Retooling Frontline Employee Scheduling for the Modern Age

Frontline workers are struggling. From the people on the floor at your favorite brick and mortar store to the warehouse employees ensuring inventory is getting where it needs to go, the challenges they face are largely the same: low pay, inflexible scheduling, and a lack of user-friendly technology.

According to recent data, this has led to two-thirds of frontline employees reporting that they experience work-related stress, and as many as one in two frontline employees note that they have considered quitting their job in the past year.

In an ideal world, employers would be able to raise pay for these employees, but for many companies, that is not feasible. But there are other ways to reduce the stress on frontline workers that can be significant—one of which is scheduling.

To meet the needs of modern frontline workers, employers must shift their scheduling methodologies to strive for “schedule equilibrium,” a concept that requires looking holistically at their employees’ and the store or warehouse’s needs to create balance that is based on four main principles: predictability, stability, adequacy and flexibility.

Traditional Scheduling Doesn’t Work for Modern Life

Frontline employee scheduling has long been based on a simple supply and demand model: when there are more customers in the store—or more orders coming into the warehouse—there needs to be more staff on the floor, and vice versa.

This methodology results in schedules that change week to week and don’t always consider employees’ lives outside of work—a challenge for anyone, but especially for frontline workers that are often navigating childcare, eldercare, and perhaps other jobs. According to a recent survey of US-based frontline workers, more than one fifth of the workers that quit their jobs in 2023 left because their schedule wasn’t flexible enough, and nearly 10% quit because they needed to be able to be home with their family.

This creates frustration and stress for employees, driving absenteeism, turnover, and lowering morale. It also increases costs for the company, which has to continually invest in hiring and training new employees when turnover rates are high, and scramble to cover no-show shifts that can force them to have to pay overtime to available employees.

Understanding the Schedule’s Impact

Modern scheduling methodologies are based on the understanding that payroll is an invoice for labor costs and the schedule is the purchase order for that labor. They look more holistically at the scheduling process, striving to account for all parties’ needs and aiming to achieve equilibrium based on four metrics:

• Predictability, which is based on how far in advance an employee has access to their schedule. The more time they have to coordinate their schedule ahead of a shift, the more likely they can make necessary plans to meet the schedule or let a manager know that they’re not going to be able to make it, reducing last-minute scrambling on both sides of the equation.
• Stability, which looks at how often employee schedules are changing week-to-week. Can they count on working the same days every week, or do the expectations change regularly? Schedule stability is a critical factor for most employees, especially those that are juggling familial responsibilities and other jobs.
• Adequacy, which gauges whether or not the number of hours an employee is scheduled each week is in alignment with their stated needs. Just as employees are expected to hold up their end of the social contract of work and show up for shifts, managers and HR leaders need to uphold their end of the bargain and meet the scheduling promises they made when employees were hired.
• Flexibility, which evaluates how easy it is for an employee to swap shifts or adjust their scheduling needs. With traditional models, scheduling was based largely on the relationship between the manager and employee—if they had a good relationship and open communication, employees likely had an easier time having their needs met. If not, challenges could arise. While tech-based solutions have eased these issues, many of them are challenging to use, limiting adoption.

The Power of End-to-End Workforce Management

Investing in solutions that look holistically at the scheduling process can transform an outdated process—that is a source of frustration for many employees—into one that is simple, streamlined, and optimized for the needs of the modern frontline workforce.

Many companies have already invested in solutions aimed at solving scheduling challenges, offering employees access to tools that address issues like high turnover, low engagement and poor performance. But these solutions only tackle parts of the problem and are often difficult to use and keep track of. The average employee is expected to use between 2-3 mobile apps to do their job, with some asked to use as many as 20. As a result, adoption and usage is abysmal. Not only is this a waste of money and time for the company, it also forces employees to rely on unsecure channels like texting and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger to communicate with coworkers and managers.

By providing employees and managers with one end-to-end solution capable of managing each of these challenges within a single platform, employers can consolidate fractured communication channels and create a streamlined scheduling process for all.

These solutions also give managers access to data that lets them evaluate how well their schedule is working for all parties, allowing them to make changes regularly. This data can help managers identify instances of conscious and unconsciously unfair practices, like realizing when an employee’s schedule is not aligning with schedule equilibrium metrics. It also allows managers to dig even deeper, looking at the correlation between factors like overtime scheduling and mistakes made during a shift or comparing customer cart sizes based on different types of scheduling styles.

The benefits of a schedule developed with the ins and outs of modern life in mind cannot be understated, especially when it comes to the frontline workforce. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for scheduling, technology enables the creation of a schedule that works for everyone, and provides access to insights that allow ongoing optimization.

Erik Fjellborg is CEO of Quinyx.

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