Why should I optimize shared labor in my plant?

[AlainBolyn]

Shared labor, or the use of temporary or external workers to meet production needs, is a common practice in the industrial sector. It enables us to cope with fluctuations in demand, reduce fixed costs and benefit from specific skills. But how can we optimize the management of these flexible human resources? What are the advantages of a shared workforce? And how can you make the most of it to improve your plant’s performance?

First and foremost, effective management of shared manpower offers your plant a number of advantages:
It enables you to reduce costs linked to recruitment, training, overtime, vacations or absences. In fact, you can adapt the number and profile of your employees to fluctuations in demand, without having to hire or fire staff. By adapting the number and profile of employees to the real needs of the plant, you avoid over- or understaffing, and optimize the use of equipment and raw materials.

You improve productivity by assigning employees to the jobs where they perform best. This increases production output, speed and quality, and reduces errors, delays and rejects.

It also improves production flexibility and responsiveness. You can respond more quickly to your customers’ needs, by modifying the planning, schedules or assignments of your employees according to orders, deadlines or unforeseen circumstances.

Last but not least, this workforce optimization enables you to promote the versatility and motivation of your employees. By offering them the chance to change jobs or departments, you enable them to develop new skills, diversify their tasks, and break the monotony. In this way, you strengthen their sense of belonging, their commitment and their job satisfaction.

In any case, when it comes to calling in external workers, you need to lay down a few internal routines that will enable you to put all the assets on your side to ensure that the integration of external collaborators is a success and brings rapid added value to the entire resource planning process.

For example:

– Define your shared manpower requirements according to your strategic, operational and organizational objectives (seasonality, production peaks, …) ;
– Select and challenge the best service providers and partners to recruit and train your temporary or external workers;
– Effectively integrate these workers into your organization and corporate culture;
– Monitor and evaluate the performance and satisfaction of the shared workforce;
– Identify opportunities for continuous improvement and innovation.
…

So it’s clear that optimizing the shared workforce in your plant is a strategic lever for improving overall business performance, while respecting the interests of your employees.

To achieve this, there are several ways of optimizing the shared workforce in a plant. For example, you can use scheduling tools, such as PeopleForce, to ensure that workers are assigned to appropriate tasks based on their skills and experience. You can also use tracking tools to monitor worker productivity and efficiency to identify areas for improvement.

PeopleForce, our constrained scheduling software, makes it easy for you to respond to these different challenges. Optimized management of your shared workforce is just one more challenge that Synthetis’ scheduling solution has taken up with flying colors!

Find out more about PeopleForce