Staffing Management – Page 6

September 21, 2020June 29, 2023

Workforce management tools to help address modern workplace challenges

HR tech; hr manager; workforce management software

As the world throws curveballs at businesses, new workforce management tools are created as old ones may become irrelevant or even more daunting to use.

Luckily, new technologies are constantly being created to address these challenges.

Geofencing

With more employees clocking in on their phones, it could be possible for them to clock in anywhere. Geofencing — a capability in which time and attendance tools can put a fence around a location that that workers cannot clock in unless they are on premise — is one solution that’s gaining momentum.

Karen Piercy, a partner in Mercer’s Philadelphia office, said that she’s recently seen more clients ask about geofencing when looking for vendors. While it used to be something that clients were not directly seeking when looking for a vendor, now it’s something on many wish lists.

Also read: Companies may pay the price for poorly managed payroll practices

Fighting burnout and fatigue

One of the biggest challenges of recent years is the quick pace of transformation and innovation, said Jan Bruce, CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium. These changes can impact the way that employees work on a day-to-day basis. Even before COVID-19 hit the U.S. in early 2020, companies and employees were struggling with how to deal with change effectively.

She gave the example of distribution workers, who years ago may have gone about their day with a clipboard and a manifest and did their daily deliveries based on that paper document . Now it’s more likely they used an iPad, where tasks can be updated whenever it is convenient. In the future, it’s possible that self-driving cars are instructed where to go, and the employee is essentially only used to offload products.

People don’t change as quickly as technology does, which can lead to change fatigue and burnout, Bruce said. Change fatigue refers to people feeling tired out by constant change, and burnout refers to people feeling overwhelmed by not having enough resources to deal with these changes appropriately.

Bruce suggested that resilience training software can help employees deal with change better. Resilience refers to not necessarily working harder but adopting the skills to solve problems or address a situation as efficiently as possible with the resources available.

Additionally, managers have a role, as well. It’s not all on the employees. Managers should understand how employees as a group are feeling and learn the overall climate of the workforce, Bruce said. If workers are stressed, managers can explore the question of what is causing burnout and hindering their productivity.

Also read: How technology can help your employee engagement strategy

For this, Bruce recommended using a HR tool or software that provides managers data-driven insights, rather than something that simply shares tips and guidance. Good workforce management tools here will deliver actionable insights to managers.

Adopt workforce management tools with personalization

In the context of burnout, personalized tools can help in many ways. Bruce said the right tools could help people track their stress levels and get instant feedback from a chatbot if someone is seeing a pattern of feeling more stressed than usual.

Users could get insights like that they’re always a little more stressed on a certain day of the week or after a specific type of meeting or event. From there, they can identify a specific stress point and go on from there trying to deal with it better, Bruce said.

Personalization is also something that applies to the broader spectrum of workforce management tools and technology.

Machine learning is gaining traction

The Gartner report “Six Emerging Human Capital Management Technology Trends” explored different tools and technologies likely to become commonplace in the near future. One of these tools is machine learning in HCM, likely to see mainstream adoption in the next five to 10 years, according to the report.

Machine learning is broadly applicable to most, if not all, HCM processes, the report stated, and in order to be successful, organizations must have access to rich data sources, including historical data. By adopting this tool, organizations may be able to take advantage of the many benefits from helping people and processes evolve to guiding talent planning and investment decisions.

The report also included some warnings regarding the impact of machine learning. “Beware of the limitations of machine learning in HCM. A decision based on bad data or a bad analysis will usually result in an unexpected/poor outcome,” it stated.

Additionally, deploying machine learning as a one-off initiative is not the most effective use of the tool, the report said. It’s better used consistently for continuous improvement over time.

Voice of the employee technologies

The Gartner report also highlighted “voice of the employee,” or VoE, technologies, which are able to collect and analyze the opinions, perceptions and feelings of employees through means such as surveys or feedback tools. It is estimated that these tools will see mainstream adoption in five to 10 years, according to the report.

These solutions offer a way for managers to measure and improve employee engagement and retention, and they better allow managers to identify any commonplace issues among staff.

One important recommendation Gartner has for organizations interested in this technology is to build a VoE strategy with data privacy and security requirements in mind.

Also read: Shift feedback software is an immediate conversation starter

Chatbots for bots

Organizations have been incorporating AI-enabled chatbots in their HR systems for years, but that becomes difficult to manage when there’s a different bot for each HR function, said Will Manuel, partner at Mercer.

One of the newer innovations is bots for bots, he added. Socrates.AI is one of these software technology companies that helps manage the bots an organization uses so that the way questions are being answered is consistent across bots.

“Otherwise, even though you’re leveraging new technology, you’re still creating silos. And integration is better,” Manuel said.

September 15, 2020June 29, 2023

Cloud workforce management saves on costs, resources and time

While cloud-based human resources applications are now the standard for new buyers, many organizations still use on-premise systems, according to Sierra-Cedar’s “2019-20 HR Systems Survey.”

The report noted that 40 percent of organizations still use at least one on-premise HR application, and that number is decreasing at a relatively slow rate. Meanwhile, 70 percent of organizations use at least one cloud HR system, the report stated.

Organizations that aren’t investing in cloud workforce management systems may be missing out on many advantages.

“If you’re not in the cloud right now or if you’re not on the path to the cloud, then you are considerably behind,” said Wilson Silva, senior vice president of outsourcing at Alight Solutions. “You’re missing out on the opportunity for many workplace benefits.”

Also read: Unify those far away workplaces with global mobility tools

Simplify the data entry process

Typically with a cloud workforce management system, a big benefit is that organizations just have to deal with one source of information, Silva said. A manager could enter a data element in one place, and that can be considered for multiple processes. They don’t need to use several competing platforms and make sure they are all in sync with the correct shared information.

