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The power (and necessity) of flexible schedules in manufacturing

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About a year ago my husband and I started allowing our employees to set their own schedules.

We needed to hire several staff, and through the interview process, we found that many job seekers hesitated to commit to a five-day work week with a traditional 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift. We also found little consistency in the days and hours each candidate preferred to work.

Unable to find a common schedule that met the needs of the entire workforce, we asked each employee what schedule he would like. We reviewed the schedules and agreed to give it a try if each would commit to the same days and hours for a full year. At the end of the year, we would review the plan with each employee to see if it was working.

Well, a year has come and gone, and I’m happy to report it’s been a huge success. Not only are the pilot program employees happy with the results, but offering this perk up front to the additional staff we’ve had to hire this past year also has been a critical benefit and seen as a competitive advantage.

In retrospect, and considering my own career over the years, why would we assume that a one-size-fits-all program is ideal? Some of our employees are students juggling community college classes. Some of them have young children with transportation needs before and after school. One of our employees wants off every Wednesday afternoon because he runs the local farmer’s market, and some of them just want Fridays off. I started working when I was 23, and the schedule that worked for me then was very different from what appeals to a 37-year-old mother of three.

We are a small company with less than 10 employees, so this is not too difficult for us to manage. But when I started researching the topic, I found substantial evidence that this becoming the new norm in manufacturing. The Society for Human Resource Management has even published an entire guide on implementing flex scheduling in the manufacturing space.

It’s no secret that we are facing a major workforce shortage that will continue to expand over the next 20 years. The Great Resignation is taking boomers out of the workforce more quickly than expected, and Generation Z is the smallest generation since the Great Depression. So, manufacturers will need to be more creative than ever in covering the work. Many will turn to automation and outsourcing, but nothing will completely eliminate head count, and companies will be competing for a shrinking pool of candidates.

We need to add five to 10 positions this year, and likely half will be Gen Z. We have onboarded three Gen Z employees in the past year. (I spoke about our experience in recruiting and retaining these individuals at Pipe & Tube Memphis 2022.)

Gen Z employees share a lot of common traits, and one big one is the demand for flexibility in schedules and in general. Gen Zers are looking for a dream life, not a dream job, and if you can’t flex to accommodate their needs outside of work, some simply won’t take the job.

In speaking about our program, I get a lot of questions about equity, but in all honesty, our millennial, Gen X, and boomer employees have taken to the flex schedule as well. It’s amazing to see the positive culture impact when employees don’t feel chained to a shift. They have some control over their career.

I can’t predict how this will play out as we grow, but for now it works. All we can do is read the market, implement, and adjust. In my consulting work, I often recommend implementation of challenging strategies. I always tell my clients, “This won’t be easy, but pick your hard.” Is it harder to manage multiple schedules to ensure all the work gets done each week, or harder to be stuck without workers and high turnover?

So far, flexible scheduling has been the easy choice for us.