NEW YORK (AP) – After struggling to hire workers for its Dallas outlet store, Balsam Hill finally opened on September 1. But the next day the online supplier of high-quality artificial Christmas trees had to quit after four of its five workers.
The main gripe for three of them? Working on the weekend. So they found jobs with better hours elsewhere.
Balsam Hill reopened weeks later with nine workers and the hourly wage increased by $ 3 to $ 18 an hour. But more importantly, it has changed its approach: instead of just focusing on the company’s needs, it now works closely with each employee to adjust their working hours to the time they want to work.
“We’re working against people who have a choice of where to work,” said Kendra Gould, senior retail strategist at Balsam Hill. “Now it is more about what you need as an employee and how we can make you happy?”
Companies meet the requirements of hourly workers under conditions that were often non-negotiable in the past: scheduling. Starting with their co-workers restructuring their workday to suit their lifestyle, hourly workers look for flexibility in how – and when – they do their jobs. This means postponing weekend, late or public holiday shifts.
Job vacancies are abundant so workers can afford to be picky. There were 10.4 million vacancies at the end of August and 11.1 million in the previous month, the highest since at least December 2000 when the government began tracking that number. At the same time, the Ministry of Labor said the number of people who left their jobs rose from 4 million in July to 4.3 million in August.
Among the new workers Balsam Hill hired was Rickey Haynes, 62, a local Baptist church pastor. He retired in July but is still preaching in the ward. He said he was looking for a part-time job in retail, but that he didn’t want to work on Sundays because of his sermon. Balsam Hill was ready to stick to his schedule.
“You were forthcoming,” he said. “If I could, I could work with them until I’m done.”
A recent study by ManpowerGroup Solutions found that nearly 40% of job applicants worldwide consider flexibility of schedule to be one of the top three factors in making career decisions.
The changing mindset is reflected in data from construction site platforms.
SnagAJob.com, an online marketplace for hourly workers, says the word “flexibility” now makes up about 11% of the 7 million+ job postings on its website, compared to 8% earlier this year. But the night shifts in restaurants have also increased significantly since January.
According to Instawork, a recruiting marketplace that connects local businesses with skilled hourly workers, the rate at which employers were able to fill weekend shifts decreased significantly from January through August compared to weekday shifts.
Such challenges arise as companies struggle to hire vacation workers. Target Corp. said earlier this month it will pay employees who pick up their shifts on peak days of the holiday season, including Saturday and Sunday, as well as Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas, $ 2 an hour more. That adds to the companies that are already dangling bonuses and easing drug testing and educational minimum requirements that have kept some people off the workforce.
Sumir Meghani, co-founder and CEO and founder of Instawork, says such perks don’t solve the root of the problem.
“It’s about flexibility,” Meghani said, noting that the available shifts at Instawork have increased eightfold from just before the pandemic to August 2021, Tuesday and Wednesday because I don’t have childcare or schools haven’t reopened ‘or’ I’m worried about COVID. ‘”
Meghani says hour workers are asking how they can achieve the same work-life balance as their counterparts who can work remotely.
“The challenge is that as a bartender you have to work until 2am,” he says.
Employers with such jobs are limited in what they can do because of the way they work, especially since customers have gotten used to getting what they want, when they want it.
Radial, which processes online orders for retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods and PetSmart, is working to align its schedules with the expectations of candidates in each location. Increasingly, popular shifts such as Monday through Friday only or Saturday and Sunday only are being considered.
However, Sabrina Wnorowski, vice president of human resources at Radial, says that given the unpredictable spending during the vacation, it is difficult to cater to everyone’s needs.
On the other hand, the working poor have long struggled with irregular working hours, especially in the hospitality and retail sectors, says Daniel Schneider, professor of public order at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, whose Shift Project focuses on inequality among low-income workers Income focused.
“The problem is not new, and we have shown that the consequences for workers and their families are serious,” said Schneider. The daily instability of work schedules is inextricably linked to the instability of the workplace. This creates a high turnover rate for workers, which in turn creates costs for individuals and companies.
Hourly workers were hit particularly hard during the pandemic when non-essential businesses such as department stores and restaurants were forced to close for a few months in the spring of 2020. Those who remained busy in essential stores such as grocery stores were overworked under the rush of shoppers’ purchases for basic items.
When demand for restaurants and shopping resumed last spring when more people were vaccinated, companies couldn’t hire workers fast enough. And many of the hourly workers found new jobs as they redefined their priorities. This contributed to a labor shortage that forced employers to look for ways to make their jobs more attractive, while also being forced to reduce operating hours.
The National Restaurant Association says that 68% of the 4,000 operators it polled in a September survey say their restaurants have reduced opening hours on the days they were open from June to August. The survey also found that 45% of the operators surveyed said they would close their restaurant on the days it would normally be open during this period.
Donald Minerva is the owner of a restaurant called Scottadito Osteria Toscana in Brooklyn, New York. He says that shortly before the pandemic, he had 16 workers working different shifts in his restaurant, which was open six days a week. Minerva now has 14 workers, but a good number of them don’t want to work double shifts, so the restaurant is now only open five days a week with limited hours.
Minerva says 70% of its employees are pre-pandemic and want to work 40 hours a week. But the new workers want more flexibility.
For Minerva, that means he has to spend more time working on her schedules and less time focusing on priorities like developing new customer acquisition strategies.
“It’s a juggling to find them and a juggling to keep them,” he said.
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