A united platform allows managers to be more efficient with data entry and focus on the quality of data entry rather than the amount of time it takes to sync up multiple platforms with the same data, he added.

More frequent updates

Most cloud-based workforce management systems come with automatic updates multiple times a year, unlike older types of workforce management platforms for which organizations must wait a year or more for more hands-on updates, Silva said.

Anything that allows you to adopt new functionality and apply it in a timely manner is a strong benefit for any organization, he added.

Compliance with new laws

While cloud-based software can’t do all the compliance work for a manager, it can make their job much easier, Silva said. For example, with payroll, cloud workforce management systems can consider tax rates of different geographies. And the cloud allows companies to more quickly address legislative changes.

The ongoing update piece of this also allows companies to feel comfortable that they are on the same page as competitors, said Jake Soliman, vice president of cloud services solutions at Alight Solutions. They have access to the same functions and features as others.

Given this standardization of much of the workforce management process, organizations can more easily benchmark themselves against their competitors and see where they stand.

”This is what the software delivers. ‘This is the best practice for 90 percent plus. Let’s use it as our benchmark and use it for a more standardized process.’ It can be that driving engine behind helping HR to be as efficient and standardized across the globe as they can,” he said.

Easing the workload of your workforce

The cloud essentially allows organizations to offload infrastructure onto a third party, Soliman said. The costs, resources, time and expertise that in-house IT or HR departments used to save for maintaining a workforce management system can now be used for something else.

“You get out of what might not be a core competency for your organization, and are able to move that into a company that specializes in that delivery. It’s a cost save and a resource save as well,” he said.

Better data security

While some people might worry about the safety of their information in the cloud, the reality is that for cloud workforce management systems, data security is usually better than the old way of doing things, Soliman said.

Also read: Labor analytics add power to workforce management tools

“Do your due diligence and put your security team on it, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised that their standards are more likely than not better than what you’re running now,” he said. For cloud based systems, he added, “they all understand their business is predicated on data security, and one breach could be catastrophic to their organization. So their budget and their attention to controls are above and beyond what most would do on their own.”

There’s always the implication that “outside my network” means “not safe,” but that’s just not true, Silva said.

“It is possible to have your data outside of your network or in the cloud and it is just as safe if not safer for them as when it was in your network,” he added. “Where you find potential for breaches is when the data is when somebody is handling data outside the cloud or passing spreadsheets around.”

Rely on the experts

For the customer who hasn’t moved on to the cloud yet, there’s no need to do the switch alone, Soliman said.

“Having the in-house resources can be daunting, but having a partner help build that design and run it is becoming much more commonplace,” he added.

Having someone who has expertise in deployment is critical, Silva said. Whether an organization chooses to rely on the vendor’s expertise, there are many consultancies that also help clients maneuver the cloud because learning a new software takes time, he added.

“It’s not just a data entry system. It’s a transactional system, and understanding the configuration and workflow that goes with it is sometimes harder than it may seem,” he said. “If people view that an HR or payroll system is simply ‘You just enter data in,’ I think they find out pretty quickly that’s not the case. The skill set around it is a whole lot more challenging.

“So get some help,” he added. “It’ll make your project way more successful.”

The future of the cloud

Wilson noted that there is a level of maturity in the cloud software marketplace now. Large players have either through acquisitions or in-house developments created comprehensive services that offer everything including HCM, payroll, compensation, time tracking, performance and recruiting. But now rather than building out their product offerings they’re moving on to analytics and benchmarking.

The question software companies are seeking to answer is, “How do you leverage the data that companies input to give them analytics on how to drive performance?” Wilson said. How can analytics help drive value through data companies already have?

The next direction he sees things going is benchmarking, he added.

Also read: Labor analytics: A how-to guide for company leadership

“It’s not just about the ability to let customers utilize data, but the question now is, ‘I have this metric or insight. But is this good or bad?’ ” he said. Cloud systems can allow companies to compare themselves to what competitors are doing. An organization can assess “if I’m doing well or not based upon what other companies have the ability to do.”

August 31, 2020June 29, 2023

Workforce tracking solutions do not always track with company culture

Workforce tracking solutions for employers continues to grow, especially as remote work has become more commonplace in 2020.

One reason for this is that organizations worry that employees aren’t as productive when they’re working remotely and that managers can’t peek around the office to see who’s working and who’s online shopping, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice.

Additionally, now there’s just more data as more people work online. For example, with more health care delivered through telehealth now, he said, there’s much more data on patient interactions that used to just be recorded in doctors’ notes. And it’s possible to connect this data with actual patient outcomes.

Also read: Labor analytics add power to workforce management tools

In health care and beyond, organizations are beginning to invest more in this technology, Stevenson said. As workforce tracking becomes more commonplace, there are some key considerations employers must keep in mind to use it correctly.

Track productivity, not activity

There is a lot of metadata that organizations and vendors can track, like how many clicks per day or meetings per day an employee has. Either party can tap into this data and interpret it, but one important consideration is they are tracking the right thing, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice.

“if your’e just tracking activity and micromanaging activity, that probably won’t end well. But if you have a way of seeing whether activity is a leading indicator of productivity, that’s fantastic,” Stevenson said.

He gave the example of judging athletes’ “productivity” by how much time they spent on the field rather than how many goals they scored. There is a big distinction between activity and productivity, and it can be a difficult distinction to make in the workplace.

Also read: Monitor Responsibly: How Employers Are Using Workplace Surveillance Devices

Consider how much you trust who you’ve hired

John Lacy, chief operating officer at Idea Grove, said that at his organization, they do not believe in workforce tracking. Rather, there should be a culture of trust.

“We don’t believe monitoring tools of that nature are necessary to ensure people are doing their jobs. It comes down to the culture we’re building. When we looked at going fully remote, that question came up as not so much ‘What technology do we need to track them?’ but ‘How will we know work is getting done?’ and ‘How will we know we’re still meeting client needs?’ ” he said.

