Festive Workforce Management: Managing your Casuals

Hasn't December just crept up on us once again! But alas before we can kick back and enjoy the festive season many of us are already feeling the effects of increased pressure as we count down to the holidays.

If you work in Operations or HR you are more than likely facing numerous scheduling and rostering challenges, while trying to manage multiple requests for annual leave, in addition to a possible increase in unplanned absence (with some staff possibly chucking a suspicious sickie to get some last minute Christmas shopping out of the way or recover from the staff party!)

Meanwhile, our friends in the Pay office will be busy calculating award entitlements, and allowing for the various public holidays and penalty rates (which can differ from state to state) - ensuring we all get paid correctly, and in time to spend it just as quick!

Our next three blog posts will look at different festive-related workforce scenarios and how an effective Workforce Management System might provide a hassle free run up to the holidays!

First up....Managing Casuals

Similar to Santa and his elves, many organisations (particularly in Retail and Hospitability) rely heavily on casuals to provide the extra manpower required to operate effectively over the holiday period.

A casual workforce needs to be closely monitored to ensure they are serving their purpose. If they are consistently late, taking long breaks or failing to come into work, you run the risk of having to pay your permanent employees or contract staff overtime to cover particular shifts.

Within a Workforce Management System, time and attendance tracking provides supervisors with a real-time report on a casual workers working time. In addition, when linked with project information or cost centres you can easily identify how they are performing against specific tasks, and address any issues before productivity is affected.

Scheduling or rostering capabilities allow you to create groups or pools of available workers to help with scheduling multiple sites, departments or stores. Casuals or agency staff can nominate themselves as being available to work for certain times of the week, and can be rostered on accordingly by supervisors to assist with filling positions or vacant shifts.

Mobile messaging functionality can send an automated SMS text message direct to the employee so they are aware that they have been included in the shift. Likewise if a shift becomes available a SMS message can be sent out to the entire group to see if anyone is available to work.

I bet you can feel your festive headache easing already!

If you’d like to find out more about how Workforce Management tools like Employee Time and Attendance, Labour Tracking and Rostering can help you manage your casual workforce visit Mitrefinch online or call us on 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888 if outside Australia)