We’ve spent the month of January blogging about how the workforce is changing.  You can read about it anywhere but the fact is nearly every American has either experienced first hand or knows people whose lives and careers have significantly changed in the past few years due to the poor economy.

My generation grew up with high hopes and promises form our parents that getting a college education would guarantee a great, high paying and long term job after graduation.  Well, here we are, it’s 2011 and even the “safe” degrees in education and nursing are scarce.

In his State Of The Union Speech on January 25, 2011 President Obama said “Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company. That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful.” None of us can deny that the rules have changed; however our President suggests that this “shouldn’t discourage us. It should challenge us.”

Right now recent graduates need to remain flexible and innovative in their search for employment.  The Monday – Friday 40-hour workweek is hard to come by. Understand that companies are favoring temporary and contract employees. Working a few or these assignments is not failure.  Use this time to discover what you actually want to do for the rest of your life and learn from the jobs you hate. Lastly, be thankful that you’re young because out of pocket health insurance is still somewhat affordable. Good luck!

Alison

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As the end of the first month of 2011 winds down I can’t help but wonder how many of those New Years resolutions have really kept up.  I know that my resolution to workout everyday, no excuses, went out the door oh…around January 5th.  But here’s the problem with resolutions like that, they may make your life “better”: healthier, skinnier, more energy, etc., but they also inherently make your life a little more difficult.  One more thing to pencil in everyday and one less hour of work, play or sleep. I’m not trying to justify my 12th failed attempt at the same resolution, but I have noticed that there are 2 different types of resolutions.  One’s that make your life harder (like mine) and ones that make your life easier.

The ones that make your life easier usually have something to do with getting more organized.  Things like keeping your desk clean, not procrastinating, systematizing certain processes that usually make your life a living nightmare.  For all you managers, schedulers, and volunteer coordinators this may seem obvious, but why not tackle your scheduling system? Whether you already use Shiftboard or have been thinking about it, there are a few key things that every scheduler should aim for.  Here are Shiftboard’s top 3 simple ways to get organized in 2011:

1.  Make sure all of your employee or volunteer contacts are up to date.  Doing this now will ensure that once you are back in the thick of things, be it a festival, sale, or a particularly busy Monday, you won’t get stuck on trying to figure out which of Steve’s phone numbers actually work (if any).  Whether you remind your people to update their contact info themselves or you do it for them, it will certainly be worth everyone’s time.

2.  Run your reports early.  Figure out who needs license/certification renewals before they expire.  See if coverage gaps are filled.  Make sure everyone is meeting your minimum work requirements.

3.  Get rid of those millions of spreadsheets.  In today’s day and age you have plenty of options to streamline your scheduling process.  Shiftboard makes it easy to get all your information into one place without passing around  that pesky, long, confusing spreadsheet.

So simple, yet so effective.  Here’s to a more organized, efficient 2011!

Nahid

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I am certain that all of you out there have experienced first-hand some aspect of enabling flexibility to hire or retain key team members in your organization.  More employees are telecommuting at least 1-2 days to avoid additional hours each week wasted in traffic.  Parents are bending work hours around after-school schedules.  Many folks are working two jobs, or balancing working with taking classes for additional degrees.

These types of issues affect the daily management of a restaurant (many student workers), the longer term plans of a security staffing company (law enforcement professionals by day, event security at night or on weekends), and Fortune 1,000 companies aligning virtual project teams (full-time management, specific expertise contractors).

Companies are wrestling with the challenges associated with these requirements.  In all of the real-world scenarios I just listed, our online employee scheduling software is being used for real-time staff scheduling, email and SMS/text confirmations, online reporting, and other details.

Here at Shiftboard, we are gearing up for a big 2011.  We have been creating a system for nearly a decade now that enables what our customers and the business market generally are asking for as part of a big shift in the labor market away from strictly W2 employees towards more flexible workers and blended labor pools.  Give us a call to ask us about your specific challenge or opportunity with this shift in the labor force.  It won’t be a surprise to hear from you.

