Saving money is one of a company’s top priorities, and labor is often one of the largest expenses a company incurs. Pair that with the Great Resignation, and labor is hard to come by on its own, let alone build into the budget.
At Morrison, we consistently talk to customers about ways they can reduce labor constraints and save on payroll. We’ve compiled some of the best advice we’ve received and break down six ideas you can implement in your production line to help increase your labor savings, reduce your workforce need, and increase your efficiencies.
1. Reduce employee turnover
By focusing on retaining great team members who are already trained, you’re reducing turnover, which is a clear way to increase labor savings. It costs more money to replace a quality worker than it does to put in the work and effort to retain them. Training and time of your other employees to train is costly. Keeping quality employees on your team also helps you provide the best service to your customers; you want high quality team members providing high quality service.
Overall, you want to give your employees a reason to stay at your company. Do this by providing things like a good company culture, making sure people feeling they’re making an impact at the company, and prioritize things like wellness, both physical and mental.
2. Plan your work schedules carefully
Your schedules shouldn’t be erratic and unpredictable. This is sure to lead to labor losses as people have responsibilities outside of work that require predictable schedules. When your schedules are consistent, your employees can perform better knowing what they need to do to take care of things at home. Predictable schedules decrease employee stress which in turn increases overall morale.
3. Give incentives for good performance
But you want to make sure it’s clear what “good performance” looks like. Give your team clear goals to strive for and communicate the progress of those goals along the way. Then, you want to make it so that your employees want to help achieve those goals. One way of doing this is by highlighting examples of exemplary performance in the workplace. You can allow employees to acknowledge those instances when they see their team members going above and beyond. Bonus: those being recognized feel good too!
4. Boost productivity
Give your team the tools to be as productive as they can possibly be. This means having up-to-date technology for your employees to use. You’ll also want to ensure your team is properly trained, both in technology and their role. Even more importantly, understand how your company communicates within itself, how departments connect. Understand and then fill in the gaps of communication where you find them.
5. Automate what you can
Automation is a key method for increasing labor savings. This relates directly to having the most up-to-date technology and automating any parts of your production that aren’t already. By automating the parts of your company that you can, this allows you to move labor towards other areas of your production.
6. Standardize what you can’t automate
When you can’t automate a task or process, make it a standardized process. Give your employees the tools they need to succeed: a trusted process they can follow that they (and you) know works. Standardizing work processes decreases the number of unknowns, and when workers experience consistent success, this can increase employee morale.
At the end of it, overcoming labor challenges and increasing your savings isn’t going to be a quick fix that happens overnight, but these tips will get you headed in the right direction towards leading a more productive and efficient company.
