In many industries, staff turnover incurs a significant expense. Newly hired replacement staff
members incur training expenses as well as reduction in quality of service due to their lack
of experience and familiarity with the enterprise operations. Typically, a substantial portion
of total staff turnover is controllable in a sense that it results from management decisions.
Such decisions include staff remuneration and labor conditions. The diagram below illustrates
the controllable portion of staff turnover in the call centre environment.
In industries where workforce management is required, an important aspect of labor conditions
is the work-life-balance and staff fairness. The OWM self-service component
empowers staff members to influence the shifts through
a unique bidding system where bidding points are allocated to preferred and
undesired shifts. The optimization engine of OWM uses these bids in
order to optimize the schedules with respect to staff preferences, in addition
to the operational requirements on the schedule. Another component of OWM’s optimization
function is the fair treatment of staff. Thus through innovative use of optimization
technology, OWM reduces controllable staff turnover and thereby saves recruitment
expenses.
OWM increases the employee retention through the following means:
- Ensuring Fairness: Staff members typically have an acute sense
of fairness with respect to aspects of the schedule that affect their social
lives and monetary compensation. Manually generated schedules often suffer
from a lack of balance with respect to these criteria. OWM ensures
fair treatment of staff by tracking several fairness criteria. These criteria
include the balancing various critical work-shifts, like rest days and night
shifts, the percentage of requests and requirements met, the occurrence of
shifts that lead to special monetary compensation such as night shifts and
a balanced allocation of more fatiguing shifts (e.g. morning shifts) and
less fatiguing shifts (e.g. afternoon shifts).
- Maximizing Fulfillment of Staff Requests: Granting important
staff requests have a noticeable effect on workforce motivation and satisfaction.
The higher the percentage of overall staff requests met, the more satisfied
the workforce is. However, this has to be done while ensuring sufficient
staffing exists to cover the service requirements of the department. OWM
implements a unique bidding system that maximizes the fulfillment of staff
requests, and the sense of ownership of staff members of their rosters, while
ensuring a fair treatment of staff members over long periods of time.
- Balancing Desired/Undesired Shift Patterns: Certain shift
patterns are desired by staff members because they increase their quality
of life. For example a morning shift before an off day increases the number
of hours off in one stretch without requiring an annual leave. On the other
hand, a morning shift after a leave is undesired because it negatively affects
the social life on the evening of the off day. OWM provides a configurable
set of negative and positive patterns and optimizes schedules to minimize
the occurrence of negative patterns and maximize the occurrence of positive
patterns.
- Catering for Staff Specific
Requirements: Specific staff requirements result from unique
life situations of staff members. For example, family members in need
for care impose restrictions on the shifts that staff members can work.
Working couples often prefer combinations of shifts that allow them to
maximize the time in which their children are cared for. OWM considers
such unique requirements by arranging staff members into arbitrary
groups and allowing specific requirements for the members of each group.
In addition, parameter settings can be individualized to cater for unique
staff requirements.
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