Pottering Around

Pottering around, what a wonderful phase. It means to do a gentle activity in a seemingly aimless manner. I love to potter around the house, doing this and that without any real obligation to get anything done. So while pottering you could read, play a game, and watch some TV, clean, go for a walk. Or really anything that you find relaxing.

What you can’t do when you are pottering is anything where you guarantee to be some place at a set time, other than that, you can do anything you want.

So for people who like to potter there is a wonderful way of working. When I’m creating shift patterns for companies, I like to use Banked Hours with cover shifts. They are perfect for people who like to potter. On a regular shift pattern, everyone is scheduled to work the same number of hours they are contracted to work. However on a shift pattern with Banked Hours and Cover shifts, they are only scheduled for a portion of their contracted hours. Then the remaining hours are put into a Bank. E.g. you are contracted to work 37.5 hours per week, but you are only scheduled for 35 hours per week. Then 2.5 hours every week is put into the Bank, so for the year your Banked Hours would be 130.

Banked Hours are used to cover for absences, ad-hoc work and training. So if you needed to do some training then they would bring you in using your Banked Hours. To reduce the number of days when you can be called in to work your Banked Hours, you have cover shifts. Cover shifts are scheduled onto days where you are rostered off but could be asked to come into work on Banked Hours.

The number of Cover shifts you would be down for would depend on how many people were on Banked Hours and how many are needed etc. But for most people with about 130 hours in their Bank, they would be looking at around the 30-50 cover shifts mark.

When you are down for cover you need to be available for work, so being a potterer is ideal. As long as you have everything ready and are contactable, then you can do whatever you want.

While you have to be ready to come into work on days when on cover the chances are that you would not be sitting by the phone for the day. You would be contacted as soon as a person reported in that they would be absent. So if everyone is responsible and contacts work as soon as they know they will be absent, then when you are on cover you can be informed long before the shift starts. Short of an accident or food poisoning most absences are known or suspected a long time in advance. It is in everyone best interest that as soon as they suspect they will not be able to come in they contact work.

So what’s in it for you? Banked Hours and cover shifts means that you are giving the company the ability to call you in when you could be having the whole day off with no ties to the company, so there has to be something in it for you!

• Firstly, Banked Hours can only be used for pre-determined reasons, your boss can’t just drag you into work because they feel like it. These hours are there to cover absences, changes in the workload and training.
• Secondly, if your Banked Hours are not needed, then they are zeroed at the end of the year. Ideally I always recommend that for the system to work there should be an average of at least one week’s worth of hours that are not required. So in an average year you would get at least one week’s worth of additional time off. This is a bonus for providing the company with the flexible resource it requires.
• Thirdly, Banked Hours do not need to be all derived from your basic hours, the company can buy Banked Hours, so that you work more hours than your contracted hours. E.g. the example above showed that the person has 130 hours in their Bank, but what if you only had 30 hours in your Bank. The company can purchase extra hours and then store them in your Bank to be used as needed, or zeroed at the end of the year if not.
• Fourthly, Banked Hours help with swapping shifts. If you want a day off under normal circumstances you would need to take it as holiday. Well in a Banked Hours scheme you have other options, you can swap a shift. You can swap shifts and set up your own shift pattern to suit your own personal life style.

Shift Swaps: The person who wants a day off asks the other people on the shift pattern if they will be willing to swap that shift. Once they have found someone, they agree between them a like for like swap, which they are both happy with. They then fill in the form and take it to their Manager to sign. Now with Banked Hours, you can agree swaps for shifts with different hours, the hours are just added or taken from the Bank. So you can swap an 8-hour shift for a 12-hour shift or even a day off.

• Fifthly, it reduces your stress at work. Have you noticed how stressful it is to go in to work when people are absent? Everyone needs to do more work in order to cover for the missing person. However because a Banked Hours scheme means that whenever there is an absence it is automatically replaced, you no longer have to worry about absences. You don’t have to worry that you will be letting work down because you are too ill to come in. You don’t have to worry about meeting your quotas because of absence. You can go to work safe in the knowledge that you will have the correct number of people in to help you.
• Sixthly, it reduces absence and fatigue. Absence causes fatigue and fatigue causes absence. Once a group of people are locked in the spiral, it is very hard to climb out. When people are absent the other people on shift will have to cover that workload. So they become over worked. When you are overworked you get fatigued quicker. When you are fatigued you are more prone to make errors or have accidents. Accidents lead to absence. Fatigue and stress will also affect your health. When we are tired and stressed, we don’t eat properly or sleep well, all of which can lead to serious illnesses. Whereas if you have someone to cover for an absence, then you avoid all of that stress, anxiety, and illness.
• Seventhly, Banked Hours ensures that you have the ability to be trained. Most companies need to train their staff in the latest technology and ensure they are up to date with equipment etc. But when you are trained you have to be taken off shift, or on one of your rest days. Not so with Banked Hours, there is a readymade schedule, so when you are down for cover but not needed, you could have a training day. Plus the Banked Hours have already been prepaid for so if there was a course you have been desperate to go on, you now have the hours available to go on it, and by swapping shifts you can ensure that you can attend.
• Eighthly, there is the benefit to the company. Now I know this is not a direct benefit, but if the company is able to respond quickly to changing workload, meets all of its deadlines and becomes more successful, then your job is more secure. Not to mention if the company is making more profit then they can afford things like pay rises and promotions.

