In this insightful Webinar we speak to Nicola Jackson (HR Business Partner at ASM Global) and Nathan Miller (UK’s Managing Director at HumanForce). The webinar is chaired by Peter Banks, Founder & Managing Director of theHRDIRECTOR.
In this webinar, we investigate:
1. What’s the current state of HR/WFM technology in many organisations that employ shift-based (“deskless”) workers and why has this segment of the workforce (which makes up 80% of the global workforce) been neglected?
2. Is there a “tipping point” that these employers reach where they realise they cannot continue with manual, error-prone processes?
3. How have the needs of deskless workers changed in recent years? What do they expect HR/WFM tech to deliver? (e.g. ease of use like consumer tech, mobile accessibility, etc.)
4. How to outline elements of the employee experience that can be transformed by HR/WFM tech? (e.g. automating certain tasks, providing greater autonomy/self-service functionality, better connection and communication with their business, greater personalisation, etc.)
5. How about managers and C-suite leaders – what do they now expect HR/WFM tech to deliver to their business? (e.g. analytic tools, data-driven decision-making, better reporting, productivity gains, etc.)
6. What can be automated with some of the tech being talked about? (e.g. creation of rotas/schedules, leave approvals, shift offers, shift bidding, onboarding, etc.)
7. Tips on how to successfully implement this tech and ensuring it’s used.
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Foreign And welcome to this webinar entitled how technology can enhance employee experience and HR Service delivery so my name is Peter Banks and I’m the founder and MD of the HR Director of publication we are a strategic resource for senior hrp and people leaders in print person and online
Delighted today to partner with human force a workforce management specialist right a little bit of an overview from medo so let’s just let’s just look at this topic so when it comes to HR and workforce management technology shift-based or desolate workers have traditionally been neglected and both management of these workers and their
Experiences at work has suffered um however covid-19 demonstrated the critical role that many of these workers play in the smooth running of society so as a result of a digital Revolution is well underway in Industries such as Healthcare retail hospitality and Manufacturing new digital tools and mobile apps are transforming critical
Areas such as onboarding time and attendance routers and scheduling learning development and more so the role there’s always a richer employee experience for desktopus workers and significant productivity gains for the organizations that employ them which has all got to be good so let’s introduce our panel joining me today is firstly
Nicola Jackson Nicola is the HR business partner at ASM Global so hi Nicola hi then thanks for joining us and also Nathan Miller Nathan is the managing director for the UK at human Force so good afternoon Nathan yeah nice to see Peter nice to see Nicolette thank you both for taking part today
Always a pleasure so let’s find out a little bit more both if I may so Nicola may I start with you a little bit about you your role your organization and I think you know a number of employees will be useful as well yeah absolutely so uh my name is Nicola
Jackson I’m a HR business partner at ASM Global so I’ve been with the business coming up to two years now so joining just as the business was was reinflating from covid and um as a company we’re a world leading events and entertainment uh venue operator so throughout the
Whole of covid we had a complete blackout period uh for two years so that re-inflation period was was a really Manic and crazy time as a lot of people would have done in the hospitality sector particularly as it was one of the hardest hits um through covid but to give you an idea
In terms of our size and scale we’re a global business but the UK sits as part of the European entity so Europe constitutes 10 venues in the UK and when I say venues I’m talking concert venues so you may know the AO arena in Manchester over Arena Wembley Olympia
London uh one of our iconic venues um and exhibition centers but we also have a catering services side of our business where we’ve got another 12 13 venues so your grace course rip and race course as an example um and um yeah it’s been quite an exciting two years a lot of my
Background has been largely in the retail Hospitality sector so I didn’t join completely green but um when I did join we’d not long actually signed an agreement with human Force which we’ll be obviously talking quite a lot about today lovely thanks Nicola and yeah some change you’ve gone
Through there let’s as many of us have so Nathan back to you so a beef bro bio from you please yes thanks Peter and Nicola not an enviable two years to come to come through so I have the luxury of looking after the UK and Europe for human Force
We are a global workforce management solution provider quite simply we try and get the right people with the right skill set to the right place at the right time and paid correctly so all of the aspects that that encompasses and we are globally privileged to work across multiple sectors but specifically to Nicholas
Sector we have a large client base that is really enjoyable to work with because it’s across those venues stadiums and Arenas that get to host some of the world’s most iconic events uh be that a tennis tournament of a grand sort of Championship style right the way through
To these music events venues and sports every year and that’s the bit I genuinely love because it’s been part of my background for the last 15 years of my working life so yeah lots of industry-based experience to bring to that technology for but great client base great flexible workforces and a big demand
I think you know the point is about experiences isn’t it what particularly you’re delivering these experiences which is uh which is what we’ve we’ve all learned from um the last two or three years which we’ve missed so first question let’s Nicholas if I come to you first then so
