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Recently in Labor Scheduling Category
As a Yankee fan, I am excited for another season here in the Bronx. However, it saddens me to see what appears to be the dramatic decline of skills in the Captain, Derek Jeter. Some reports have blasted him for perennial hitting into a double play (one blog actually said he should change his uniform number to 63 because he always seems to hit into a 6-3 groundout).
Is it age? Is he injured? Or is it just that he happens to be in the right place at the wrong time? These are things many managers have to consider when one of their top performers suddenly declines in performance.
The key in business (and baseball) is to not rush to conclusions when someone who has consistently performed at a high level suddenly drops off. It is important to see what is going on in one's personal life, if there are new stressors at work, or if there are medical or other issues that need to be addressed.
As a fan, it's easy to jump all over Jeter (as my friends and I have in our Yankee discussions), but the important thing here is to look at the person's performance over time and see what adjustments can be made to make that person more comfortable and perform better.
I'm a stickler when it comes to attendance, and my students and former staff are well aware of how irritated I get when someone is late, wants to leave early, or doesn't show up without notice.
I think it is very important to start people on the right foot by being rigid with your attendance policy. Once employees or students feel you are lax in allowing lateness or frequent unexplained absenteeism to occur, your place of business or classroom will suffer.
Common courtesy around attendance involves informing those who you are reporting late to or not reporting to at all of your situation. I have had several people in both my academic career and professional career who have been late or absent a few times, but there is always a legitimate reason, and they always let me know ahead of time. As well, I have statistical evidence that shows that those who do not give notice of their lateness or absenteeism end up leaving school, failing courses, losing their job, or having further problems at work than the absenteeism.
What strategies have you employed in the workplace or classroom to prevent these situations from becoming problems? I'll share more, as well as reader feedback, in a future column.
On August 12th, I posted a column asking the following questions. Here is feedback from readers, as well as some ideas from me.
What activities do you involve your team in during non-peak hours? How can your team be managed more effectively to prevent productivity lapses? I'll share some best practices from readers on a future post.
"I use non-peak hours to do continual training and role plays of customer service scenarios..."
"During non-peak times, I find that these are the best times to hold informal one-on-ones with my staff."
"I find that my staff is even more productive when its slow. They realize that to fill the sales floor and to keep it neat at slow times makes it much easier to sell and merchandise all day long."
Some of things I have found work effectively include
- splitting up employee's hour long breaks into half hours to take advantage of the slow time to get breaks over with
- holding meetings with the staff on the floor.
- refocusing on the core principles of the company/day by interacting with the staff and going over the daily/weekly/monthly goals
One of my all-time great insults was when I told someone that indeed they were a manager - they managed to do nothing.
As managers, there is a fine line between managing and leading and doing too much work that can be done by those who are supposed to be reporting to you. However, there are few greater ways to motivate your staff as to do the work that they do and do it well.
Some of the finest restaurants, retail establishments, and hotels I have visited have had the presence of a leader during busy and peak periods performing alongside their team and steering the ship from the front lines.
What kind of manager are you? Do you manage to inspire or manage to do nothing? Let's hope it's not the latter!
Today marks an anomaly on the workplace calendar; a holiday celebrated as a federal holiday the day after the holiday has taken place. This kind of thing typically happens when a holiday falls on a Sunday.
Unlike some workplaces, where holidays mean staying open (and sometimes for extended hours), many workplaces today are shut to give those who work a Monday-Friday workweek the day off.
Unfortunately, rather than looking at the past numbers as an indicator of whether to open or close, many businesses today will still remain open for regular business hours despite anticipated lower business or non-existent business.
As I have stated before to many of my colleagues, I often believe many businesses only stay open on days like this because of a fear that people will go to the competitor and find something better there, and to never return. It is my belief that businesses with that mindset have far worse problems than they realize, as if you are fearful of losing a sale on a holiday, you probably don't have yourself focused on your customers in the first place.