“It came back to that level of trust,” he added. “If we don’t trust [employees] to do what they need to do — whether they’re working at the office or from a remote location — we believe we’ve hired the wrong person.”

To ensure that people are getting work done, Idea Grove instead uses a series of tech tools that help with project management. Team members track their progress on projects with the project tracking tool Teamwork. They communicate with each other via Slack. And the organization regularly gets employee feedback about how employees are feeling about the office culture through the culture tracking tool Officevibe.

Lacy also said that the organization uses The Great Game of Business to help educate employees on how to run a business, how their work contributes to the organization and how exactly their successes can lead to rewards and bonuses.

“A philosophy I truly believe in is that everyone can understand business. It’s not that hard,” he said. “A lot of companies hide that from their employees, but we want to empower employees with that knowledge so that they understand that if they want long-term employment with the company, we have to make sure we have a company that is healthy, profitable and engaging, and they can participate in that directly.”

Avoid micromanaging

A real risk of workforce tracking is the presence of micromanaging, Stevenson said. He suggested “nudging” as a solution to micromanaging.

For example, perhaps a company found out that employees’ sending emails after 10 p.m. led to burnout and lower productivity. If a manager finds out through workforce tracking that an employee is regularly sending emails at this time, the solution wouldn’t be to have a stern discussion with the employee and tell them to stop. Rather, the employee could receive “nudges” through pop-ups on their computer that encourage them to sign off at a certain time.

Also read: Employee performance shines bright with valuable, continuous shift feedback

There’s a good deal of research supporting that nudges help with behavior change rather than direct orders. Stevenson said.

With this logic, what organizations should do first is find that link between activity and productivity. Once they’ve figured out that link, they could use that insight to create nudges rather than try to directly guide employee behavior, he added.

“It’s a two-fold problem,” he explained. “What predicts the things you care about, and if you have those predictions, what do you do about it without making things worse?”

The conversation about micromanaging ultimately comes back to trust, Lacy said.

“Everything starts with culture,” he said. “If you’re in an environment where trust is not the baseline, I could see a more command-and-control type manager having trouble with not knowing if everyone’s doing what they need to do.”

“My advice to them is to take an inward look,” he added. “What is it about your internal self that is not trusting your team to get its work done?”

How to calm employee’s concerns

Some employees may have concerns about workforce tracking, which comes down to is company culture and how employee data is being used, Stevenson said. Some cultures may breed more suspicion in employees while others are more trusting.

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

Things get tougher in organizations where there is a more adversarial relationship between employees and employer. “And, in my personal opinion, that’s where you may see more labor organizations showing up,” Stevenson said.

He gave the historical example of Henry Ford and the creation of assembly lines. Strikes would often happen when factory operators sped up production. A similar trend happened with coal miners, who were paid by their output of coal every hour. They would strike when the number was supposed to go up, if they were concerned it was unsafe for them to do so.

Using “speeding up the assembly line” as a metaphor for “increasing productivity” in the 21st century, Stevenson said that when organizations attempt to “speed it up” by tracking emails or whatever other metric, people notice.

“If you’re the sort of organization that will take this data to speed up the assembly line, you’ll get pushback,” he said. “If you’re on the sort that will use this data to make the product on the assembly line better then you won’t get push back.”

Further, he added, sometimes it’s legitimate to speed up the assembly line and look for higher productivity. What’s key here is how an organization shares the benefit of increased productivity. If it speeds up productivity and shares the profits with employees, those employees may very well be satisfied. But if profits mostly go somewhere else, like to shareholders or executives, then there will be less of a positive reaction, he said.

August 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Decentralized scheduling in nursing helps care for health care professionals

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of treating health care workers well. A population of employees that was already at high risk of burnout, the pandemic has added even more pressure on certain medical professionals who must endure higher workloads, abide by stricter reporting and safety routines, and witness the carnage of a pandemic.

Nurses are one group of these medical workers. Even before COVID-19, burnout among nursing staff was a concern, with one 2017 study finding that nearly 50 percent of nurse respondents saying they have considered leaving the field for reasons such as feeling overworked, being swamped with paperwork and not feeling satisfied with their job.

Best practices to keep nursing staff engaged include deciding the right shift length for your workforce, hiring the right number of full-time versus part-time employees and determining if centralized or decentralized scheduling in nursing works for your organization.

Also read: Shift scheduling strategies can be improved through technology

Centralized versus decentralized scheduling in nursing

With a centralized model, the organizations manage staffing and scheduling through one central office, while with a decentralized model, these decisions are made as an individual hospital or unit.

The decision between centralized and decentralized scheduling in nursing is partly based on geography and if the hospital system exists in one city versus many time zones, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice. A centralized model can work for a location or several locations in one city. It allows two locations from the same hospital system to use the same centralized staffing pool, and nurses can potentially move from one location to another instead of getting sent home if they’re scheduled for an overstaffed shift.

There are also efficiencies in terms of how payroll. Financials and training are handled the same way across locations, he added.

However, this may not work if an employee has to drive long distances to get from one location to another, he said. That’s why a decentralized model may work better for a hospital system that is multistate, rural or widely spread out.

In addition, from the cultural perspectives, many hospitals don’t prefer a centralized model because they’d have less control and they’d be at the mercy of a centralized system for staffing needs, Stevenson said. If they don’t get extra staff that way, they’re out of luck. A decentralized model provides more independence.

Forecasting patient census

There are different types of hospitals that may have different scheduling concerns, but one challenge they share is that they can’t predict how many patients come through the door in a given day or how sick they’ll be, Stevenson said. While hospitals can depend on some big-picture trends, they aren’t always reliable, which causes a lot of stress internally.

If nurses are understaffed, that may mean that nurses are overwhelmed and overworked. If nurses are overstaffed, that may mean having to send people home without working or getting paid.