Could you you know she talked about the size of the workforce there but could you tell us how many of your employees are sort of a shift-based destinous workers uh um I guess some idea what level of HR Workforce value at Tech um you’ve had a well I guess what you’ve
Got available now and this has been something you’ve obviously been improving on so yeah why was that recognized as a requirement yeah absolutely so we’ve got around 500 permanent staff um across the UK but one of the reasons why the workforce Tech is so important is actually for our casual population so
As an event-driven business we have Circa 3000 event driven staff that that we work for us and that’s from Aberdeen for this North in in Scotland all the way down to to London in Wembley so trying to get um the engagement and drive that engagement across that casual population
Particularly as we’ve already talked about um Hospitality being one of the hardest hit Industries throughout covid you know unfortunately that industry has lost lost a lot of people because they’ve gone to other Industries where they can achieve a better work-life balance because you know whilst events entertainment is super super exciting
You know we’re creating experiences and memories for people it is also often on sociable hours um and they’ve found work elsewhere in Industries where actually they have been treated a little better than the hospitality industry had so the engagement piece is is super super important and a large part of our
Population is also that Millennial population and they live and breathe a lot of their normal daily lives through social media through app-based technology so for ASM Global to start looking at how we can partner with a Workforce Tech provider that can provide that wireless mobile technology for our casual population to
Register for shifts update their availability um check in and out by either geofencing or through a vein registration it seemed like a really easy win in starting that engagement Journey it doesn’t start and end with Workforce Technology in this system such as human Force for example but it’s a great
Starting point and other aspects that we’re looking at are e-learning platforms as well to support that Journey so and I think yeah there’s a very good point isn’t it as you say when when covet happened lots of people kind of couldn’t work referral or whatever and
They they were also so you’ve got a that whole engagement piece is absolutely critical in in terms of arts and Minds isn’t it so Nathan just um is that typical of what you’re seeing I guess you know across the board with your clients um and just give us a flavor of
You know you know it’s obviously a big part of the workforce for many companies isn’t it it was 80 of the workforce has been this list do you think give us a flavor yeah so that’s an interesting statistic we’ll come on to that because that’s a global reference to 2.7 billion
People that work in an environment that is desperate by Nature now if you look at the sectors that covers the pre-owned sector to desk this work is agriculture but straight away after that you’re into education Healthcare retail and Hospitality pretty much in that order so sequence ever represents a deathless Workforce globally
Um if we start to hone in on what does that mean in the United Kingdom and we look at uh hotels and restaurant of food businesses you’ve got a number of about 4.8 million workers in that space which will be dominantly deskless and if you look at the gig economy records of the
Last 12 months it identifies about seven and a half million people so roughly 10 of the UK population now let’s talk desperate means and gig two terms there desolate people that work in an environments not within a static desk environment so retail standing up food service but the gig economy workers
Encompasses an element of those people who take either single or multiple work through platforms now human forces of workforce management Solution that’s that’s employer-led as opposed to an open platform but what’s interesting is the behavior of these people is they’re becoming more used to using technology to access work and
That’s where Nicola’s engagement piece is so critical because they’re used to having mobile phone app-based first quantity contact in order to gain shifts to take work except work see payslips so it’s definitely becoming a mobile service but you mentioned that the engagement piece I think what’s interesting is of that 2.7
Billion we can’t look at that necessarily but some recent surveys done by Workforce providers showed that 64 of employees in the UK Market specifically still was the work office through text message iMessage or direct phone call so when you can deploy a platform you can get a quicker or a workplace management
Solution like human Force you can get a hold of company notification processed up and running really quickly you can also get one-to-one communication which is that starting point for engagement in work we’re coming right the way back to your point that Nicola made and you mentioned pictures go back get back to
2019 and we started to see that stock market of staff that Nicola mentions where they could trade themselves off using technology to try and get the best bang for their Buck on their available working hours and that has created a massive pinch in the hospitality industry so engagement and access to
Learning access to work in flexible way is one of the tools companies like Nicholas are deploying with human Force so again is that Workforce to get them out working efficiently yeah I think do chucking this in but my daughter actually did a bit of work with kind of events actually nickel probably
From mainly for your company but that the app part which I probably may have been Nathan zero the app part in terms of availability getting shifts that sort of thing really slick really slick I was really impressed by that so you can see already how that can work for them
Um let’s move on to our second question then um Nathan let me come to you for this one so you know is there I guess I call it a Tipping Point is there a Tipping Point where sort of employers really you know reach where they realize they cannot continue with the you know