So if better health, more time off, better prospects, better training and a personalised work/life balance doesn’t sell Banked Hours to you, then just think about all those days where you can potter, around the home, garden, shops and golf course.

If you would like to know more about Banked Hours then our eBook is available from Amazon or contact us at alec@visualrota.co.uk or (+44) 01636 816466

Proactive Absence Management

Absence costs money! In 2013 the UK alone lost 131 million work days due to sickness (UK Office of National Statistics). CBI in 2013 estimated the cost of absence in the UK to be £14bl. Now most companies’ approach to absence is to cover it at overtime, or having extra staff on shift to cover for an absence. Some companies even ignore the problem in the hope that if they don't manage it, it will go away. This is the most expensive option because what you don't control has a habit of running wild. 

Having extra staff on shift is not only expensive but also reduces productivity and leaves shift managers continually firefighting. When we have reviewed company’s productivity against the number on shift we have found that if there are too many people for the work then less work gets done. 

"Too many cooks spoil the broth!"

This is because no manager likes to see a worker standing around doing nothing. Plus no one likes to stand around doing nothing, it’s demoralizing, tiring and everyone who is working will hate you for it. So the manager will reorganize the work to suit the number of people there. This takes time and is not as efficient as if you always have the correct number available. 
Furthermore most companies never estimate the number who will be absent off shift correctly. They only use averages which are misleading, leaving most companies correctly staffed on only about one third of shifts (by using averages). On about two thirds of shifts they are either wasting money or losing money. So we created an approach which ensures that an operation always has the correct number of staff and only the correct number of staff on shift every shift.
Proactive Absence Management is about tackling absence head on. Most companies have no absence strategy, and those that do invariably use discipline and overtime to minimize the effect. This is both expensive and negative. Therefore our approach is to first of all estimate absence. So we look at historical data. The simplest statistic is Absence rate. Then using Dr Angela Moore’s statistical model (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S583GA0/) we can predict not only how much absence will occur but predict how many will be off each shift. 

E.g. if you have a 2.5% Absence Rate and 10 people using a shift pattern which scheduled them to work on 260 days/shifts per year you would expect to see; On 202 days you would expect no one to be absent. On 52 days per year you would expect one person to be absent and on six days per year you would expect two people to be off. Hence you can plan your absence procedures on a maximum of two people being off because it is highly unlikely that three people would be absent on the same day. So we set up the shift pattern to give two people on-call or two cover shifts each day to cover for absence. 

Ideally we would suggest using a holidays included shift pattern to maximize efficiency and minimize disruption to the operation. Then suggest that Banked Hours is used to provide the absence cover at basic rate not overtime rates. Obviously if you can cover the absence at basic rate this is cheaper than overtime, so there is a year on year significant cost saving. 
The result of this is that absence is covered in house at basic rate to minimize cost and ensure that the best people are there to maximize productivity. The procedures are created up front so that shift managers are not left firefighting day in day out. The shift workers never have to worry that they will be under or over staffed on shift, and this minimizes stress. The shift workers also have a shift pattern that gives them a good work/life balance. Oh and as a bonus if the Banked Hours system is operated correctly some companies can see a significant fall in their absence rate.
If you would like us to help you be proactive towards absence please contact us via email: alec@oranalysts.com or call for more information 0044 (0) 1636 816466

Contingency Planning

Have you recently visited Upton House in Oxfordshire? This year they have completely transformed the house to Banking for Victory. In 1939 the Bearsteds who owned Upton House moved out and their family-owned bank moved in. They needed to protect their staff and assets from the London air raids so moved Samuel & Co. lock, stock and barrel for the duration of the Second World War.