Systems are getting more sophisticated about forecasting patient census — how many patients are expected to come in during a given time period, Stevenson said. And those hospitals and health systems that do it better will help the morale of nurses and other health care workers, he added.

Scheduling and managing full-time versus part-time nurses

Nursing organizations fall onto different parts of the continuum of mostly full-time employees versus mostly part-time employees, and having more of either can be advantageous for different companies, Stevenson said.

Full-time nurses generally stay at an organization longer, but hospitals must pay them more and give them a full-time schedule. Using more part-time nurses means more flexibility in the schedule but can also mean more turnover.

Also read: How to avoid overstaffing through wage tracker software

The challenge here is that each supports competing priorities — one financial and one operational, Stevenson said.

“Finding the sweet spot of the right mix between full time and part time is really tough, and we find it different for every hospital,” he said. “Those organizations that can figure out the sweet spot will win every time.”

For hospitals trying to figure this out, the first aspect to consider is what the labor market looks like in the area. Are there more full-time or part-time options available?

Second, it depends on how the hospital is set up and how many recruiters and trainers there are on staff. With more part-time employees, there will need to be enough people to find, interview, hire, and train talent. A hospital may not be able to change the full-time to part-time ratio if the staff infrastructure of the organization does not support that new mix.

Finally, it depends on how a hospital sets up its nurses’ shifts. Are they mostly six hour, eight hour, or 12-hour shifts? If a nurse works many shorter shifts, they tend to be part-time.

How to set up nursing shifts

The length of shifts depends on factors such as the type of care nurses are providing and the age of the workforce, Stevenson said. In general, younger workers are more open to 12-hour shifts. Also, employees start to get burned out at hour 12, so caring for high-acuity patients with challenging medical conditions and unpredictable needs may not be the best option for them.

On the other extreme, four or six hour shifts present more opportunities for infectious disease to spread, he said. If a patient has something infectious, the fewer number of nurses who care for them in a given day, the less likely that will spread their infection to more people.

August 27, 2020June 29, 2023

Management tips on overtime equalization and tracking hours

scheduling; time and attendance; forecasting

Many schedules like 24-7 operations have built in overtime, just to make sure there’s coverage, but in any organization there’s potential that employees may accrue unplanned overtime. For managers trying to run a tight ship, this can complicate a precisely planned schedule and budget.

Sometimes there’s too much work and not enough resources or employees to accomplish these tasks, leading companies to give too much overtime. “That’s a matter for management and leadership to assess and to determine whether they need to hire additional talent,” said Chuck Buiocchi, senior director of BPS operations at Kelly Services.

It’s vital that managers get payroll correct, and while many companies still use old school paper time cards, third party platforms can help a lot, he added.

Several workplace experts shared management tips for organizations trying to manage overtime more accurately and precisely. Here is their advice.

Overtime equalization can help you decide who gets extra hours

Some employees may want more overtime hours to help ensure financial stability, Buiocchi said. Managers want to be fair to employees in situations like this, and if there’s more demand for overtime than supply, they’ll want to create a method of allocating those hours fairly.

Overtime equalization — the attempt to balance overtime among employees — can be dependent on factors like employee tenure and reliability. But more often than not, organizations have to consider the people with the most relevant skill sets first, Buiocchi said.

Sometimes overtime is built into schedules and interested employees can ask for those hours, but in general managers want to avoid unnecessary overtime as much as possible.

Also read: A technology integration is an intervention to dissolve common payroll errors

The key here is understanding the root cause of this increased need for labor, Buiocchi said. If employees are spread too thin, maybe it’s time to hire more employees. If the reason for more overtime is a decrease in productivity, drill down on what’s impacting productivity and address it. This is a much bigger project and requires deeper discussion, but it’s necessary if something is impacting the team to such a degree, he added.

Allocating overtime hours during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated overtime allocation to some degree. Now when determining overtime equalization, organizations may deal with a world of juxtaposition, said Traci Fiatte, chief executive officer, professional and commercial staffing at Randstad US. Some employees are dying for extra hours and income for a variety of reasons, like those working 60 or 70 hour weeks at two different jobs because their spouse lost their job. But others don’t want to go to work at all or are scared.

Meanwhile, employers are desperately trying to manage overtime and not pay it, because many organizations’ revenues have declined since the pandemic began.

Smart scheduling is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, when offices or places of operations might have to stagger out their shifts so that employees can be socially distanced, Fiatte said. Or maybe they need to operate at a lower capacity than usual so that employees can more easily stay away from each other. She also suggested adopting scheduling tools that allow managers to take floor plans into account as they create schedules and socially distant staff appropriately.

“Overtime is best managed when you know who is working when and where, even in terms of floor planning — which is a concept we never had to worry about pre-COVID. We certainly had to worry about shift scheduling before, but we never had to worry about who was where,” she said.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are eager to produce as much as they usually have or more, but whether or not they’ll have the same employee headcount as before is uncertain, she said. And with fewer employees, maintaining that production schedule can be tricky.

One strategy organizations have adopted to address pandemic challenges is relying on more shifts with fewer employees, she said. During times like this, that may be more effective than longer shifts with more people on the floor at the same time.

Actions speak louder than words

One of the main problems with labor tracking and monitoring is that it’s difficult to accurately track or monitor overtime, said Albert Rizzo, adjunct assistant professor at the NYU School of Professional Studies within its human capital management program. HR needs to do it and not just pretend to do it, he said.

Also read: Shift scheduling strategies can be improved through technology

Also, he added, HR needs to make sure the overtime policy is not just a few lines in the employee handbook but something that’s actionable. Best practices here depend on the size of the company.

For a mid-sized company with many employees, for example, one common mistake is that HR is given the responsibility to track labor, Rizzo said. But it’s actually be more efficient and accurate if lower level managers were given the task of tracking this.

