not comply, the fines will mount. 

Careful planning and good recordkeeping will help ensure you are not exposed to unnecessary legal risks. As well as compiling your shift data automatically, employee scheduling software can be easily set up to catch infractions at the scheduling stage, eliminating the danger of falling foul of predictive scheduling legislation in your region.

Even if you are not legally required to follow these laws, it’s worth implementing some of the changes regardless. Studies have shown that workers who have advance notice of shifts and healthy breaks in between are more productive and stay with companies longer. If staff churn is an issue for you, taking a long-term approach to shift planning may help retain employees.

Managing time-off requests

No schedule is written in stone, of course, and employees will want to take personal time off. This doesn’t need to throw your shift planning into disarray, provided you have established a clear framework for managing employee time-off requests.

  • Create a PTO policy: If your company doesn’t have an existing policy dictating the rules of personal time off, create one as a matter of urgency. It doesn’t have to be pages of legal language. A common-sense policy that lays out what is expected of both employees and the company is all you need.
  • Implement a PTO policy: The crucial aspect of any PTO policy is notice periods. How much notice must employees give when booking time off? How quickly will the company approve or deny requests? These are the questions your policy should answer.

As a manager, keeping track of who has time off and when is vital. You don’t want to approve requests that leave you understaffed. Using scheduling software is the quick and easy way to avoid this, as it can automatically alert you whenever a time-off request creates a problem elsewhere on the schedule.

Dealing with staff shortages

Emergencies will happen, and staff will sometimes not be able to work for unpredictable reasons. While this is never ideal, staff coverage doesn’t have to be a problem. In fact, you will already have insulated your business against this issue by preparing properly for shift planning in the first place.

  • Plan shifts using past data: You should already know when your highest sales periods are and when business is typically slow. Prioritize having backup staff for shifts that typically get slammed and cannot be understaffed.
  • Communicate schedules early: You should also be in the habit of assigning shifts a few weeks in advance. This won’t save you from staff with transport problems on the day of or trips to the ER, but it will give employees the opportunity to alert you of unexpected occurrences that aren’t same-day emergencies. Even a day’s notice is better than no notice at all.

The most robust way of minimizing the impact of staff unavailability is to allow employees to swap shifts to plug these unexpected gaps.

Webinar: How to Schedule While Understaffed

Accommodating shift swaps

The idea of shift swaps, or shift replacements, can create anxiety for some managers. Giving employees the option to request shift replacements seems to fly in the face of shift planning. A shift trade policy can actually be a benefit to both the staff and the company when properly managed. Not only does it help fill the gaps caused by unexpected staff shortages, but 87% of workers now want to have more control over their work schedules. 

  • Create a shift replacement policy: As with a time-off policy, this doesn’t need to be complicated. Simply make clear the period in which shifts can be dropped and picked up by available employees, subject to managerial approval.
  • Communicate the policy: Let your staff know that they are encouraged to request shift replacements if needed and won’t be penalized for doing so. Encourage them to use the process, and many of your last-minute staffing problems will fix themselves.
  • Automate with technology: Shift replacement processes are only as effective as the level of automation invested into them. Instead of scrambling last minute to find replacement staff over text and email, replacements should be completed on a single, online system. When an employee requests coverage for a shift, their peers should automatically get notified and a bidding process should follow. – this workflow takes the logistics of seeking replacements off a manager’s plate. 
  • Retain managerial oversight: Just like booking time off, you should still approve requests carefully to make sure that appropriately skilled staff are swapping like-for-like shifts and that any trades don’t nudge workers into overtime.

If you still handle your shift planning using spreadsheets or pen and paper, then tracking and implementing shift trade requests does become exponentially more complicated. Scheduling tools make the process painless by allowing employees to make their requests digitally while empowering managers to offer open shifts to specific workers. Any changes or requests will be instantly available to both employees and management through notifications through employee communications software.

Now you can be confident in your shift planning

Shift planning is less intimidating when you approach it fully prepared and break it down into a methodical process. Taking control of shift planning doesn’t just make the life of managers less stressful, but it also results in more efficient use of your employees and a company culture that is less likely to be derailed by staffing issues.

There’s nothing involved in this process that can’t be done using manual techniques, but if the complexity still overwhelms you, consider shift planning software to ease the strain.