Let’s say more manual error-prone processes is is that be fair to say I think I think this little smile let’s let’s the Tipping Point comes from both sides of the equation I think a Tipping Point might be what can I do differently to attract retain engage and work with
My teams and platforms like others offer a Channel of communication and methods to do that there’s the Tipping Point of commercial benefit because there are some well-documented return on investment from the efficiency that in timesheets electronically offering rosters electronically allowing people to accept reject and swap shifts electronically and output into payroll
Electronically you can give a business so there’s a financial company Tipping Point metric of return investment but there’s also the engagement in communication it’s um where human forces is applying focus is to the benefit of these Tesla’s mobile and Transit workers because we think not only are we trying to solve
The company challenge we’re solving the worker requirement which will in turn also inform and influence the business because we’re in a very different world to just getting organizations who want to time clock people in an electronic work this is much more about employee value proposition benefit to the worker to
Encourage them to want to be with that organization cultural alignment these are critical demands of the workforce that we didn’t have I don’t think eight to ten years ago in my memory but Nicola I know obviously you joined and I know human thoughts are involved already at that point so the
Organization must have kind of recognized certain triggers that were happening to show you that change was needed is that is that right and I guess do you know when you came in what sort of things whether you’re looking to fix and what was missing guess from from the
Tech systems or processes that you had in place at the time yeah absolutely when you think of a business like cars with you know just in the UK 22 venues um from Aberdeen down to London that’s quite a large geographical spread and with a centralized um corporate team that provides support
To all of those venues individually you know we’ll all sit here and know we try our very best to try and drive as much consistency in a variety of different things whether it’s you know how you complete a particular process how we engage with our Workforce but that becomes really difficult to
Control from a centralized function without having technology such as human force that helps that standardization in terms of process but also having the confidence that our casual Workforce are getting the same engagement company-wide because before you know it you’ve got venues communicating with casuals via out of date email distribution lists
Um you know we’ve got um individuals who may get missed off a bi-weekly payroll cutoff points and then before you know it we’re processing out of cycle payments which obviously comes at an additional cost to a business as well um you’ve got populations that have visa restrictions
Which means they may be able to work 20 hours a week having a system such as human force allows us to have automated rules within the system so if someone does have those restrictions it prevents a venue or a manager from scheduling someone that would take them over those restrictions
It also is really intelligent in the fact that it can you can put forward dates in for things such as that so that out of term time in term time where you have those fluctuations you can put all the information in there and it does the
Thinking for you so as a manager earn as an operator you can have confidence that the venue is gonna that the system is going to tell you when you can’t do that any longer and actually and look for somebody else or for alternative status to um support you in those events so
There’s a number of things um that by default in terms of the manual processes that we’ve been working towards historically will be supported and improved but it also gives us confidence as a business that our casual Workforce are being engaged in the right way they’re getting the right method of
Communication across the board yeah and that whole casual work was really vital to you isn’t it because it’s all we’re in this kind of agile times where Peaks and troughs in terms of your Workforce requirements so I can see how that kind of real-time data and communication piece is really important
So yeah okay um listen while we’re at this point any questions from anyone please do uh pop them on that there’s a q a so just pop them on there we will ask them as we go if I’m not kind of asking what you’d like to know if there’s anything burning
Please do and I’ll put it to the panel um let’s just run our first poll couple of polls today um pretty straightforward so this will pop up on your screen in a moment um so this one is firstly will you be implementing new workforce management or HR Tech Solutions in 2023 any thoughts
On Nathan any thoughts on what would be top here and you’ve got two answers you’ve got to get this one right surely well my hope it is obviously going to be yes and we’d love to talk to you so if they’re implementing a workforce management solution or actual technology
We’d love to hear about that so let’s hope there’s definitely something out there be interesting to see the answer just Chuck your thoughts in there yeah I think you know from a HR perspective understanding can depends upon what industry you’ve you work in you know what that Journey’s been like
From reinflating from covid I probably sit in the not sure because investing in technology and the the the effort the time the consideration that needs to go into implementing that correctly I mean not necessarily be the right time dependent upon where businesses are on that inflation Journey now post covered yeah
Yeah that’s a really good point I think one of the best bits of advice we give when we engage with clients that are looking at that strategy for technology implementation and bearing in mind it does fit from an HR leadership server I read recently as one of the number one
Investment Focus areas for the next 12 to 24 months and but they need to consider what the benefits are to The Wider organization look at the existing processes that they’ve got the train time Workforce furniture and payroll process what resources that’s gonna reduce or budget control that they’ve