“Rather than put the burden on one department like HR or one HR manager to track, the best practice would be to get the person closest to the employees typically incurring the overtime and have that person manage it,” he said.

While many managers view overtime as a problem, they should be looking at it more from the solution mindset, he added. When team members are accruing too much unplanned overtime, there’s a solution to be discovered. Managers can speak to the people accruing the extra hours and find out why that’s occurring. Maybe there’s no clear policy on what constitutes overtime and what doesn’t. Maybe the location is short staffed.

Ensure that your employees are properly classified

HR needs to make sure they’ve properly classified employees to begin with so that exempt employees are truly exempt and nonexempt employees are truly nonexempt. Misclassification frequently happens in HR, Rizzo said.

Regarding overtime, perhaps an analysis could be done on what exact duties employees are performing. Managers can potentially shift certain duties from A nonexempt employee to an exempt employee who won’t be paid overtime for working extra hours.

“HR should be very careful about classification of exempt and nonexempt employees,” he said.

Cover your tracks with labor tracking

An important part of this conversation is what the burden of proof is on overtime claims and who holds that burden, Rizzo said. If an employee claims they have worked unpaid overtime, employers must have the information on file to disprove that claim. If the employer doesn’t have any records that accurately track if the claim is true or not, the U.S. Department of Labor will pursue assuming the employee is telling the truth.

Also read: Labor analytics: A how-to guide for company leadership

“If an employee says 60 hours and the employer has no way to refute the claim or doesn’t refute it sufficiently, then the employee’s statement of how many hours they worked will be taken as the truth,” Rizzo said, adding that this is something employer often take for granted or don’t know.

“There has to be a real tracking system, Rizzo said. “It doesn’t have to be sophisticated but it does have to be monitored carefully.”

August 25, 2020June 29, 2023

Labor tracking in an increasingly complex legal environment

Labor tracking is necessary for employers to ensure they’re paying their workforce correctly, but the unique labor laws of certain cities and states throw a wrench in an organization’s practices.

The word “complex” does not even scratch the surface of how complicated labor tracking is given the various state and local labor laws that govern sick leave, overtime, minimum wage and more, according to Traci Fiatte, chief executive officer, professional & commercial staffing at Randstad US. “If you’re not using an automated [employee] scheduling software and you have employees in multiple states, I’m not sure how you keep track of it all,” she added.

According to Workforce.com’s 2020 “HR State of the Industry” report, only 40.5 percent of respondents said they used HR software for workforce management, including time and attendance, and only 29.5 percent said they used it for compensation management. There’s still room for improvement for organizations who’ve yet to use automated software to help with labor tracking and management.

Rely on specialized employees and software

Fiatte suggested that organizations have personnel dedicated to understanding varying laws and a payroll system that can be programmed to understand the different laws.

For example, overtime is an area of labor law where different regulations can confuse an already complex process, and software may have the capabilities to allow managers to take overtime laws into account when they plan schedules. In most states, “overtime” is defined as anything more than 40 hours a week, but in California it’s defined as more than 8 hours worked in a day.

“Unless you have a system to track that, you almost need a staff dedicated to manually tracking it, which I can’t imagine any large employer being able to do,” Fiatte said. “The name of the game is automation and making sure you have the right systems to help manage it.”

The biggest gap here is that while big national brands have this figured out, others may not.

“The companies I worry for are the companies that are small enough that they may be family-owned, regionally-based or [spread across] four or five states, but they don’t have the level of sophistication to have legal teams or HR teams to be managing the variances between state laws,” Fiatte said. “It’s those companies that could be taken by surprise two years from now when they get audited, and they’ve broken a bunch of laws they didn’t know they were breaking.”

Organizations in a situation like this can find a specialist to help them manage the dynamic and complex labor law environment, she added.

Encourage managers to stay up to date on the latest labor laws

Chuck Buiocchi, senior director of BPS operations at staffing company Kelly Services, said that at his organization they use the latest technology to ensure managers aren’t expected to know everything. They also have a group whose sole purpose is to keep the rest of the organization abreast of changing labor laws.

Buiocchi said he would encourage managers to stay as up to date as possible on changing labor laws. While they may not become experts, keeping themselves educated is a smart thing to do.

Keep documentation

Labor tracking helps organizations control wage costs, but that’s not the only benefit. It’ll also help any organization audited by the Department of Labor.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of labor tracking, not only from a financial standpoint in terms of making sure people are paid properly but even in terms of the legal standpoint,” said Albert Rizzo, adjunct assistant professor at the NYU School of Professional Studies within its human capital management program.

“If the company ever gets audited by the Department of Labor, it only takes one employee to make a complaint about failure to get paid minimum wage or overtime for that to trigger an audit by the Department of Labor,” he added. “And once that audit is triggered, they could very well go after the employer and every employee to see if the employer has paid any one of those employees improperly, even if they’ve never lodged a complaint.”

Encourage straightforward conversations

Companies must be very deliberate about payroll policies, procedures and expectations and how that information is communicated among leadership, management and employees, Buiocchi said.

“We will not allow people to work off the clock,” he said about his own organization. “We don’t trade for comp time or anything like that. We live to not only the letter but the spirit of the laws in which we operate, and we expect our leaders and our employees to do the same. And we set those expectations and we manage the performance for those who don’t meet those expectations.”

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

If someone works off the clock, in this case, supervisors can have a conversation with that employee, make sure they get paid, make sure they don’t do it again and discipline them if necessary. Maybe the supervisor finds out that the direct manager of the employee is mismanaging something or overworking employees, and then it’s up to the supervisor to find a resolution for that.

