Workforce Management Featured Article
A Happy Workforce Gets More Days Off
Today’s workforce has changed dynamically from the days of piece work and the when office workers were tethered to their computer and headset.
Along with new technologies and an evolving generation and work/life balance, there are changes that need to be made in the way a workforce is managed.
Those in charge of keeping employees happy have the difficult job of setting goals and rewards and seeing that promises are kept from the employee and the company.
While it's true Millennials bring with them a different work ethic and set of qualities. One thing that remains true for employees whether in a busy restaurant, in a newsroom or in a manufacturing facility, is they want to feel valuable and they want to do a job that is rewarding and not confined to a set schedule with no meaning or flexibility.
One of the best ways to motivate staff has always been through rewards. These can be gifts, a chance to work from home for the day, or even some extra time off.
Gifts can be costly, and coming up with something without overdoing it on the company budget or insulting the employee by picking too cheap a reward can make this task difficult.
Flexible scheduling in the workplace is important today. Old ways to picking and choosing names out of a hat and pinning them to a board to create each week’s schedule can turn into a time consuming task with no additional value.
Instead, leveraging analytics on specific employee performance throughout the day as well as comparing that with changing needs each day is the way to successfully go about scheduling today.
For those workers who have over performed, offering a longer lunch break or “free” day off can go a long way to making them feel valued while offering a chance to get tasks done that normally cannot be on workdays. In addition, the down time to re-gather or rest can help them to focus and perform better when they are on the job.
Research conducted by the University of Minnesota found workplaces that were more flexible about when and how their employees worked were able to turnover rates.
In the call center specifically, scheduling agents so that customer calls are always answered but ensuring proper breaks and shift changes occur, can become a daunting task. Add to this the need to offer some extra time off, and managers can find themselves at the brink of walking off the job too.
Thankfully there are companies today offering solutions that take all the guesswork and planning out of the equation so managers can create intelligent and fair staff schedules each week.
Monet Software’s Monet WFM Live makes it easy and more affordable to manage the workforce because it’s offered via the cloud - so there are no large upfront investments or painful hardware and software implementations needed.
When employees are happy and feeling worthy they will also perform better - so it’s really a win-win.
Edited by Ryan Sartor