Got so that as you rightly say there’s a lot of pre-work that needs to go into that implementation of you okay well that’s all right so uh answers in so yeah 57 uh yes so are are looking to implement a workforce management solution 29 now and there was a there
Was a not sure 14 so we’re under we’re doing it right through we’re in the right place everyone’s in the right place today which is great so um let’s just we’re dwell in on that it’s pretty straightforward so Nicola Nicola Nicola let’s have a look at um I
Guess the needs of your desolate workers so if you know this again incredible times we’ve lived in the last three four years so what what do they expect now what what do they expect from their kind of HR wfm sort of you know Workforce Market technology to deliver what are they
Looking for as employees it’s a really interesting one because if you think about how technology enabled all of us you know through covid and coming out of covid whether it was ordering meals and drinks via an app-based system um you know when you’re socializing outside of a workplace
Uh you kind of got used to this instant level of service and you know whether it’s way to service or any other areas that that technology has been applied and I think it’s very applicable for the workplace as well actually and again you know very industry
Um related in the fact that a lot of our population are that millennial generation as we’ve already spoken about so technology is just a natural extension to how they use technology you know in in their everyday lives you know in using social media and a um and so on so
Making work more accessible easier for people to gain access to make sense um you can based on an individual’s availability they can in essence pick and choose when they want to work outside of that core availability by shift bidding so if one week you’ve got a lot going on socially and actually
Work-life balance you know you want to choose the life side of things great the week after you might want some quick cash um and actually there might be a couple of shifts that you want to bid for that will help support you on a weekend away or to buy someone’s birthday present for
Example that’s coming up in in the coming weeks so it does provide a greater visibility of flexibility and I think that’s really important but then from um you know a business perspective um this provides a whole host of data that we would never have ordinarily had which can help drive further decisions around
Um casual engagement and I think you know most people can probably speak for themselves um who are attending this call today that the the importance of data-driven decisions is so high these days um you know we’re starting to get used to being able to forecast on an event by
Event basis it helps us to understand what proportion of our cost is direct labor versus potentially agency labor and what can we do to tip those Balance of costs in a different direction so we’re also getting used to having new data that’s helping to shape how we can further support um that Workforce
Yeah and Nathan we’ve got a question coming in actually I’ll do this in a minute but I’ll just come to you firstly Nathan um so again text constantly developing and I guess we could look at the future is who knows isn’t it you know so what what
Sort of things are on the on the horizon for what can we expect for Tech in terms of helping employees yeah well I think people like Neta are critical in our answering of that question as a technology provider because it’s talking to people like Nicola I’ve got a session actually
Catching up with in their business at the end of this week where we’re going to be asking that exact question what do we think that future landscape looks like for them so that we make sure we’re on the right track we have to be thinking several years out in our
Roadmap development so I can answer that question probably to the two-year Horizon and I expect to see demands of our business be based around integration how can I offer as much automatic process of the data that these organizations manage across all of their current or yet to be embedded I.T
Solutions Technology Solutions so how do I help Nicola attract train recruit someone and have as little touch point to the record keeping so that that data record can flow through to the HR centralized platform into the workforce management allow that person to be deployed get them to be paid correctly
In payroll and even go down the route of offering them early earned wage access and some Financial advice in the way that they can say so we’re really trying to streamline that entire journey and the answer to that from our side well I had to be feature development uh
Technology growth or integration to ecosystem partners and I do see the marketplace driving towards just really efficient client focused access to their data I think that you touched on it there but as tech tech is so much more than just like you say rosters and it could have
Managed that quite easily now it’s gone beyond that in terms of other areas key areas of HR that we need to be across like employee experience and engagement yeah just just on that point there’s a really interesting statistic in one of the bits of work I read recently you
Need to check if it was from a host of three or four pieces of data of an artist so I was really I can’t quite recall but the statistic remained with me that 62 of the people survey indicated they had no access to development resource or training
As a flexible mobile worker so that just take that as one example of an area to focus on so that there’s that real parity across your full-time and maybe more office-based employee group and that that you’ve got in your debt there’s this Workforce to get access to that personal development that’s
Critical I definitely see that being a very integrated focus group and then the financial well-being is becoming a real Hot Topic in the last six days let’s turn to this question and so thank you for this one um Nicola this was to you really um so how much real-time data
Are you using and how are you segregating the different locations or events and on on sort of just going into that really just added a little bit here and and do use AI to help sort this massive data so we’re still on our journey if I’m completely honest with you around
