Part 2 – How Does Poor Casual Labour Workforce Management Affect Your Overall Business Performance?

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

  • Long opening hours?
  • Changing shift patterns?
  • A high turnover of staff?
  • Seasonal staffing levels?
  • Complex schedules that constantly change?
  • The need to keep overheads low?
  • An ever-demanding customer?

Below are some of the typical Casual Labour Management mistakes which you might be familiar with:

  • Informing employees about their schedule at the very last minute
  • Over and understaffing
  • Unpredictable shift patterns
  • Sudden changes to the shift patterns

As a result of committing the above mistakes, below are some of the effects caused for your business:

Poor Employee Engagement

Poor scheduling will have impact on your staff’s overall well-being. Last-minute information as well as sudden changes mean that employees have to scramble in finding someone to take care of their kids, cancelling plans, or not being able to come to work at all which might cost them at their paycheck. This leads to low employee morale, which can lead to good talent leaving your company.

Lack of Visibility

As your business grows, it becomes more difficult for managers to know who is present and what jobs they are doing. People may no longer be working in the same physical location, or they could be working remotely. Reduced visibility can affect productivity, customer service and costs. You could be paying for people who are absent and incurring unnecessary overtime costs.

Increased Stress for Managers

The burden of poor scheduling will carry over to managers. More people can come in late which means managers who to be constantly looking for people to cover or do double duty on short notice. Worst comes to worst, they will have to cover the gap.

Lost Revenue and Reputation

Overstaffing simply means that you pay too much labour cost on a given shift. This is not a surprise in many industries, companies are paying for overtime which can’t be verified which lead to loss in competitive advantage.  Understaffing, on the other hand, leads to your business not getting enough attention because there are not enough people to handle customer demand. The latter might add to a bad reputation with your customer base.