Shift planning software uses automation to facilitate the building of schedules and timesheets, making the organization of shift work much easier. 

Try it out for yourself today, or, check out the free webinar below on the ROI of shift planning software, featuring exclusive research from Forrester Research:

Webinar: Building a Business Case for WFM

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How staffing agencies can better manage a remote workforce

Summary

  • As remote work continues its rise, modern workforce management technology is being adopted – staffing agencies should be at the forefront of this development.

  • Flexibility and visibility are key when it comes to how staffing agencies manage employees

  • Make it mobile: scheduling, time tracking, and labor compliance all need to be mobile-friendly to cut down on costs and increase employee experience

Managing remote employees has rapidly shifted from being a new and unpredictable challenge to a regular part of the work landscape over the last two years. The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates half of the workforce is now working remotely at least part of the time. While we have developed an incredible number of tools and processes to support remote staffing, remote work is still developing, and it still comes with its own unique challenges.

Staffing agencies are tackling remote work in their own ways. Some may be managing remote workers as part of their workforce, while others focus entirely on staffing remotely. Even those who don’t regularly manage remote staff may have to deal with the workplaces they staff occasionally shifting to remote work to accommodate unpredictable events.

All staffing agencies with remote workers will benefit from continuing to refine their remote workforce management skills and systems. Effective management builds a remote workforce that feels supported and gets the resources they need to do their work well, which ensures your clients always get the quality staffing they hired you for.

Streamline communication channels

Remote workers will be able to work more effectively if they have easy access to information and important notifications. It’s harder to share timely information when you’re not working face to face. While there are many channels for communicating remotely, having too many options is a problem when you have critical or time-sensitive information to share.

Slack and email threads are easy to lose track of since there is a lot of noise on those channels. Workers hired through a staffing agency might not even be plugged into a company’s Slack or email system yet. Texts and phone calls are harder to send to larger groups simultaneously, and you may not want to share everyone’s personal numbers in a group text.

You want to figure out a streamlined notification system for your staffing agency. All important communication should go through that one channel, so nothing gets lost. Ideally, the software you’re using for scheduling and time tracking will include an app and a notification system so that everything stays in the same place. You want a tool that can send individual alerts as well as push important announcements to groups of workers directly.

Plan for interruptions and unpredictability

Though we have all adapted to new working habits, unpredictable world events are still throwing unexpected interruptions into work and personal lives. On a purely practical level, smart staffing needs to anticipate these interruptions and have systems ready to deal with them. Your clients and your workforce will both be better off if you can build some accommodation into your staffing systems.

Workers may be sick unexpectedly in ways that make focusing impossible and require calling out. They may experience mental health challenges. Schools and daycares may close, leaving workers without childcare at the last minute. Travel plans are now more likely to get canceled, leaving workers stranded and scrambling to find ways to get back to a functional working environment.

Be prepared and communicate as needed during times of crisis to keep your employees safe and supported and ensure your clients’ needs are reliably fulfilled. Set up notifications ahead of time and use tools to easily manage your scheduling when it needs to change. Flexibility in a crisis and effective communication will help ensure that work isn’t derailed long term.

Find an efficient scheduling system

The most important, and often most challenging, part of staffing remotely is making efficient schedules. Employee scheduling software can help you schedule in a more sophisticated way, communicate those schedules efficiently, and make easy changes when needed. Even if workers aren’t commuting, they need reliable scheduling information so they can manage their time.

Give employees mobile access to their schedules so they can view upcoming shifts from anywhere, including the job site. This will help improve employee experience and cut back on miscommunication, confusion, and no-shows.

Make schedules early so you can alert workers in advance and avoid increasingly common predictive scheduling laws in certain areas. Labor forecasting will help you anticipate where staffing will be needed, avoiding the negative consequences of over- or under-staffing and optimizing labor costs. You also want to have systems in place to track attendance and quickly fill open shifts in case of no-shows or emergencies.

 

 

Use digital tools to manage a remote workforce

The digital tools you use to manage your workforce will be the key to smooth and effective management. Remote work is only possible because of the amazing array of digital tools we have available to us now, so take advantage of them. All of the practical parts of managing remote workers are easier if you use software tailored for the job.

