Editor’s Note

It's time for us to wind up the last issue of Workforce Management, Time and Attendance, Excellence Essentials, for 2015. In this issue, we bring you an amalgam of various ideas that we hope will help you efficiently manage your workforce and also set the pace for the New Year.

The 6-Hour Working Day: It’s about time we shook things up a bit

Last April the government of Gothenburg announced that public sector employees would work less hours in an experiment to improve mental and physical health and increase productivity. Mats Pilhem, Deputy Mayor of Gothenburg, hopes the six-hour staff would take fewer sick days. Now other businesses across the country are following Gothenburg’s decision and implementing the change.

Workforce Management December 2015 Advertisers

How To Improve Employee Attendance?: 5 most effective strategies

While it is true that a business will not suffer a great deal when an employee takes a day off for one reason or another, regular employee absences can bring confusion and disorder into the business. As most business owners and managers know, preventing every absence in the workplace is not possible; however, with the right strategies, it is still possible to improve workplace attendance.

How To Avoid Christmas Leave Conflict: Be clear about business arrangements

Christmas countdown has begun (8 days, in case you’re wondering)! Time-off and vacation clashes are one of the biggest causes of conflict between colleagues at any time of year, but Christmas can be particularly tricky. Parents want to finish in time for their children’s school breaks, people whose families live at the other end of the country want to avoid travelling at peak times and absolutely no one wants to work on Christmas Eve. Then there’s the ‘dead’ period between Christmas and New Year when it really doesn’t seem worth coming into work as nothing much is happening anyway.

5 Tips To Streamline Scheduling Process: For retail business

Retail businesses face their own challenges when it comes to scheduling. Between juggling worker needs with business needs, managers can easily cater to one over the other, creating tension in the workplace. To create a balanced and fair schedule, use these four tips to ensure better staffing at your retail business.

Smartphone Use And Overtime Pay: What you need to know (for now)

I first wrote about the possibility of employees seeking unpaid overtime for time spent away from work checking emails on mobile devices all the way back in 2007, and have kept writing about it since (for example, here and here). Now, more than eight years later, we finally have the first judicial decision on whether non-exempt employees are owed overtime or other compensation for this off-the-clock time. The result is a mixed bag for employers.

Employee Sensing And Workforce Planning: Building synergies

Effective workforce planning relies on robust data across a wide range of factors. We need to look at skills, costs, locations, employment brand, inputs, outputs, labor markets, and a host of others. Much of the data that we need can be directly measured or obtained from some sort of discrete internal or external source. The exception to that would be Employee Engagement. Not only is this hard to truly measure, but it is even harder to determine how it really impacts workforce planning and the metrics we care about.

Overtime Cost: Strategies to manage it more effectively

When it comes to operating expenses, employee overtime is usually a big contributor. Overtime is generally undesirable as it increases your expenses and reduces employee satisfaction. While it has its uses and is sometimes unavoidable such as acting as a buffer when there is an unpredicted spike in demand, employee overtime can easily become a very costly liability if it isn’t managed properly.

Misunderstanding About WFM Software: A change of concept is needed

I was asked a very good question not long ago - "What are the biggest mistakes companies make when buying workforce management software?" There are so many solutions out there offering to make daily operational routines easier, so how do you make sure you choose the right system? I've gathered my thoughts and what I've found is that there are two common misunderstandings which seem to make the journey through the jungle of workforce management tools very complicated. So, here are some guidelines.