Top Challenges in Blue Collar Shift Management

Industry 4.0 has arrived in India. The pandemic has given it the much-needed push. With the business landscape having fundamentally shifted, success for companies will now depend on their ability to harness this technological disruption. However, most companies are still in a state of inertia, regardless of their size or industry.

Let’s talk about how businesses still follow the archaic system of manual shift scheduling, for instance, which leads to miscommunications, loss of productivity, and disengagement among workers. Factories have a limited number of supervisors and managers, who deal with a sizeable factory floor of workers. This means they are under huge pressure to get things done. Here are some challenges commonly faced in shift management.

Planning Shifts for a Huge Scale of Operations

Managing hundreds of workers across locations, hubs, sites, and positions makes scheduling a nightmare for supervisors. There are multiple moving parts that need to be considered, such as compliance, worker absences, overtime, compensatory leaves, and more. Doing all this manually can lead to data-entry errors, often causing confusion and even no-shows. This is apart from the time and resources required to manage manual workflows.

Different State Laws and Varying Compliance Issues

Wherever blue-collar workers are hired, compliance becomes a vital issue. Different states in India have specific laws regarding maximum work hours, employment contracts, overtime, worker conditions, wages, and much more. Plus, they all have stipulated holidays, which differ from one state to the next.

It is difficult to schedule shifts keeping all these laws in mind, especially if your company has blue-collar workforce distributed across locations. However, doing so is mandatory as non-compliance can lead to hefty fines and lawsuits against companies.

Difficulty in Tracking and Maintaining Data Accurately

When siloed systems are used, data mismatch becomes the norm. Manual systems are also prone to manipulation, leading to inaccuracies. Inaccuracy in attendance records leads to erroneous wage calculations. For the low-income group, unfair wages for the sole breadwinner of a family are a huge concern and a cause for job dissatisfaction. Also, many companies need to plan shifts based on a surge in demand. Lack of accurate data can lead to deficiencies in resource planning.

Erratic manual processes across touchpoints lead to the risk of data loss. This can be costly for an organisation, in terms of third-party audits and compliance.

Report Generation and Monthly Reconciliation

When attendance registers are manually maintained, reconciliation can take a long time. There are multiple locations from where data has to be collected and transferred to on to Excel sheets. Further, the final report has to be signed off by the top management before salary disbursement.

All these activities can delay wage payments, which contributes to high attrition levels.

Manual Attendance Registering Wastes Time and Effort

Creating and maintaining attendance data for all workers is a tedious and counter-productive job. It is also a system that can be conveniently exploited by workers through attendance by proxy, or forging entries.

Managing shifts manually means that supervisors and managers contribute less time to matters that add value to the business and improve employee morale. This includes building a great employee culture, appraisal programs, training and development, and anything that can spur business growth.

Ineffective Communication to Workers

In the age of smartphones and greater internet connectivity, many workers are still dealing with paper-based schedules. These are hard to update and communicate. Workers have no way to know about changes in shift schedules, which leads to no-shows. Sending pictures of printed copies on WhatsApp groups also doesn’t work. Many irrelevant messages from other workers flood these groups, making workers miss out on the important ones.

Lack of Data Analytics

Manual attendance systems cannot provide crucial data in real-time to help gain insights for decision-making. They cannot identify issues like absenteeism, loss of productivity, and hiring demands, which can hurt an organisation’s long-term goals and bottom lines.

Organisations today need an all-in-one lifecycle platform for blue-collar workers that brings various aspects of workforce management on to a single dashboard. Planning shifts and registering attendance is only one small part of the puzzle. When companies have the tools to automate complicated tasks like hiring, onboarding, verifying workers and managing shifts, among many others, blue-collar workforce management becomes seamless. This data can then be used to extend other important benefits to workers like financial security and healthcare.

Industry 4.0 has already crept into sectors like manufacturing, shipping, supply-chain management, and more. To fulfill the government’s vision of making India globally competitive, businesses need to achieve a complete digital ecosystem that can empower them and their blue-collar workers.