With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas just around the corner, the busiest time of the year for most companies has arrived. We understand why these times make logistics managers break out in a sweat. Finding and hiring employees and planning for peak times is only one of the many challenges. Scheduling operator shifts is usually also a struggle. Luckily enough there are some tools that can help you run operations smoother even during the busiest of times.
On peak days like Black Friday, we see a sudden and strong surge in demand that needs to be fulfilled. All warehouses need to increase staffing levels. However, the current labor shortages add fuel to the fire. Even during the year, it is not easy to find qualified associates let alone shortly before peak times when everybody needs them. Also, new operators need to be trained. But trainings bind existing resources so they will not be as productive as usual. Besides, not all people can be trained at the same time – so idle times will increase. This will result in lower productivity and higher cost per shipped unit during the time before peak periods.
Minimize cost for peak time ramp-ups
redPILOT’s peak time recruitment feature supports logistics companies in hiring and training staff for peak times in a structured way. The logistics manager only needs to define the predicted demand and peak period. redPILOT then calculates the number of people required for each process step and when these new employees need to be hired.
The complexity of the process steps and the training requirements are considered as well as the lower performance levels of new associates compared to experienced operators. All these parameters influence the calculation of the recruitment plan.
Based on this plan the agency can be informed well in advance and start the recruitment process. Effective training plans can be created based on the ramp-up plan. This way, you can keep the cost for the ramp-up at a minimum level.
Decrease scheduling time & effort
As soon as the new operators are online the redPILOT PLANNER takes them into account for scheduling. With the click of a button, shift plans can be created, and the best suited operators are automatically allocated to each process step. To improve employee retention and well-being, not only competence-levels are taken into account, but also employees’ preferences, job rotation, car pooling and much more. You can even enable communication via teamAPP – a smartphone app that is directly integrated with the PLANNER. With teamAPP, you can send operators notifications if a shift is available, and they can apply for these open shifts online. This makes calling operators and agencies for available open spots obsolete and the whole planning process gets much more efficient.
Struggle less during peak times
The peak time recruitment feature and its PLANNER module will take out some of the stress around Black Friday and co. Logistics managers will have enough to worry about during these days anyway – so let redPILOT take some of the struggle away.
Give us a call if you are interested in making your next peak period a bit more relaxed.