So if you are considering opening today, best of wishes, and hopefully those who are working for you are recognized. For those of you who are closed today, enjoy your holiday and best wishes as well!
One of the challenges of entrepreneurship is knowing when to bring others on board to assist. Over the 5 years I've been doing consulting, I've always been a one-man show and have used contractors to assist with web development and the like when necessary.
Recently, my business grew to the point where I knew it was time to consider bringing on an intern or a freelancer to assist with some tasks. I developed a structure where my intern will have the ability to work on their own schedule and provide me with the research and resources I need in a timely fashion. She works remotely, and we talk on the phone three times a week to check in and communicate via email between appointments.
After two weeks, I am very pleased with the arrangement. The working relationship is strong and the level of commitment I get is exactly what I needed; someone to take on some of the legwork of researching new business, working with existing clients, and exploring new ways of doing business.
I'll keep you updated as the summer goes on as to how this working arrangement progresses. I am already feeling better with what I have on my plate and am excited for the new opportunities bringing on a freelancer can bring.
Q: I can't seem to cover my Saturdays at my retail store so we are able to maximize sales. I have 5 full-time employees who work on Saturdays, and 10 part-timers. The full-timers either work 8-5 or 1 to 10pm, and the part-timers each works a 5-8 hour shift. We always seem to run short during our peak period (4-7pm). Our store is open 10am to 9:30pm. What do you suggest?
A: Saturday, and really all weekend, is one of the toughest periods to cover effectively. Since much of retail business focuses on the weekend, you may want to consider altering your mindset around when you schedule your staff.
Given the peak nature of business on Saturday, is it really necessary to bring in your full-timers at 8am? You may want to consider having them work a 9 hour shift from 9:30 to 6:30 (or 10:30 to 7:30), and cutting an hour off of another day like a Tuesday. In some cases, you may even want to consider a 10 hour shift if necessary.
For part-timers, in most places a 5 hour shift only requires a 15 minute rest period. You may want to schedule your part-timers for a 5 hour shift from 1-6 or 2-7 to maximize coverage during that time.
It's important to maintain consistency amongst management team members in terms of the message being sent to staff or team members reporting to you.
However, where consistency can sometimes rear its ugly head is when certain members of the team choose to follow too closely to the rules and regulations as to be obstinate or unopen to change.
An example is attendance policy. If someone is consistently late, rather than immediately rushing to fire the person, a better approach would be to see if their commute is affected by the time they are scheduled. There may be some extraneous details that are causing this person to be late all the time.
Another example is an open door policy. Some people may claim to have an open door policy, but then refuse to meet with people after meetings or at times when an appointment is not possible. There needs to be a balance of flexibility and with rigidness; certainly a pop-in appointment shouldn't be the norm, but it also shouldn't be frowned upon.
Be careful when following rules to strictly (especially rules you have come up with on your own that are not company policy.)
A question that comes up often in conversations with people is whether or not companies should grant unpaid time off for workers who don't have enough vacation time earned. My answer to this most of the time is yes.
Many companies don't grant time off to employees until they have worked six months with a company. Often, employees have events like weddings, family trips, and college commitments that require additional time off outside the norm. By granting employees unpaid time off during these times, you can save your company a few dollars, allow your employee to feel like their time is valued, and create a commitment to your company that may currently be lacking.
In a world where spare time is sparse, granting an employee a half day off unpaid or even a couple hours off in the middle of the day can really show the difference between a loss of productivity and a loss of a long-term asset to the company. The short-term loss of having that employee available for a single day is completely offset by the value you have given in balancing that employee's personal commitments from time to time.
One of the best practices I've seen in many companies is the concept of the floating holiday. On a day like President's Day, many people choose to work rather than take the day off, and have the option of using that day off some other time during the year.
For those of us in the Northeast, this makes great sense; I'd much rather save that day off for the summer months, where someone else may want to use today to go skiing. Allowing for the "floating" holiday gives people the option to use it when it would be the most valuable.
Are there days in your business where using a "floating" holiday makes sense? Certainly.
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