WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
HOW TO MANAGE THE TEAMS BEHIND THE TEAM FOR A GREAT FAN EXPERIENCE Parking. Ticketing. Security. Concessions. There are so many people that can make or break a gameday experience for your fans—all before the players even leave the locker room. So how do you get the game plan right? How do you make sure you have enough people on the schedule? Especially these days when it feels like hiring and managing workers is an uphill battle.
THE EASIEST WAY TO MANAGE GAMEDAY COVERAGE There’s so much that can affect your employee schedule on any given day. Changing vaccination mandates. Health and safety concerns. The labor shortage. But the good news is there’s a way to make it much easier for your staff to manage. The answer is workforce management— an integrated set of tools and processes that help you ensure the right people are in the right role, at the right time. This concept originally got its start in call centers, with the goal of helping managers identify the best number of hourly workers to keep up with call demand. Using a workforce management approach allows you to increase efficiency both across your venue and at the individual employee level. It’s about finding balance with all your moving, 24 | OTFF ISSUE 18 ★ DECEMBER 2021
human variables and combining them in a way that produces the best result. Essentially, you’re aligning all the right factors in place for the most optimal outcome. How are you set up to manage the labour shortage? In today’s tight labor market, just hiring more workers isn’t enough. Once they’re in the door, you have to convince them to stay. How can you make scheduling a competitive advantage to attract and retain great workers? The best way to make sure you have enough workers is to offer them the benefits they want. And flexible scheduling is at the top of their list right now. Fortunately, the bulk of workforce management comes down to scheduling. It helps you set up shifts to be fair to employees while maintaining the right staffing levels, all while keeping your workers informed and engaged. For anyone who’s ever built a schedule from the ground up, you know how time-consuming it can be. Workforce management can automate the scheduling process to take all variables into account (vacations, availability, demand) and produce an optimal schedule that employees can also weigh in on. Ideally, using workforce management will help keep things from falling into the cracks and make it easier to cover sick days or no-shows, so that you aren’t ever left without enough resources.
HANDLE LAST-MINUTE EMPLOYEE SCHEDULING CHANGES LIKE A PRO] Reduce operational headache with flexible scheduling Flexible scheduling has the amazing ability to improve employee engagement and make dealing with a constantly fluctuating season much less stressful. The best part about flexible selfscheduling is that it’s a win-win for management and workers. Instead of having your staff spend hours hammering out a schedule down to every detail, they’ll save time (and frustration) by only building a framework. Flexible scheduling lets employees choose the shifts they want on that framework. Employees can request shifts, and they can swap shifts with each other. This means they have control over their worklife balance, you have fewer no-shows, and employees are more engaged because they know they have some ownership in their work schedule. So how can you get started with selfscheduling? First, choose the tools you will use. In the past, paper sign-up sheets were used,
