Thursday, October 29, 2009

Employee Scheduling Experts - Shift Work Strategy

Employee Schedules? Talk to Core Practice. They have been awarded the coveted Excellence in Labor Relations Award from the International Institute on Labor Strategy. John Frehse received the award for his work on the relationship between seasonal demand and flexible, low cost schedules. He wasn't immediately available for comment, but he is active on this blog and we should hear from him soon! You can view his groundbreaking webinar HERE

Thanks!

Ethan

Ethan Franklin
Managing Partner
Core Practice
312-255-1646

Friday, October 16, 2009

Employee Schedules - Seasonal Demand Environments Implement Proven Cost Reduction

This free webinar (for manufacturing companies and distribution operations) from John Frehse is now available on demand and it is free! Learn real strategies to improve labor strategies and reduce costs in environments with seasonal or variable demand. Please go to HERE to sign up and you will be able to watch it on demand (at your convenience!). Kronos sponsored the event, but the first 30 minutes is all strategy and 90% of those who watched rated this webinar 9 out of 10 or higher in survey returns!

For contact center WFM experts, we haven't forgotten about you either. Go HERE for contact center specific labor scheduling strategies including examples of employee schedules!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Shift Work and Compensation Strategies - Are You Giving Employees What They Really Want?

Find the complete PDF in printable format HERE

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a leading international manufacturing company recently called me with a problem: He was under considerable stress because he was facing a union drive at one of his plants in Ohio. It was clear to him that
employee dissatisfaction was high and that the union had made significant inroads. He wanted to know how much he had to increase pay and other benefits to make sure the union vote didn’t pass. My colleagues at Core Practice Partners and I spent the following weeks researching the company’s labor practices and employee attitudes. The COO was right about one thing: The workers were unhappy, with 72 percent saying that conditions were getting worse on the job. But he was surprised to learn that 77 percent of the employees felt the current pay and benefits were perfectly fine.
Increased compensation would not solve the problem. If salaries weren’t right, attrition would be a key indicator, but employees weren’t leaving or threatening to.
So what did the workers want?

Over the past 10 years, we’ve conducted an in depth study into the attitudes of more than 100,000 shift workers at more than 150 companies around the world. Through face-to-face surveys taken during work hours, we sought primarily to gather information about what employees like and dislike about their work environment, the changes they hope to see, the health and safety issues they face, and how their work schedules
affect their personal lives. Of all the thousands of pieces of data we collected, one stood out: Eighty-one percent of employees surveyed felt that their pay and benefits
were adequate. In fact, when we determined what really affects productivity, compensation paled in comparison to good management–employee communications. In
other words, although most companies try to inflate employees’ morale by shoveling more dollars at them, less expensive strategies will do. Thus, when we looked into the problems at our client’s company, we were not surprised by our findings.
Forty-seven percent of the employees surveyed were working more than 11 hours of overtime each week. At some companies, that can be an attractive aspect of the
job, because it brings in extra income. But in this case, 56 percent said they were working more overtime than they wanted. And they were particularly negative about
the extra time at the plant because, according to 62 percent of the workers, their schedules weren’t sufficiently predictable to permit them to know when they would
need to work and when they would not. In an employee base populated primarily by single parents, workers were struggling both to maintain adequate child care
and to find time to spend with their kids.

To read the entire article on Booz Allen's website go HERE