Um how we’re adopting that data and how that’s influencing our decision making so to give you an idea as to where we are on our journey as I say we’ve got 10 venues in the UK we are fully launched in um one venue we are soon to be
Um launched in two uh further venues one of those being our catering services business so within that they have 13 different venues within that business so just to put that into context in real terms it’s around 14 venues that we’re live um or soon to be live in
Um and every time we are scheduling staff for events it depends upon the Peaks and Trust of the industry because the Racecourse industry doesn’t really kick off until at the end of this month start of April and we’ll start to see a huge amount of data that’s being driven
Now that now that they’re set up and ready to go live up until the end of September October and then you’ve got the the venue side of things where we’ve had a quiet period over Christmas January I was soon to ramp up now um in March until
Um June July it starts to dip off August very quiet and then again starts to ramp up in September so in some of those areas and as a result of covert we’ve not really had a full 12 months of data to work with so we’re still feeling through that
But a lot of it is based around the scheduling and feel free to put to dip in from a technical perspective Nathan on on the system if you feel you need to but we schedule our staff on an event by event basis we then get an event p l
Essentially that tells us how much it has cost us to staff a specific specific event that automatically gives us a great Benchmark to work from for future years in understanding okay we had a 50 50 split in terms of direct labor versus agency labor what can we do to try and
Make that 75 direct labor and 25 agency labor because obviously you’re paying a margin so what can we do to try and drive some cost benefits there and we use 300 staff to to staff that event and actually we noticed we were probably 20
Over what we needed to be so how can we think more more intelligently around the numbers that we need to staff every event and you know don’t get me wrong there’s a fine Balancing Act between you know um being too lean and affecting the operation but then being kind of
Overstaffed to the fact that actually you’ve got more people than you physically need to operate so we’re still going through that journey is is the long run sure answer of that but hopefully that provides you with a little bit of context in terms of where
We are why we are where we are but ultimately how we’re seeing that data helping to drive decisions in the future doesn’t it when that builds and you’ve wrote that out across all the events imagine the data you’re going to have to work from then and Nathan yeah just
Coming to you just to yeah do me a huge favor Peter and just remind me of the question had some quite specific the data breakdowns and I just want to try and get back an answer so I’ve just cleared the question it was more about um it was more about
Looking at all the different events um of venues and actually using do you use AI to do it do you segment the data it was it was really alone good so my notes but my notes would be okay so I had it down to sort of an event venue breakdown
Was there any AI um so the answer from a human Force perspective that I can give you with our current client base is start from the basis that if we’re capturing the data from a Time attendant to locate we operate the locations department and area Road structure in
The system so if we’re capturing that data the answer is we should be able to either from a suite of existing reports or from building report dashboard be able to report against the data that’s in the system the use of AI is slightly young in the sensor demand based rostering because
You want to make sure that the data you’re pulling into or exporting from any system is accurate and that’s where we know some of our clients have had challenges because they manage the external data that we’re not in control of outside of human Force so to answer
The question for the person that posed it there are mechanisms whether it’s power bi or as your data lakes or others there are other service providers that will allow you to aggregate data from multiple end points to multiple locations so mash it all together and try and get yourself your own meaningful
Set of criteria and it came of course we actually do work with a partner who can look at doing that for some of our clients where there’s multiple points outside of human thoughts they want to look at but as long as the data exists within human Force we can report on that
Side of it and that’s in real time as Nicholas said for event based in costs but principally as an organization once you’ve established what you want the data to tell you there are businesses alongside a room that you can work with to get that in a really good meaningful
Way and the answer on AI is I see it only continuing to develop the use of the AI technology just to speed up the processing of the data so it becomes useful because reporting for reporting’s sake creates a loads of paperwork for people to look at finding the right
Metrics for your business that drive an action for me is always the right way forward and that normally comes from some quite simplistic thinking around what are we going to take and use so if the data’s there you can get access to it if um and if you’ve got something really
If there’s a real specific area uh question on that question by the way uh Joe so you asked that just ask us direct if there’s something you really want to kind of get to the bottom of then we can certainly put that to the panel or afterwards so please do
Um Nathan come in actually um oh here we go actually yes so actually it was about selecting people and locations for events I was thinking about selecting people in locations for events so I guess that’s important selecting employees I guess isn’t it well so it may be the answer to that question comes
Around the Nick look and jump in please at any point but without a solution like hard you apply skills to the individual worker you can attach them to locations in which they can work so the skills will attach to the role type that they make you’ve heard Nicola mentioned Visa