August 23, 2020November 7, 2022

Growing Workforce Success with Palumbo Foods

Workforce.com sat down to talk growth with local champignons, the owners and staff of Palumbo Foods in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

Founder Tony Palumbo, having grown up in the mushroom industry, invested in his own company in 2008. A decade later, Palumbo is joined by several members of his family in overseeing more than 40 staff members. They sell over 350,000 pounds of mushrooms each week. Together, they supply mushrooms and seasonal produce to customers not just in Pennsylvania, but also in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, and Texas.

Vice President Shawn Palumbo is Tony’s son and talks about running this successful food business and their partnership with workforce.com

Talented people behind a family business

“We have a lot of talented people on the staff who really go above and beyond,” Palumbo said. “And that goes from our office team to our dock employees who are building orders day and night to our over the road truck drivers. We have a lot of dedicated people and that’s really what makes it work.”

Besides providing fresh, locally grown produce, the Palumbo Foods team also emphasizes customer service. Indeed, the family business has thrived through the tight-knit relationship of the staff, not just with each other, but also with their customers. Shawn Palumbo said, “A bunch of loyal customers believed in what Tony was looking to do and stuck with us to help us get started. Years later, most of those customers still work with us.” Today, from locally grown mushrooms, they’ve branched out into seasonal produce like garlic, ginger, peppers, onions, cucumbers and microgreens.

Data-led improvements that matter

Time is of the essence, especially in the food business. That’s where Shawn Palumbo’s team encountered their biggest challenge. They thought they could make headway by keeping most of their staff in the first shift. “We always only operated with a first shift team, but we realized we were overloading them. There just was too much work for anyone to get done,” he said. Enter the Workforce.com platform, a workforce management software with tracking and reporting capabilities.

“The biggest key is visibility. Workforce.com gave us visibility to see where our hours were being spent and where we could place them,” he said.

From just having a first shift and seeing what needed to be done during the day, using the Workforce.com platform allowed Palumbo Foods to see that they actually needed a third shift. “Looking at the numbers and seeing the physical data on paper and on the computer allowed us to make a decision that we wouldn’t have been able to make without the platform so to speak,” he said. The team in charge of carrying out improvements relied on the Workforce.com platform to make the decision to add a third shift.

The results were astounding.

“They’re coming in at night getting a third of the work done, so the team during the morning shift does not have as much pressure to get everything completed,” Shawn Palumbo said. The simple change decreased production errors and increased employee morale. “They’re less stressed and they’re more efficient. The quality has gone up to our customers as well. We’ve seen our returns decreased,” he said. The addition of the third shift even allowed their trucks to leave earlier, which assists in completing their deliveries within service rule hours.

Also read: Labor analytics: A how-to guide for company leadership

Team visibility despite the miles

“When I was younger, I worked at places and you grabbed the card, you put it in the machine, you put it back. What visibility does that give anybody?” Shawn Palumbo said, recalling the punch clocks that most businesses used decades ago, and which some still use today. For him, Workforce.com’s Time Clock App increased visibility and engagement with their teams who are working 2,000 miles away. “As management is in Pennsylvania, we have cameras at our Texas facility, but no one is sitting here watching the cameras all day. With Workforce.com, we can see what time they’re punching in, and coming and going,” he said.

For Palumbo Foods, the increased visibility has allowed them to operate better. It linked them to a critical part of their operation without actually being there. “We could remotely monitor and verify the hours being worked and make the appropriate decisions based on that data,” he said,” It has also increased trust among team members. Before switching to Workforce.com, employee attendance caused some friction. “The staff is now operating 24/7 so staff can come and go, and sometimes it was not being noticed. It was causing issues between team members as some were showing up later and leaving earlier than others,” he said. Now, they can look at the timesheets and resolve these conflicts easily.

Growing with workforce technology

In 2017, Palumbo Foods opened a facility in San Antonio, Texas, with seven employees. They also service Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. The business is still slated for more growth and success, and Workforce.com is with them as they continue to optimize and improve their operations. “Knowing that, at any time, we can look at these reports, from anywhere has been a big, big help for us,” Shawn Palumbo said.

Pennsylvania continues to lead the mushroom production industry in the United States. Contributing to this boom is Palumbo Foods, a company that continues to flourish through its talented staff and loyal customers. “It kind of really grew this into something that no one ever expected it could be,” he said.

And with their investment in workforce technology that lets them track employees and operations accurately, they’re all set to keep providing quality produce to more customers in the years to come.

August 20, 2020June 29, 2023

Restaurant workforce management tips to reduce turnover

The restaurant sector sees one of the highest turnover rates, at 81.9 percent as of 2019. But proper restaurant workforce management practices can help managers move the needle in the right direction and motivate employees to work harder and stay longer.

Even keeping restaurant employees a little longer can help restaurants out, according to Lil Roberts, CEO and founder of fintech company Xendoo. Lower turnover ensures that managers spend less time training new employees, which also ultimately saves money on training costs.

Also read: Boost your managers’ effectiveness with an essential mobile clock-in tool

Here are six restaurant workforce management tips to help owners and managers keep good employees longer and keep them engaged with the job.

Find the right team members that will be consistent and dependable

Most restaurant employees don’t understand that their job can become their career, Roberts said. Moving higher up the ladder at the restaurant or moving to a higher-tiered establishment can be a potential career path for them.

Managers must more carefully consider how to hire right, Roberts said, suggesting that they create scorecards unique to the establishment that allow them to vet candidates for job duties, culture fit and job expectations. Conversely, when they make a bad hire, they should “find the door they came through and nail it shut,” she said.

For example, if a restaurant sees many employees who are inconsistent about showing up to work on time, managers can consider how to add behavioral-based questions into the traditional interview process.

Also read: Knock out the practice of buddy punching for good

These behavioral questions shouldn’t be too direct, which might ultimately give a manager a yes-or-no answer that isn’t helpful. The question “Are you organized?” would give a more generic answer versus something like “If I opened your closet and looked left, what would I see?” Roberts said. A more organized candidate might end up being a phenomenal host or hostess, she added, while someone with different strengths may be a better server.