– Rob

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I just read a fascinating New York Times article, “Working (Part-Time) In The 21^st Century”, about how part-time workers are becoming a standard part of the economy in the Netherlands.  All of those Dutch trends are also happening here in the States.  Our economy is just a much bigger ship that takes longer to turn, but turning it is.  And as all of you who have spent time on the water know (let me indulge a bit here with my Navy background), while the bigger ship takes longer to turn, the momentum once the bow starts to swing is much larger and harder to stop.

So any of us that want to hire the very best folks may want to look at what is going on in a northern European country with a well-educated labor force.   Since my own lineage is primarily Dutch, although five generations removed, I was doubly interested.  Hold on, because what is below will be coming soon as business requirements near you.

Women are huge sources of highly skilled labor but require flexibility. “Seventy-five percent of Dutch women now work part time, compared to 41 percent in other European Union countries and 23 percent in the United States, according to Saskia Keuzenkamp at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. Twenty-three percent of Dutch men have reduced hours, compared to 10 percent across the European Union and in the United States.”

Flexibility will be key in the fight for the best workers. “Wouter Bos, a former finance minister and now four-day-a-week partner at the accounting firm KPMG, concurs: ‘More men want time with the family, but without giving up their careers. And more women want careers, but without giving up too much time with the family.’ He predicts ‘a huge fight’ for the best workers, with flexibility the key.”

Microsoft, with a bell-weather global labor force, is going flexible and virtual. “Ninety-five percent of Dutch Microsoft employees work from home at least one day a week; a full quarter do so four out of five days. Each team has a ‘physical minimum’; some meet twice a week in the office, others once a quarter. Online communication and conference calls save time, fuel and paper waste. The company says it has cut its carbon footprint by 900 tons this year.  Aspects of this “new world of work” concept have been exported to other Microsoft offices, including Norway, France and Australia – though not yet to U.S. headquarters.”

– Rob

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In mid-December the Wall Street Journal published a section on “2011 – Trends That Will Shape Next Year” (print edition only, sorry I can’t offer a link), one of the seven topics was “Workforce: contingent workforce poses new challenges.”

“As the non-employee workforce jumps from an estimated 20 percent of the labor force to 25 percent next year, companies will see greater flexibility to deal with unpredictable demand . . . A hot growth area for service providers will be to implement programs that help managers cope with transient and flex workers, and deliver deeper analysis of work patterns to improve staffing efficiency.”

Here at Shiftboard, we understand that one of the key business requirements for managing this trend is having a lightweight, flexible system for scheduling, communication, and workforce management that is as flexible as the team you are deploying.  A typical human resource management system (HRMS) and/or payroll database for W2 employees (SAP, Oracle Apps, etc) at large corporations or hospitals often require weeks of steps and calendar flow time to enroll employees, provide security badges, provide payroll ID numbers, etc.

Our customers use our system to coordinate their flexible labor, feathering a new worker into the operational training and scheduling processes in minutes and hours, not days and weeks.  And our system can work along side a legacy HRMS system, or link to it using our very robust Application Programming Interface (API).

– Rob

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Tis the Season Part 2: Giving-A-Shift at the Puget Sound Blood Center

When the Give-A-Shift blog team decided to look at non-profits and volunteers giving their time during this season of giving, I decided to tie in a broader theme of giving in any local community: giving blood.

I assume many of you out there are like me in the following way.  When I see an ambulance speeding through stoplights, I simply take for granted that the local blood banks are full.  This time of year especially, it’s worth spelling out in a little more detail how much giving is required to keep those blood banks full here in Seattle, since I have learned a lot more about the subject in 2010.

Puget Sound Blood Center (PSBC) chose to change over to Shiftboard for its online volunteer scheduling software late last spring.  Due to their scale, nearly 2,500 volunteers participating annually; and the complexity of volunteer scheduling, crossing a geographic span from the Canadian border to the banks of the Columbia River that creates the natural border with Oregon; PSBC did not have trivial requirements.

Adding to the mix,  consider what else is required of PSBC to get blood a couple of times per year from someone like yours truly.  It requires convenience, because I am always late to get somewhere or do something.  I squeeze in giving my pint a few times a year when I don’t have to travel far and the line isn’t long.  So PSBC volunteers set up shop not only at 12 district offices, but they cover mobile drives at nearly 4,000 locations per year including schools, churches, universities, and offices with their mobile teams.  Talk about a communication challenge with volunteers!