In the exhibition you can see how the bank staff lived and worked in the 1940s. The long gallery has been turned into a typing pool and the bedrooms have been set up for the bank staff that slept 2-4 to a room.

This is one example of the extremes contingency planning can take. How do you cope during war where your head office is in danger of bombing?

Now there are more threats than just bombing and important work must go on. We have helped a bank to set up their alternative base of operations. This ensured that in the event of any calamity they could operative effectively. Their alternative fully operational base was a replica of the original, so that their workers could seamlessly move from one location to the other. There was a cost associated with this contingency plan including that the alternative base needed staff to maintain the premises. So we set up the technicians shift pattern to ensure that the Bank could always carry on operations regardless.

This sort of contingency planning is not new. The contingency planning process can be broken down into three simple questions:

• What is going to happen?

• What are we going to do about it?

• What can we do ahead of time to get prepared?

Everyday Contingency Planning

We also help companies with the less glamorous and extreme contingency planning. Everyday most companies will face; absence, sickness, holiday leave and tardiness. We help companies ensure that these everyday events do not affect their operation.

Recently the crash that occurred on the M9 on 5^th July which resulted in two deaths went unattended for three days even through a call was taken by the 101 service. Part of the problem appears to be that the call centre was experiencing an over 10% absence rate. An ex-employee described the situation as: "a firefighting exercise and you were doing, say, 10 tasks probably half as well as you could actually manage, because you were trying to get so much done."

Very often staff, where there is no formal cover arrangement, feel like they are ‘firefighting’. To some it is exciting, every day is different. But for the majority it is stress that is unnecessary. So let’s go back to the three questions of contingency planning.

What will happen is absence. We cannot avoid absences. We can go further and assess how often and in what quantity absences will occur.

What are we going to do about it is a harder question to answer. It depends on budget, skill mix, staffing numbers and workload. In general we advocate covering for the absence. If you maintain a consistent level of service you will have a better operation. Even if that level of service is lower than you would like, a consistent service is better in the long run. That way every day is the same and you can focus on improvement rather than spending your time ‘firefighting’. 

How will Wimbledon effect your operation?

Whenever there is a popular sporting event, people want to watch it. And seeing it later is just not the same. People like to support their favourites or just watch in appreciation of a game well played. Do you have sporting calendar? Then you will you know when these events will affect your staff; the world cup, rugby league, test matches, local derbys, X factor finals, Olympics, local matches, county shows, the Open, etc.

This inevitably leads to more people wanting time off so they can watch the game live. Especially when we are enjoying some rarely seen nice weather. So everyone wants a holiday at the same time. You can’t give everyone the same time off unless you close up your business with a shutdown. But how do you say no to that holiday request? Who do you say yes to and how do you justify your answers?

Being a manager is not easy. You have to have patience, be seen to be fair, make the hard choices and stick by them as well as doing the job you are paid to do. You can never be liked by everyone and people’s opinion of you will be swayed by your next decision depending on if it is in their favour or against them.

So don’t let personal feelings cloud your judgment. Make up a set of rules which cover nearly every eventuality you can think of. Make sure everyone is aware of what you will and will not allow and stick to it. That way you will not always be liked but everyone will always say you dealt fairly with them.

When it comes to allowing holidays it is even more important to judge everyone the same and not let personal bias effect your judgment. So you set up rules like first come first served. Plan ahead how many of each skill you will allow off at any time or how you will cover missing skills. Set up the rules before any holiday requests are made. If you need help setting up your rules then read our book Holiday Management available from Amazon UK and from US Amazon

So if you think that Wimbledon will cause a lot of holiday requests, think about how you are going to deal with them. And if all else fails, can you have a TV on in the break room or book your holiday now and let your deputy deal with it?

"How was work?"

Every day millions of people ask that question; “How was work?” When you get home, when you are out with your friend. What would your answer be? Did you have a good day at work? Or would your answer be:

      “Stressful”

      “Tiring”

      “Traumatic”

      “Hectic”

     “I didn’t stop all day!”

     “This is the first chance I’ve had to put my feet up, all day!”

Can you pin point the reason you had problems today? Was it because someone was sick? Or is someone off on holiday and you got landed covering their work as well as your own?

All organisations have very similar problems, including: accommodating annual leave and coping with absences. As part of our work, we work with organisations to set up mechanisms which allow all staff to take their holidays without disrupting the operation. As well as the means to cover and cope with unexpected and expected absences.

If you would like to know more about managing your operation for efficiently then why not come to our seminar Efficient Shift Scheduling. Or contact us today and find out how we can help you have a better work/life balance.