Talk to employees about their future and career goals

People often see restaurants as a workplace with few benefits and low pay, but the reality is that benefits and compensation depend on what level of the restaurant someone works at, Roberts said. It also depends on the dining establishment itself. A waiter at a casual sit-down restaurant may value flexibility and making enough money to get by until they move on, but at a more family-oriented restaurant managers have the opportunity to have meaningful conversations with wait staff, Roberts said.

Questions include: What are your life goals? Are you going to school? Would you like to use this job as a stepping stone to a career in the restaurant industry?

High-end restaurants like Morton’s Steakhouse with good wait staff jobs will hire based off skills and years of experience, Roberts said, and managers at more casual eateries can use the appeal of these higher tiered restaurants to retain employees longer. They can teach these workers skills needed to work at a high-end restaurant and give them the experience years needed to be eligible for those jobs.

Also read: Employee performance shines bright with valuable, continuous shift feedback

Not only do employees benefit in this situation, but employers in the restaurant industry can save money by reducing turnover.

Keep temporary employees just a little longer

Not every wait staff member wants a career in the industry, and that’s OK. Restaurants can still benefit from enticing them to stay a few months longer than they originally planned. Managers can do this by learning what drives workers, Roberts said.

If someone wants a fun workplace, one way to keep them engaged is creating contests that keep them entertained and happy, she said. If someone wants stability in their schedules because of other responsibilities that limit when they can work at the restaurant, managers can honor that and give them the same days and times each week.

“Then your life is easy, and theirs is easy,” Roberts said. “And it all stems from behavioral hiring and hiring the right people. If you’re a business owner and you’ve got a revolving door, you need to not say ‘Oh, the workforce is bad.’ You need to look internally and say, ‘What process can I change?’”

Invest in the latest technology

Restaurants have been notorious laggards when it comes to adopting new technology, according to Sam Zietz, CEO of payment technology company GRUBBRR, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic has in part exposed what companies have embraced technology versus those that have been stuck in the past. Fast-food establishments like Chipotle, Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s had invested in technology before the pandemic, and they’re leading the pack, he added.

Technology that makes restaurant workforce management simpler falls in a broad range, from self-ordering kiosks that allow former cashiers to find more satisfying jobs at the restaurant to shift-swapping software that gives employees a simpler way to trade shifts.

Meet employees where they are

Regarding communication, managers should consider employee preferences, whether that’s texting, calling, emailing or something else. It’s simple, and respecting employee preference goes a long way, Roberts said.

“As long as the employee is doing their job and fitting the culture of the company and the responsibilities of the job, pick what matters most,” she said. “Don’t try to have your whole team that just represents you and the way you move through the world.”

Promote a culture where team members feel comfortable approaching management

It’s very important to make sure managers create a safe workplace, Roberts said. According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data, hourly employees in the restaurant and retail industries are some of the most susceptible to harassment. Managers need to know how to deal with this.

“As owners, you have to train your manager team how to deal with these kinds of situations. The manager can’t just fly off the handle and yell at the employee who called an employee a name. That’s not going to solve anything,” Roberts said. “ You have to be very careful. One thing I will say is if a restaurant doesn’t have an HR person, find a fractional HR person that is HR certified who can help you handle that.”

August 18, 2020June 29, 2023

Proper shift coverage requires more communication and better technology

Creating a good schedule can be difficult, and laws in certain states and cities may place restrictions on things like how far in advance you create a schedule or if employees can work back-to-back shifts. Meanwhile, various trends of the 2010s and disruptions in 2020 have shifted some of the scheduling norms that managers used to rely on.

David Kopsch, a principal at Mercer’s Atlanta office, discussed how managers can create well-staffed shifts. Whether in more stable or more uncertain economic times, this guidance can help managers.

Communication is key

At the most fundamental level, there must be clear means of communication between managers and employees about the basics of the shifts like: What are the hours of operation? How early must workers arrive before doors open? How late should workers expect to stay after closing?

Managers should also keep lines of communication open with employees, Kopsch said. They can learn the hours employees want to work and the hours they’re available. Listening to employee input when possible can help employees feel like they have a little more control over their schedules.

An uptick in technology solutions

There has been an increase in the adoption of technology that can help with determining staff coverage, especially in times of major disruptions, like COVID-19, Kopsch said. More organizations are either contracting with vendors or developing their own applications, which helps both managers and employees feel more confident that schedules are accurate and compliant with whatever scheduling regulations may apply to the worksite.

On-call shifts are getting a backlash

While employers may still be interested in on-call shifts to ensure that a shift is perfectly staffed, there’s been pushback recently on this practice, Kopsch said. And some new scheduling regulations have put restrictions on on-call shifts or require employers to pay an on-call employee even if they do not end up working.

More accurate labor forecasting is one solution to make managers less dependent on on-call shifts by more accurately determining how many employees are needed for a given time and making understaffing or overstaffing less likely.

You don’t need to rely on predetermined shift patterns

While there are shift patterns managers have historically relied on, they aren’t necessary for proper shift coverage, Kopsch said. Workers in general are requesting more flexibility with their schedules, when they’re available to work and when they want to work.

In the past employers may have offered an opening shift from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a closing shift from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. But such set-in-stone shifts may not work for an employee who has to take their children to school in the morning. They may be available for an 8 or 8:30 shift but not the 7 o’clock shift, which is doable if managers rely on a more flexible scheduling system.

The pivot toward more flexible scheduling began about five years ago, Kopsch said. The more rigid shift coverage structure meant employers had a more difficult time finding employees, especially if employees worked second jobs, took classes or had child care or elder care responsibilities. Flexibility allows employees the opportunity to work somewhere they otherwise couldn’t because of these other responsibilities.