Time and attendance

It’s vital to understand how, when, and where staff clock in – especially for agencies managing employees scattered across job sites. Proper time and attendance tools should be utilized to eliminate excessive wage costs stemming from issues in time theft, tardiness, and overtime. Employees should have the ability to clock in and view shifts on their phones right from the job site, and managers should be able to set clock-in parameters according to GPS location. Live time clock feeds are also a great way to improve back-office visibility into front-line attendance.

Paperless onboarding

Onboarding is hard to do remotely, as it requires sorting lots of information and getting documents read and signed. Onboarding quickly and efficiently gets you off on the right foot with new hires. Digital tools will help you automate your HR data, get documents signed, and collect personal information, bank details, and addresses quickly. They can even introduce staff to your policies and systems and begin training remotely.

Payroll

You may have payroll software, but you also need it to integrate with the rest of your management tools. Use a tool that can connect payroll to your scheduling and attendance software to make remote payroll management more efficient. Software can help you manage PTO and overtime payments that may vary by location as well.

Labor compliance

Remote work can quickly get complicated when trying to stay compliant with labor laws. They may change from state to state and city to city, and your workers may not even be in the same locale as their workplace. Digital tools exist to help you navigate labor compliance easily instead of trying to work each situation out case-by-case. Use your scheduling software to automate breaks to avoid labor violations in some states.

Simple and direct systems make remote staffing work

The common thread in each of these strategies is simplifying systems and providing clear, direct management processes for your remote staff. Workers in person receive information through interpersonal conversations, physical written materials, and the actual working environment they are entering, as well as digital sources. That makes it easier to ask questions casually or reduce distractions by physically moving or shutting off your computer.

Remote work concentrates all tasks and communications into a single channel. Counterintuitively, this often makes the information overload much higher. It’s harder to focus, and harder to sort the important details from the noise. Onboarding to remote jobs — absorbing lots of information digitally and learning new software and tools — is often the hardest part. Workers placed through staffing agencies may have to repeat this process frequently.

If you provide them with a single source of truth, they will be able to work more confidently, knowing they have access to all the information they need. Simplify your management. Communicate through one clear channel. Give them access to schedules, time tracking, and payroll in one place. Reduce the noise and overwhelm so that your workers can get up to speed quickly and focus their attention on doing their jobs well.

Book a call with one of our team members to learn more, or try our software for free today.

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Allied Universal boosts its hiring as demand for security services surges

security services, Allied Universal

Security services will play an important role as businesses reopen their doors and rebuild their staff in 2021.

Anticipating this growing need, security staffing services provider Allied Universal recently announced plans to hire hundreds of new employees across the country. Two recent hiring events in the Phoenix area alone were held to add 500 new security professionals there.

Building the hourly workforce

The greatest number of Allied’s open positions are hourly, said Morgan Price, senior vice president-recruiting and talent acquisition, though there are open positions across the organization.

“From security professionals to various leadership positions in operations, human resources, and other functions, we have tremendous opportunity,” Price said.

Allied included a virtual solution to interviewing and hiring to engage a large number of potential employees who may otherwise not apply or interview for a position, Price said. Adding that virtual component also makes the entire application process easier and more efficient.

“With altered school schedules for children or just the inconvenience of arranging transportation, being able to take the first step of employment through our virtual open houses helps Allied Universal find the best talent available,” Price said.

security staffing services , Allied Universal

Safety through security staffing services

Price said that Allied executives are seeing an increased need for security staffing services and facilities management. They plan to hold a number of virtual hiring events over the remainder of the year nationwide and beyond 2021.

“Our clients and the public at large rely on us to keep our communities and businesses safe and secure, especially during these challenging times,” said Steve Jones, chairman and CEO of Allied Universal, in a press statement. “Our security staffing professionals play a pivotal part ensuring facilities can continue business as usual. Other businesses that had to close can rest assured that their assets will remain protected.”

For full-time positions, company benefits include medical and dental coverage, life insurance, 401(k), holidays and more.

Hiring and scheduling security personnel

Hiring unqualified security guards can be a detriment to a company’s reputation and its financial livelihood, according to the “Officer Reports” blog. To find quality security guards, they say, be the kind of company that your current guards want to tell their friends to apply at. 

Once hired, experts recommend that employers maintain consistent scheduling practices for an hourly workforce of security personnel. It creates optimal productivity, reduces fatigue and helps employees retain focus toward the end of a shift. Teamwork also is important among security professionals, so also consider scheduling the same people on at the same time if they work well together.