Controls that’s a rule that controls the number of hours they can work so once that person has those rules applied to their capacity to take work when you offer those roster opportunities those rules take effect and it’ll roster offer to the pool of people whose skills opportunities location and visa
Restrictions all enable them to be capable to work so someone who’s under 18 would not be a primary choice to potentially work as a principal bar person because they might not have their license in qualification without partnering with someone who does as an exam so to answer your question you can
Help in a system like ours Define the rule structure that controls the allocation of resource to locations to departments two roles that they need to deliver I was just going to add to that actually if you’re talking geographical locations not just in terms of placement within a function
Um we have polls set up so where we have venues so we’ve got two venues in Manchester for example we’ve got Bridgewater Hall we’ve got the AO arena in Manchester we can set up pools that allow um a a pool of individuals to work between either venue so they can
Essentially be scheduled for shifts at either venue so it allows us that flexibility and the same with our catering business you know they’ve got a large population in Yorkshire but actually they um that actually expands their potential talent pool for you know our venue and leads to tap into them and
Vice versa but having that predefined criteria that Nathan’s just talking about makes it easy so the operator doesn’t then need to think about oh but what about that Visa restriction and what about working time regulations because the rules of already been predefined and set what about breaks again it’s already been predefined and
Set within the system so they can have complete confidence that if they are having somebody that’s working in their venue that ordinarily is based somewhere else they know exactly what the system does they know what’s expected of them where they turn up where they check in
Where they check out and as a manager they know they’re going to get the same data yeah definitely that’s just fantastic isn’t it I mean the time that that would take manually to do you know the inaccuracy so that’s so really powerful stuff how that can be used all right
Um yeah and and just so big just to say in the legal business risk that it helps you put some management against because that compliance piece is massively damaging to organizations when it gets missed so just on the Visa point there are alerts within the solution that flag out that person’s nearing the
End of a Visa period so that that can be rectified rather than the alternative happen which can be more damage to the employees experience as well as to the organization let’s move on to our next question then so you know part of the title of this
Webinar is is it’s got the term employee experience in which is a key a key term and quite rightly so at the moment because it’s so so imperative isn’t it in terms of retention and attraction and keeping your staff so Nathan can you outline some elements of
Employee experience that can be you feel can be transformed by HR workforce management Tech yeah I can there’s one that really sticks to my mind which is probably the most important people for most important thing for most people that go to work in this environment is they do it in a less
Charitable way but hopefully to get paid so having visibility of payslips before the payday Pay Run does reduce two things one is hopefully the payroll errors and secondly the anxiety of the flexible worker around what they’re actually going to be paid and it’s so often gets called out as a wellness
Factor for individuals in flexible Workforce environment rather than having to retrospectively Scrabble to get these directions made it might be that in a real life example I’ve worked three hours extra for Nicola a lovely ASM venue and that’s been authorized so I can see in my time shooting over times
Being paid and I know that payment’s coming through rather than a horrorship alternative that I’m underpaid or I’ve missed the payroll console so that anxiety reduction is a massive employee experience benefit that we get the the second biggest to my mind is open access to the ship opportunity so
Just compare to a Excel based spreadsheet owned by a people Ops controller who might offer the ships to their 15 best friends first we don’t want to think that it happens in a fair environment but it might in an open offer based on skills availability and roles within the system
That whole resource pool of people will be offered on a first come first serve response basis simultaneously so transparency of the job opportunity removes that feeling of preferential treatment and that again is a wellness factor for the employee value proposition add to that in our communication which
Gets called out as critical for both notifications that’s one-to-many sending an organizational message out that actually the event is 15 minutes behind or please check in at a different form but then there’s the in-app communication between individuals managers to people or colleague to colleague I might want to say hey Peter
We work really well together are you on that shift on sector so that’s been positive and then last but not least a very fact that you can administer all of this in your own time flexibly while on the move are key functions that these individuals need because of the way they manage their
Lives in a very transient and flexible way and very often the reason they’ve taken that job started in the first place I know it’s early days I I know that but um so have you seen any kind of is there any examples of real Improvement you’ve seen with employee experience from you
Know the tech that you’ve put in place so far and and you know I guess or can you measure that are you measuring that yeah absolutely it’s twofold really because we have the um the Casual Workforce which ultimately we want to drive engagement and ultimately um you know improve retention around but
