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Scheduling flexible work

Embracing flexible working and maintaining business efficiency

Many employers have recognised that it makes good business sense to provide flexible working opportunities for their staff. These employers know that flexible working arrangements enable them to

• retain skilled staff and reduce recruitment costs
• raise their staff morale and decrease absenteeism, and
• react to changing market conditions more effectively.

Since the introduction of flexible working conditions many companies have seen the positive effects: -

• Sainsbury’s employs over 140,000 people and has found that by implementing forms of flexible working across the business they have been able to attract and retain talented people. They encourage their stores to develop working solutions that enable employees to manage their home life whilst also ensuring that the right numbers of staff are in the right place at the right time to meet customer needs.
• Asda is another example where implementing flexible working policies has seen a positive impact from business managers as well as the staff. Absenteeism and staff turnover have both reduced and Asda believes that its flexible working measures play an important part in retaining a loyal, motivated workforce.

Flexible working can come in several forms enabling the employer and employee to find a solution that meets both needs:

Part-time working enables employees to work shortened hours during a week. A typical analysis of roster coverage conducted by consultants from Rostima, shows that many shifts currently being worked are too long to deal effectively with customers, and that by introducing part-time shifts, the same levels of customer service can be achieved at much reduced cost. Part-time employees can be used very effectively to cover peaks in workload demand.

Flexi-time enables staff to bank extra days off but gives the employer the flexibility to extend working hours to meet vital deadlines. Employers offering flexi-time often find that it introduces a greater level of cooperation and support between employer and employee. Employees will be more able to arrange appointments during time off which helps reduce absenteeism. Flexi-time can also be used to reduce the need for overtime payments.

Annualised Hours enables an employer and employee to balance the times worked and times off, across a complete year. This works particularly well when customer demand is seasonal as staff can cover more work hours during the busy months and have more time off when demand is low. Many employers now prefer to use annualised hours rather than employ on short-term contracts or use casual labour during peak months.

Perhaps the greatest examples of flexible working came during the 2002 football world cup when many employers introduced types of flexible working to allow employees to watch the matches whilst still achieving their work requirements. This was done to reduce absenteeism and produced significant short-term gains but there is mounting evidence to show that the employer can gain longer-term advantages.

Happy Staff, Happy Customers?

The saying “happy staff means happy customers” is well known but a recent study also shows that happy staff can mean happy shareholders. One in three of the 4,000 people questioned in an online survey said flexibility was more important to them than an extra £1,000 a year. Also, a DTI study showed that if just 10% of non-working mothers returned to work after maternity leave, employers could save up to £39 million each year in recruitment costs alone.

Alongside these tangible benefits there are many other benefits to the employer ranging from improving a company’s reputation and image, to placing a greater emphasis on employee outcome above pure attendance. A recent survey of the FTSE top 100 companies found that those assessed as ‘very good’ in terms of family friendly working practices far outperformed other companies in share performance.

The benefits for the employee are also apparent. The ability to achieve a work-life balance tends to make the employee feel recognised as a person rather than just another resource. This can reduce stress and conflict between work and family commitments resulting in not only higher morale but also greater productivity.

A more consistent service to customers

So if flexible working can show such positive results why aren’t all companies readily operating flexible working policies? The main reason is a fear that it will be too complex to set up and manage a system to keep track of everybody's working patterns. And despite the advantages of flexibility, many companies fear an avalanche of requests with employees dictating their hours of work, resulting in extra costs or the inability to guarantee delivery of services.

Maintaining a fixed roster pattern is the safe low maintenance option. Everybody knows the routine and when it will be very busy or exceptionally quiet. Paradoxically, introducing flexible working enables a company to challenge these assumptions and do something about them – enabling a more consistent service to the customer.

To implement flexible working, a company must first have a good understanding of its demand. With Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) and other computer systems recording every transaction, this can now be analysed in great detail. Matching this information with service targets and minimum requirements builds a model of staff requirements. All too often, when this is compared to the current roster, vast areas of over and under resourcing is highlighted.

Software tools can highlight these areas of over and under resourcing and then automatically generate rosters to fit the workload. These rosters can be optimised to meet contract requirements, sociability factors as well as effectively covering the workload. Employee work preferences can then be applied to rosters to ensure that their flexible working requirements are met. In a recent example at a major fast-food retail outlet it was possible to efficiently roster over 100 people with more than 80% of the outlets staff having specific flexible working needs.

Good software rostering tools can automatically assign staff according to their desired preferences. If these preferences cannot be met, then the software should highlight to staff why their preferences could not be met. Reports are available to show how staff preferences look across the whole work group. These reports can be extremely useful and applied to help in the recruitment process. The London Bus Company successfully recruited drivers in 2002 based on where it needed shifts filled. The shifts that needed filling were based on the day-off preferences of the current drivers and shortfalls were easily identified.

Many roster planners today use pen and paper or simple spreadsheets to work out rosters. Realistically to manage any more than 50 staff with preferences, manual rostering or applying simple spreadsheets is no a longer feasible option. A good roster planner may be able to identify 2 or 3 rosters in a day whereas automated roster optimisers are able to compare hundreds of flexible rosters in a matter of seconds. Working this way ensures that the maximum number of employee requests can be met. It is important that when surveying staff preferences that they are aware that the employer will try its best to meet the preferences in line with workload demand, but cannot guarantee everyone’s preferences.

As with any employee policy, communication of the policy to all employees is vital to its success. Ideally, flexible-working policies should be consulted with employee representatives and then incorporated into contracts or terms and conditions of employment. Training will then be needed for managers, labour planners, HR and any others involved such as payroll. Workshops are also a good idea for sharing ideas and solutions.

One of the best ways to get started is with a simple questionnaire asking staff when they would like time off in line with their out of work commitments. Sharing with staff the needs of the business including when the busiest times are during the week and the need to meet service standards will help them understand that flexible working is a balancing act. If employers do their best to meet the preferences of their staff, whilst not losing sight of the needs of the customer, flexible working has proven to be hugely beneficial especially in reduced turnover of staff and associated recruitment costs.