To get around unreliable manual communications such as call trees and text messaging, security company managers are realizing the advantages of employee scheduling software. Besides managing staffing levels, automated scheduling solutions offer effective communication tools, particularly in the event of unforeseen emergencies or last-minute schedule changes.

Complying with fair workweek and predictive scheduling laws also is important. A regular schedule cuts down on overtime, leads to happier employers and better workers, experts point out.

 Focus on employee safety

Price said that throughout the pandemic Allied Universal’s top priority has been employee safety. The company is doing everything possible to deal with the personal impact this is having on all of its employees and their families. 

Morgan Price, SVP-recruiting and talent acquisition

“Since the start of the pandemic, Allied Universal has delivered more than 3 million masks and hundreds of gallons of hand sanitizer to our frontline employees and staff,” Price said. They also have a dedicated safety team constantly monitoring all COVID-19 developments ensuring that Allied continuously educates its employees to understand and follow CDC guidelines.

Allied, which is based in Santa Ana, California, has 265,000 employees and revenues of more than $9.5 billion. The company will grow by thousands of new employees as the long-anticipated $5.28 billion acquisition of rival security company G4S came to fruition March 16. Allied will add G4S’s workforce of 558,000 employees and operations in about 85 countries stretching across six continents, according to published reports. 

Allied also announced in January the acquisition of Atlanta-based SecurAmerica, which has 13,500 employees and $467 million in annual sales, and Waco, Texas-based Eagle Systems Inc., which has 210 security officers and revenue topping $10 million, according to the Orange County Business Journal.

Looking to grow like Allied Universal? Workforce management solutions are important for scaling and day-to-day frontline operations. Book a Workforce.com demo today.

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How SMBs can survive and thrive during and after COVID-19

SMB, small business, COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a curveball at businesses, but small and medium-sized organizations have found themselves in a unique predicament. With limited resources, smaller organizations need to realign their priorities given current market conditions and quickly do so. 

A crucial part of the economy

As the pandemic continues, governments are focused on more stringent health and safety protocols. But at the same time, they try to keep the economy moving despite restrictions. SMBs are a crucial piece to doing this. 

There are 31.7 million small businesses in the United States, accounting for 99.9 percent  of U.S. businesses. SMBs also account for 45 percent of total employment in emerging countries globally and 60 percent in the U.K. 

Governments have offered different forms of aid for SMBs. While helpful, such assistance is more focused on helping SMBs survive in the short term. It’s essential to recognize that the speed of recovery will depend on the ability of SMBs to return to sustainable operations post-pandemic after current stimulus measures run out. 

Here are some ways SMBs can quickly adapt and remain on track for recovery. 

Reopen safely with technology

According to a Salesforce Research survey, 64 percent of SMBs have focused on safety and health policies due to the pandemic. Cleaning physical spaces is a huge part of it, but another way to promote health safety is to enforce social distancing and manage the number of customers coming in. 

Reopen is a free tool that lets customers make appointments. Through the platform, businesses can set their operating hours and customers can book a time slot that’s suitable for them to visit. With bookings set in advance, businesses can control foot traffic, anticipate demand and let clients know that they are safely open for business.

Make cost-efficient decisions 

Cost efficiency is crucial for SMBs, especially when demand tends to shift depending on changing restrictions. They need a mechanism that will enable them to optimize quickly to save on costs. 

Workforce.com’s live wage tracker enables small businesses and their managers to make cost-efficient decisions on the fly because it tracks demand and labor costs in real time. Managers can see staff count, exact costs and spot potential areas for overspending. 

Create schedules that stay on budget

Scheduling for SMBs can be more challenging these days. There has to be a balance between having enough staff, ensuring team safety and staying on budget. 

Workforce.com offers a scheduling platform that allows managers to input their labor budget to create a schedule that stays within a set amount. The platform can also pull in data from their POS, which can help forecast demand based on historical data. 

Ensure staff safety

Health issues are detrimental to how SMBs operate, especially now. Creating rotational shifts to minimize contact is a good step. It also pays to conduct health check-ins during each shift where employees can declare any symptoms they’re experiencing. This will help managers optimize operations, conduct contact tracing and assist employees should they need to be tested and isolated. 