Then you’ve also got the employees that are actually changing the way they’ve worked from these manual archaic systems of work to something that’s much more sophisticated um in style so you know to Echo Nathan’s point one of the main things that our casuals love is being able to see their
Pay slips so if there are any errors they can deal with them straight away and it does remove a lot of the anxiety as to is my pay going to be correct um this week or not um but our staff that are actually doing the scheduling so the scheduling teams
Love the fact that it’s all automated they can um populate schedules in advance you can copy schedules for regular events so it takes a lot of the manual onerous elements of rotors and scheduling out of the equation but it also allows them to forward plan so if they’ve sent
Um shifts out and publish shifts um on on any column Fair basis which is obviously something that we promote heavily um then if they can see it’s 50 staffed they can start thinking already okay who else can we go to who else is qualified to perform that role in that in that venue
Um or do we need to look at other venues perhaps to get some help before we go to an agency for example where obviously staff come at a higher margin um clocking in times are far easier as a clocking out time so actually your staff can spend more time getting set up ready
For the shift attending staff briefing so they’re fully prepared um it really is twofold so far in terms of you know your permanent employees that are supporting this and and changing the way they were day-to-day in addition to some of the feedback we’ve had from our casual teams as well
On that which we’re hearing from a number of our other clients and this might be relevant to you that one of the key value propositions coming back from the working pool is educating the employer or the opportunity to work offers being scheduled in a way that they’re also not being bombarded by
Messaging so that was a really big feedback was to say actually uh you can start to look at when most ships are accepted and Target your shift offer within a close proximity to when they were being looked at and scheduled or people have surveyed their pool of teams
To say when would you most like us to send out the following week or two weeks availability for you to respond to is that something that you’ve and you’ve been back on yeah so we find that when we are publishing shifts that actually a Thursday seems to be a very receptive
Day sorry it’s gone really dark here so apologies I’m not doing the YMCA um um so yeah Thursdays tend to be a really good day for publishing publishing shifts it actually gets a really good uptake um in terms of accepting those shifts over the course of the weekend and again
I think that’s largely to do with um our Millennial population really balancing work with um studies and and so on and so forth um but it is a really fine balance it’s a good point and it’s something that I anticipate will have further conversations and probably some bumps in
The road and around comms because well also provides us with a really really good platform is really important that it’s engaging communication it doesn’t turn into spam because quite quickly our Workforce will become disengaged and that’s not what we want to do and you know getting and embodied and registered on the
Mobile app technology early doors is so key what we don’t want to do is then ruin all that hard work in getting that engagement to then um end up being deemed to spam communication so it’s a real fine balance it’s something that I do think we’ll probably have to think more
Clearly about as we roll out all the venues that’s your question okay Nathan yeah it was helpful to hear from Nicola and I think it’s a good one and also I guess with the yes over experience you’re going to see the amount of people coming for shifts and
The number and the increases and decrease you’re going to kind of get a flavor that as a as they use the tech and like the tech and have the self-service and I think that’s you’re going to get that over time right you’re going to get some great data I think
Yeah absolutely and as I say it’s this allows us to then support that engagement Journey with other elements you know such as e-learning and investing in this Workforce which actually historically that they’ve not had or if they have it’s certainly not been um you know the Forefront of people’s minds
Um and again I think that’s one of the byproducts of covid in that actually this is such a valuable Workforce to to a lot of businesses and you know you were asking earlier around what is it that people want you know from from Tech it’s not just Tech but I think it’s also
A shift in the relationship in terms of businesses um um you know whether you’re um you know as a casual worker you’re wanting more from the businesses that you’re working from um and I think this is a great first step to then adding other things such as e-learning platforms that helps them to
Get something from that relationship as well yeah I think just to add to the end of that if you’re an organization that has not sat and defined and you’re looking at us talking today and you’re thinking about technology the first step is going to find the employee value proposition
That you want to stay on behind and the reason I say that is to go to Nicholas Coyne I think as an industry should generally the hospitality and virtual Workforce sectors were the slowest to react to the immediate onslaught of the pandemic and the engagement and Welfare of their teams
Generally so we did see a mass Exodus from our beloved hospitality industry a really skilled with workers who didn’t feel treated very well so actually as we do re-engage them as leaders in that space we need to double down on the value proposition we’re trying to offer
To make it a compelling post to come and work so having a solution around this massive 62 Gap to training resource that’s being shown is a good answer to having a financial Wellness platform of earned wage access in a secure way good answer having good communication planned
Out good answer but it all stems I think to my mind for how do we want to engage and work with our team and what’s important in that value well I touched a number of times today this whole thing about learning you know learning people want to learn they just
