BUSINESS STRATEGY
Scott Erwin , CEO and Founder of HireHand
The NHS has adopted this notion of using a bank of staff on its own payroll for the vaccine roll-out in the UK , where volunteers and staff members , including cleaners , security and other ancillary roles , needed to be co-ordinated and mobilised across various locations , all while considering the fluctuating supplies of the various vaccines themselves . This has proved challenging for many NHS locations , yet with intelligent shift matching software , some Primary Care Networks have found technology has saved days of management time allocating shifts .
The future of workforce management software
For organisations and their people to reap the rewards of flexible working , it ’ s important to note that filling shifts is more than a tick box exercise . Historically workforce management systems – especially in shift-based industries – are essentially repositories of people and information about their working lives . Encompassing separate modules , like HR admin , time and attendance and absence management , these systems are great at collecting information , doing some clever analysis and presenting it to administrators .
These insights may make sense in a static staffing world in which the same people are doing the same shifts week-in week-out . But we now live in a dynamic staffing world in which shift patterns are changing weekly , if not daily , and the people filling them are also in flux . In this environment , the point should be not to provide charts but to actually fill shifts with maximum speed and efficiency . And this need is set to grow , given the increasing business and staff appetite for a more dynamic way of working .
Dynamic staffing
Shift management systems must be fit for purpose within a dynamic staffing environment . The future of workforce management software is with shift filling at its core – just as Amazon revolutionised supply chain in the early 2000s . Amazon renamed its warehouses fulfilment centres . Why ? The purpose of these centres was not to store stock but to fill customer orders with maximum speed and efficiency .
Their supply chain algorithms became the company ’ s secret weapon , the driving force behind and in response to increased customer appetite for the next-day / same-day delivery that has grown exponentially , particularly during the pandemic .
The future is likely to see many more staff and businesses embrace flexible working solutions . It can be the difference between building an engaged and motivated team or having to consistently outsource or recruit to cover staffing needs .
The ability to efficiently mobilise staff as and when workload fluctuates has the win-win opportunities of reducing costs for business and improving work / life balance for staff . Just as no-one today imagines a warehouse without fulfilment at its core , in future no-one will imagine a workforce system without dynamic shift filling at its core . x
SHIFT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS MUST BE FIT FOR PURPOSE WITHIN A DYNAMIC STAFFING ENVIRONMENT .
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