Also read: Staying resilient: 10 ways to use Workforce.com to manage the impact of COVID-19

Workforce.com provides ways to keep track of these things automatically. Managers can create and track qualifications for safety processes such as COVID-19 test results and quarantine expiration dates within the platform. They can also set shift questions that remind staff of sanitation requirements or ask them if they’re experiencing any symptoms.

Adapting to market volatility with technology

SMBs that utilize technology are better poised to overcome market challenges. According to the same Salesforce Research survey, technology influences SMB operations in different ways, especially with customer interactions (51 percent), the organization’s ability to stay open and in business (46 percent) and growth of customer base (40 percent). 

The Workforce.com platform is designed to meet the workforce management needs of businesses of any size. It has different functionalities that can help SMBs thrive even in today’s volatile market. See how it can equip your team to make cost-effective decisions and optimize operations promptly. See it in action and try Workforce.com for free today.

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SAP Acquires Contingent Staffing Tech Firm Fieldglass

employee communication co-worker

German tech firm SAP announced plans to acquire contingent staffing software maker Fieldglass. Terms of the deal, which is scheduled to close in the second quarter, were not disclosed.

Fieldglass’ cloud-based vendor management system meets the growing demand among employers to manage flexible workforces that can be quickly engaged and on-boarded to support rapidly changing business and customer needs, according to an SAP release announcing the March 26 deal.

Combined with the collaborative, network-based procurement capabilities of Ariba and the human resources expertise of SuccessFactors, the acquisition uniquely positions SAP to deliver a platform for businesses to manage their entire workforce — both temporary and permanent staff — from initial recruiting and on-boarding to ongoing development, performance management, retention and retirement, SAP said.

The combination of Fieldglass’ market-leading VMS solution with SAP promises to transform workforce management. It will enable a flexible and comprehensive approach to managing the entire workforce and life cycle, beyond the traditional focus on the employee record that characterizes many systems today, SAP said.

Contingent labor and statement-of-work services is a $3.3 trillion, high-growth market according to industry analyst estimates.

Fieldglass will continue to build out its global team and operations and retain its identity and continue to operate independently as an SAP company in its cloud line, according to a press release.

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Thirteen Alternatives to Downsizing

Research by Workforce and by others has shown that many companies that downsize end up with less productivity or less revenue than when they started. Here are several alternatives to consider.

Long-term Staffing Alternatives

  1. Hiring Linking to Vision
    The organization identifies the skills that will be needed to meet its goals, assuring that it is recruiting and hiring people who can meet future challenges.
  2. Cross Training
    By understanding the skill mix of staff today and linking it to the skills needed in the future, the organization allows individual employees to determine what they need to do in order to remain employed.
  3. Succession Planning
    Rather than leaving succession planning to chance, HR should work with line managers to identify likely candidates possessing the types of management and technical skills it needs in various positions.
  4. Redeployment Within the Organization
    Successful redeployment requires (1) a sophisticated career management process so that managers and employees are aware of open positions, and (2) career assessment and development activities that allow people to get ready for positions.
  5. Creating Value-added and Revenue-enhancing Opportunities
    This is an “Employee Buy Out” within the organization where a group of employees create a new business or line of service that the company can market.

Cost-Saving Strategies

  1. A Comprehensive Model
    Automakers, as well as other industries in Japan, have adopted a series of steps they use as an alternative to downsizing. If the first step doesn’t get the needed savings, they move to the next. Areas of focus include compensation, hours, wages and placement.
  2. Reduced Hours
    A policy is established that either places everyone in a particular job category on a flexible working arrangement or creates a flex-pool made up of volunteers from the department. The goal is to reduce the number of hours worked by each employee.
  3. Lower Wages
    Wages are reduced in order to save money.
  4. Attrition
    Waiting for people to retire or leave on their own can occur either through natural attrition or by offering voluntary retirement or similar packages.
  5. Alternative Placement
    Offer early retirement incentives to pension-eligible employees in a specific area.
  6. Leave of Absence
    People are offered a leave of absence with full benefits for a specified period of time to help an organization weather a downturn. Although people are promised a job upon completion of the leave, it may not be the same job or at the same pay level.
  7. Employee Buy-Outs
    The company allows employees to buy the operation that was slated for closing and set up their own businesses.
  8. Shared Ownership
    The company allows employees to trade pay increases or pay cuts in return for company stock.