Operating in a country with nearly full employment is imposing increasingly punitive constraints on UK organisations.
In a bid to attract and retain key skills, pressure is mounting to allow workers to dictate their own working practices, from flexi-time to remote working. For many organisations this is creating an untenable shift of power towards the employee – and drastically damaging profitability.
Yet few organisations have any idea whether conceding to these employee demands is delivering any tangible impact on service levels. While most hope that such strategies are having a positive effect, the majority of organisations simply have no idea of the financial or service impacts of staffing decisions. The result is a wide-scale compromise on profitability for no clear service gain.
As employee power continues to increase – driven in part by UK government and EU intervention – employers need to redress this balance to re-establish working efficiencies throughout the organisation. By aligning the workforce schedule with true workload requirements, organisations can better discern the impact of new employee working practices and start to make strategic staffing decisions that truly reflect business objectives, explains Steven Moore, CEO of Rostima.
New working practices
Over the past decade there has been an extraordinary change in UK working practices. Employment levels are at an all-time high, with an increasing proportion of the workforce now made up by women. Unemployment is low, causing many organisations to struggle to recruit the right level of skilled employees.
As a result, employees are now able to demand far more flexible working patterns. To recruit and retain the required skills, organisations are now having to offer a range of employee contracts that embrace part- and term-time contracts to support working parents, as well as flexi-time and overtime.
Changes are also being imposed by the government. Since 6 April 2003, UK employers have had a statutory duty to consider applications for flexible work from parents. Eligible employees can request both a change to their working hours and a change to the days on which they are required to work.
Add in the new Working Time Directive and union-specific requirements and the challenge of managing, maintaining and scheduling a workforce is becoming a serious financial burden for businesses across every sector.
Right balance
So how can organisations manage customer demands for improved service, employee demands for greater flexibility and shareholder demands for more efficient businesses?
Without a doubt, getting the right work-life balance can increase employee morale, reduce sickness and improve productivity. Facilitating staggered or compressed work hours, shift swapping, job sharing or breaks from work are all key considerations for any employer in today’s marketplace.
While many organisations believe instinctively that conceding to such employee demands is the only way to reduce staff churn, minimise training costs and improve staff morale, thereby delivering enhanced customer service – they have no clear proof. The one fact upon which all can agree is: these new working practices are adding cost to the business.
Understanding workload
So what is the bottom-line impact of these changes to work patterns?
In an ideal world, organisations could simply maximise workforce scheduling by using employee resources only when required. In fact, the majority of organisations would struggle to maximise efficiency even with no employee contracts because they have no clear idea of true workforce requirements, whether by skill, by time of day, or by season.
Traditional approaches to rostering are inherently inefficient since they take limited account of real peaks and troughs in customer demand and rarely use actual workload requirements to determine required resources. Instead organisations such as the NHS rely on the expertise of senior staff to predict resource requirements.
The result is a clear dislocation between actual patient needs and available staff, creating a growing reliance on agency personnel – and significant financial shortfall.
Similar problems afflict the aviation industry. The objective is to deliver excellent service by minimising queues, speeding up security procedures and providing access to customer support staff. Yet despite increasingly bowing to employee work-time demands, the customer experience is often far from ideal because rosters fail to match the right skills to the actual workload.
Improved rostering
The only way organisations can meet business objectives, whether increasing profitability or driving up service standards, is to reach a far greater understanding of the business impact of workforce scheduling.
A detailed insight into actual workload demand, including contracts and service standards, provides organisations with a clear picture of the actual employee skill requirements throughout the working day, month, even year.
Having established demand, organisations can begin to optimise workforce planning, using ‘what if’ scenarios to assess whether or not meeting employee demands for flexible working practices would drive up service levels – and at what cost.
Critically, by combining this information into one integrated solution, finance, human resources, commercial and operations staff all have a better understanding of the impact of workforce scheduling and flexible employee working. This provides both efficient short-term workforce scheduling and effective long-term planning, enabling organisations to balance costs and service in line with corporate objectives.
For example, one particular European airport fulfils all staff working preferences within its roster. The result is happier employees, reduced churn and lower recruitment costs. This may not be the most efficient or cost-effective way of working but the strategy has driven up service and, as a result, increased overall footfall, supporting the airport’s objectives.
Employee benefit
Key to maximising this technology’s effectiveness is, of course, is ensuring all employees and managers enjoy its benefits equally. In the majority of cases employers will be unable to meet all employee preferences, so it is therefore essential to avoid claims of favouritism by ensuring employees are treated fairly.
By offering users a self-service portal, employees seemingly gain control over their working environment. For example, by pre-calculating acceptable absence levels in each skill area by day and month, organisations can allow employees to book holidays, apply for overtime or request time off online. In addition to removing the need for complicated and time-consuming management sign-off, this approach empowers employees while still maintaining service levels throughout the business.
Business control
Trends in employment do not look set to change: to drive down training costs organisations will continue to bring working parents back into the workforce, a strategy that requires flexible working practices.
Given the growing fear among UK organisations that increasing employee demands are undermining business viability, regaining control over the business is now crucial. If the UK economy is to have any chance of sustainable growth and profitability, employers cannot afford to meet every employee demand irrespective of the consequences.
Employers need to wrest back control and maximise workforce efficiency. It is only when the implications of changes in working practices are truly visible that UK business can begin to maximise workforce efficiency in this new employee-centric marketplace.
