Supporting frontline workers with Workforce Management

With 2.7 billion workers around the world (80% of the global workforce) deskless, the economic impact of how they are managed and how they operate cannot be understated. Yet, they can often find themselves mismanaged and poorly scheduled. They are a vital part of the success of any organization and the importance of motivating and supporting them successfully cannot be misunderstood.

Therefore, to find out the latest in how to manage, engage, and keep healthy and happy, this workforce, Kate Graham, Head of Content Labs and Insights at UNLEASH is joined by Toma Pagojute, CHRO at Quinyx, and Sammy Walton, Head of Product Evangelism at Quinyx to talk through the latest data on this subject and the things HR needs to know about best-practice management techniques.

Shift management is so important… if you don’t get it right [it causes issues for] retention.

Toma Pagojute, CHRO, Quinyx

Watch on-demand to:

• Get the most up-to-date insights from Quinyx’s latest report “The State of the Deskless Workforce” – especially around workforce management practice.
• Understand the true impact of poor scheduling and demand management.
• See the range of tools available to enable autonomy and flexibility for your employees around their own schedules.

What are the key trends that affect frontline workers?

Quinyx’s annual report into the deskless workforce polls circa 10,000 frontline workers across retail, hospitality, healthcare, transport, warehousing, distribution, and shopping on how they experience the types of jobs they carry out. The latest report, of course, has been affected by Brexit, the pandemic, and the recent breakout of war in Ukraine but also more recent factors such as rising food prices, rising energy prices, and rocketing rent and travel costs. It has also been shaped by massive shifts in how frontline workers interact with work. Candidates are now more in control of their future – the result of record low unemployment, low migration, and more cross-industry opportunity. Coupled with that, older and younger people are working less and thus companies have to do more to retain them.

That said, Quinyx said in how these workers experience work, not much has changed. At the center of the factors forcing work to change, core parts of the frontline employee experience of work are much the same as before the pandemic. And that experience is not entirely good. Somethings got to change.

The current employee reality

Currently, understaffing comes up regularly, with over half of frontline workers saying they have experienced this and that it has also caused most of them stress – adding to issues with pandemic-caused issues for these workers. In addition, many individuals experience hassle with swapping shifts with very few having access to an app to allow them to directly do this. This can make work-life integration very difficult. Added into this are issues with lack of flexibility, denial of changing shifts, even for personal reasons, and having to work shifts even if they’ve asked for a change.

It gets worse. Almost half of staff say they don’t feel heard at work, two-thirds feel like they cannot talk about their health and three-quarters won’t discuss pay. Furthermore, over a third felt disposable as a resource, and over half have not been offered a pay rise in the past year. This is despite three in 10 feeling better communication would increase motivation and HR knowing the importance of these areas in their ability to shape successful outcomes in key performance areas.

These employees increasingly feel that if they don’t get what they want from an employer they will be able to find another job. Over two-thirds feel confident in finding another job and over half have considered leaving their job in recent months. This should act as a warning siren for HR – especially as the turnover cost per employee is, on average, circa $18,000.

Fixing this experience of work

Whilst salary is important, Pagojute explained that there are other factors that can improve the experience of work for these employees, as well as key HR outcomes. These include focusing on what drives employees and delivering against their values and goals.

And with 45% of employees considering quitting due to stress, four in ten wanting to leave for more money, and almost 40% thinking about leaving due to feeling undervalued, HR also has to keep these areas top of mind.

Here, technology can help – although it is not a panacea in itself, it is an enabler and requires careful management from humans. This can include tracking engagement and salaries and shift management software. Other areas of consideration could include trying to build loyalty strategies, which include better aligning staff with values, tying manager salaries to retention rates, and upskilling opportunities.

Alongside this, HR can also consider rolling out actual growth opportunities, true flexibility, more agency over one’s work, trust, better communication channels, and more effective tools to carry out their work. What these tools and channels might look like, of course, have to be appropriate for the business and the industry it operates within but might include, as discussed by Walton, more frictionless shift management software (allowing easy manager approval for changes and giving employees control of shift preferences and shift swaps) as well as scheduling software which optimizes existing scheduling and allows managers to deploy workforce skills effectively for the business.

Yet, as Walton emphasized early in the webinar, it cannot just be technology for technology’s sake. With so many issues with the current frontline experience of work, any technology solution must support HR in gaining expert feedback on areas that need attention, giving access to pulse surveys, and instant communication. It must also integrate with the digitization of every aspect of an employee’s life. Otherwise, it’s just another burden.

With so much that needs improving in the experience of frontline workers, no one in HR, or the deskless workforce, needs that.