But the team of management staff and volunteer coordinators at PSBC take it all in a day’s work.  They are very organized, and they take on the challenge with an upbeat spirit.  So do their many volunteers.  Our system has made it that much easier to work with their volunteers. Now their volunteers can check their schedules right online with speedy screens and response times not available in their old system, know where they are going in Shiftboard via Google maps, self-schedule some shifts, and print their schedules any time of the day or night.

Of course in this and all seasons, it comes full circle.  Because PSBC can work easier and more efficiently with their volunteers, their volunteer base grows and gives more of their time.  And that time allows PSBC to cover more locations more often, which in turn allows the many folks like me to give blood easier.  And hence, those blood banks are more likely to be full with so many good folks participating in some way.  So, in the spirit of the season, please try to give either your time of some of your own blood to your local blood center.  And a special thank you to the PSBC team and all of those volunteers for stewarding our Western Washington blood supply.  Happy Holidays!  Rob

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Well its official, the holidays are here and in full swing.  Since this time of year is all about giving what you can to those who need it most, it only seemed fitting that we highlight just a few of the many wonderful non-profit organizations that Shiftboard works with over the course of December (and trust me, it was not easy to just pick a few).

First up, the American Red Cross Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter Disaster Action Team (DAT).  Part of a national network of around 730 different local chapeters, The Red Cross Atlanta DAT team is made up of brave and generous men and women who, like super heroes, respond to the chaos caused by fires, floods, natural disasters, and many other high stress, dangerous, and tragic situations.  Volunteers provide first aid, medical attention, clothing, food and shelter in situations both local and internationally.  They were there for the millions of people affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and continue to provide comfort and aid to those who need it most.  Last January, after the devastating earthquake in Haiti thousands of Haitians were transported to metro Atlanta hospitals where Red Cross volunteers were there waiting to help.  From disasters overseas, to fires down the street, this group of volunteers will always be ready to jump into action and put their individual skills, training, and time to good use.

One of the most impressive things about these DAT volunteers?  They have day jobs!  The volunteers in Atlanta use Shiftboard to self schedule their on-call shifts allowing them to sign up and help whenever they can.  With their generosity, flexibility, and willingness to help at the drop of a hat, ARC Metropolitan Atlanta volunteers are proving that you can make a huge difference while still maintaining a busy lifestyle.

Want to get involved?  Contact the nearest Red Cross chapter in your area or visit www.redcross.org.

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Amtrak’s Acela was a smooth ride, but we did run into a one-week blog time delay on our last leg of the Give-A-Shift College Tour.  Once arriving in Washington, DC, we are going to head over to George Mason University. George Mason is interesting in that they use the system to schedule coverage for all of their football, basketball, and other major sporting events.  Instead of students picking up shifts, they are all required to keep their own availability up to date online, making it easy for their schedulers to assign only available folks.

To close things out here, let’s do the one thing I always try to do in DC.  Lace up the running shoes, because we’re going for a light jog up and down the Mall.  With the new World War II Memorial, we can add even a little more distance to the loop between the Capitol and the Washington Memorial.  That run always lifts my spirits and the faith I have in the nation, so it’s worth it even now after a long day.

Since my Navy days down in Charleston, South Carolina, I have always tried to weave seeing Civil War battlefield into my travels when I get a chance.  On this, our last day of the tour, we’re going to a spot most certainly worth seeing.  We’re headed south from DC to Richmond, and then heading west on Route 24.  We’re covering the same ground Robert E Lee’s army did in 1865, after finally being flanked by Grant at Petersburg during the long siege.  We’ll stop where the carnage finally ended at Appomattox Courthouse and pay our respects to both sides of the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Not much further on is Lynchburg, where a lot of student-workers at Liberty University will recognize my Shiftboard jacket.  After saying hello and getting a solid lunch, it will be back to DC and Reagan National to head back to Seattle.

Whew!  I need some guest bloggers from all you student workers out there next fall.  Thanks to all of our university customers for making this tour possible!  Hope you enjoyed the Give-A-Shift College Tour.

-Rob

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