Ultimately, flexibility makes employees feel more respected and strengthens the employee value proposition.

This is especially true during times of disruption, like COVID-19. Businesses may now have different hours of operation and sanitation rules that impact an employee’s hours, and employers need to be even more flexible to employees in this new environment, Kopsch said.

Stay competitive even in times of high unemployment

Flexible scheduling is a competitive advantage for organizations interested in creating a high employee value proposition. This competitive advantage is important even when the unemployment rate is high, Kopsch said. While logic presumes that employees want to work more than ever in these times, the reality is that organizations still have to create a compelling experience and a positive environment for employees to want to work for them.

When someone is out of work, it may be because they have responsibilities like child care or parental care that inhibits them from finding a day job to pay the bills, Kopsch said. If an employer is competitive in how they schedule shifts and how much they take employee input into account when creating schedules, workers in situations like this may be able to take the job.

Also, employees appreciate choice. They want to work somewhere they can be themselves, feel safe and, as a result of employment, meet their needs. Then they will feel committed to the job and go to work, Kopsch said.

“But if they perceive that the employer’s brand does not resonate with them or the wages the employer pays are not going to meet their needs, then it’s likely the employer needs to take action on that,” he added.

August 16, 2020August 14, 2020

Angel Assistance spreads its wings for families in Atlanta

Attending Georgia State University on scholarship after living in a small town, Savannah Samples didn’t originally envision her part time jobs would eventually bloom into the business opportunity she’s pursuing today.

The young founder of Atlanta-based total family assistance company Angel Assistance started out doing nanny work to support herself alongside full-time studies.

“I always did nannying as well as doing other things — doing laundry, doing dishes, cooking dinner, taking the kids places, all the different kinds of stuff the moms usually do. When they got home they would be all, ‘oh thank you so much, you helped so much, not just nannying but doing everything,’ ” Samples said.

Also read: Shift swap software empowers managers and employees to take charge of scheduling

She worked hard — a necessity when coming from humble beginnings. She found one regular in her sophomore year of university, and another the year after — and as word-of-mouth referrals from those two poured in, the list began to grow. Two became twelve, and she now had a loyal client base. But juggling the number of clients on top of schoolwork took a toll on her.

“Everybody kept referring me, a good problem to have, but I only have so many hands. And this mom I was working with at the time who owned two businesses, said why don’t you just start up your own company?”

From side gig to full-fledged business

She decided to go for it despite no entrepreneurship background and little knowledge about government requirements. It took two years of her learning the ropes of business ownership alone for Samples to hire her first full-time employee.

From there, it snowballed. Angel Assistance, once a one-person company, now employs six full-time “angels” and 30 clients, around 23 of whom have set recurring weekly schedules. The company’s services? A common misconception about it is that they do elderly care, or purely nannying. That isn’t the case.

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“We wash, we walk the dog, we cook you dinner, we grocery shop, organize your closet, do summer, winter switch up on closets, make your beds, everything you can’t get from a deep cleaner, you can’t get from a babysitter, you can’t get from a chef, from a dry cleaning service. We do all in one. So family assistance totally, with individuals as a family as well,” Samples said.

This scale-up meant Samples needed to find a reliable employee scheduling app to ease her managerial load. Employees would contact her to manually schedule shifts, and repeatedly fielding calls would make her “go insane.” She tried one brand of workforce software, but despite the good customer service as time went on the app would glitch to the point where it caused operational issues.

Employees wouldn’t be able to see their schedules, and clients would be waiting for an angel to show up at their door to no avail. It also didn’t have as much features as she would like.

“I like the app and the people that I did talk to when I first started were great […], but the app glitched enough to where it was causing issues with our clients where angels weren’t showing up to the location because they couldn’t see their schedule published. So I knew something was going to have to happen.”

Finding the right scheduling app

Workforce.com’s name came up when Samples asked around for possible alternatives. She became interested in it once she did some research: It had more features than the previous app, and the possibility of developing more in the future.

Angel Assistance now uses Workforce.com primarily for its employee scheduling app. They’ve adapted to use it for their specific needs as well, instead of just Samples holding the manager title, Angel Assistance’s families have manager accounts of their own, enabling these recurring clients to see and respond to the shifts of their assigned employee. This was in contrast to their previous app, where families ended up with a “put it out in the universe and hope the angel shows up” situation.

Being someone who does organizing work herself, Samples especially appreciates how Workforce.com has room for consolidating information about her angels. Other than the time clock and location features, which they also use, she mentions the qualifications tab: a place where she can keep a file on each angel that contains their background check, driving record, profile, and more. “I love that Workforce.com has the qualifications tab where i can put all of those on the app; if we need them we can pull them up and look at them.”

Also read: Scheduling headaches: How to better manage your hourly workers’ schedules

Forward-looking enthusiasm

Workforce.com has also helped Samples cut down on her role as middleman between clients and angels. She handles two to three different families per day herself for about four hours each, and keeps in touch with others in-between, with a short break for lunch. But the work doesn’t stop there.

She gets home at around 9 or 10 p.m., but sometimes the phone keeps ringing. “I’m to the point now where I have to put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ past like, 11 o’ clock because otherwise I probably wouldn’t sleep.”

Despite her busy schedule, Workforce.com does help. With the employee scheduling app having features for leave requests and shift time changes, employees don’t need to contact her as much as before.

Her eventual goal? To fully transition to overhead management.

“It’s a lot, and I don’t mind it because it’s what I do and obviously I love what I do,” she said. “But I know I can’t give my 100 percent to families because I’m doing management. I’ve had some kids 4 or 5 years old, so I feel bad that I’m not giving them full attention because I have to answer the phone for a management call for 20, 30 minutes.”

She may be a business owner now, but Samples — and Angel Assistance — retains the core that made clients trust her years ago: the sincere compassion and heart for the families they serve.