A distribution center found themselves experiencing 20% week-over-week employee turnover. Cost overruns were adding up fast between overtime spend, new training costs and retraining costs.
Even worse, recruiting slowed greatly, once word started to spread in the local community that employee burnout combined with a now “revolving door” atmosphere was making it a less than great place to work. Turnover issues and a declining image left this client unable to fill positions fast enough — even when using three different staffing agencies.
When this retailer brought Integrity Staffing Solutions (ISS) in, we identified two key challenges and immediately recommended changes that would quickly stem the turnover:
CHALLENGE #1
We discovered that shift patterns were less than ideal. Shift times didn’t match up to the bus lines, and a sizeable percentage of the local labor pool used the bus to get to work. Route schedules caused associates to either arrive too early for work or too late, and as a result, employees just stopped coming in, leading to job abandonment.
Our solution: Integrity’s local on-site team began working with the regional transportation commission to open additional bus line schedules going into that industrial park. The ISS team also coordinated with other companies located in the same industrial park to make a strong case for additional bus schedules. Together, we were successful and additional bus lines were added, making this retailer a viable employer to the local community once again.
CHALLENGE #2
Our on-site data analysis revealed that a significant number of associates wanted part time shift work, and there were only full-time options.
Our solution: Integrity recommended that the retailer create front half and back half part-time schedules for associates, to add more shift flexibility, and expand the candidate pool.
T H E R E S U L T:
These two changes dropped the turnover rate from 20% per week to 5% – 8% per week!
How did our local ISS leadership team identify bus-line and part-time shift issues specific to this company so quickly? We automate all on-site data for instant analysis with our proprietary system, Workforce Management. Data automation frees our team to focus on staff experience. Engaging with our associates on the floor allows us to gather those critical details needed to provide reliable recommendations back to our clients.
What did this mean to the distribution center in this case study? Having clear, reliable data empowered our client to make these changes with 100% confidence that they would successfully reduce turnover.