Want to learn and and as you say dentists have been forgotten about somewhat in that respect so this is this is kind of really filling that Gap nicely so um so let’s go on to our next question Nicholas so let’s let’s talk more about sort of your managers and c-suite leaders so
I guess what do they now expect kind of HR workforce management Tech to deliver to your business you know what do you say I guess analytic tools you know data driven decisions what sort of things are you are they expecting do you feel yeah it’s definitely an improvement on
The retention side of things ultimately um in terms of um our casual Workforce but they are now starting to see data coming through which you know we’re still learning around there are different reporting elements and requesting reporting elements you know to see what is possible to get out of the system so
Again quite early on our journey on this side of things but already we’re looking very closely at event by event uh forecasting and payroll costing and more more importantly at the moment that split between that direct labor and that agency side of things that’s the the immediate Focus currently
Um but as we start to um understand more of the reporting tools and that come from that and also create some new reports that that’s specific for our business and and what we’re looking to drive that they’ll certainly be more emphasis on that as it grows yeah I mean we’ve spoken data you
Know for quite some years and and really we you know I’ve certainly for the HR and people who just kind of get it now and it’s kind of but so you know back onto that then Nathan really exciting times really and we talked a little bit about predictive data and tracking so
Tell us a little bit again what what really is the ability I guess to get real sort of data the importance of that yeah as I said Dave said if it’s in the system we can extract it and it’s about choosing your meaningful dashboards but let’s come back to that real real life
Benefit to the organization outside of the individuals and the engagement and the communication the data piece I I previously human forced random people related business right the way up into just pre-pandemic actually and I was always always interested in the retention because I invested so much time recruiting and grabbing hold of
That work it was going to work flexibly I really didn’t want them to go um and candidly organizations but not not Nicholas but others in that space the margin that said it’s fine but if they didn’t stay with me for a period of time I was losing money in my
Recruitment process and the number I used to worked it was 184 pounds per person to get them found recruited onboarded trained and outstand fellowship so that was a key number for me and I wanted to keep so if I was looking at the human Force
Data one of the things I’d be looking at is my resource pool of people that aren’t accepting shifts and why and then I’d reach out and communicate to them because we’ve done all the hard work of having them on boarding and potentially training them working with them for some
Time and then they’ve got a life change that means they’re not taking any work with us they’re a great asset but we’ve already invested so much time in I’d want to communicate with those people first and then if you can add to that data when’s the best time to get shifts
Accepted what’s the poor resources really available you start to be able to make early decisions around your agency labor requirements and if we can seamlessly output the data to the party provider again it’s helping Nicola and the team really put on those uh those life events that they want their
Customers to come to but the experience their customers have is delivered by that lovely wonderful team of people so if they can get what they need to turn up happy and ready to work and the data helps the business do that you get a great result
But if you if you work out what the challenges are of the business and what you need to fix then you can ask for that you can find it and then you can you can deal with it so let’s let’s move on quickly because someone’s pressing on
Time we’ll try and deal with it let’s put it that way uh uh our next poll uh so have a look at this one as it pops up on your screen um have you previously struggled with the change management associated with tech rollout so this one will pop out in
A moment and Nathan what do you think on this one I think I currently struggle with challenge management associated with tech rollouts um anything we can do to improve it and get people to do a change management process would be a massive help so I expect most people struggle with this in
In one way or another was that a struggle has that been a struggle um I I think that the answer here would largely be yes I would imagine and I think would it go through any um Tech rollouts I think the implementation and the planning side of
Things is often underestimated and I can speak from experience coming into this have that decision and preemie joining so um yeah I’ll be interested to to see but I would imagine that most people would say yes and correct 100 yes so uh no surprises there and I think we’ll we’ll come on to
A little bit about that actually just just at the end actually um so good all right Nathan just um a couple of cool questions just to go 10 minutes to go so um so what sort of things can be automated with some of the tech being
Talked about so I know we touched on some of this already but just give us a quick overview of the key areas yeah so I think we did mention most of them but we’ll just rattle through those really yeah the rules around people’s contract types the templating of the
Roster format so if Nicola has an event that happened at one venue this year on February the 12th and it’s likely to happen next year they can keep that template so they’ve got that real base roster to start from for the next year Saving Time the template for a roster
That then they can ship offer to the ship or shift bidding process the capture of data for onboarding pretty much all of those aspects can have an element of automation that reduces the time required to manage building those bins and it’s most prolific in those larger scale uh reasonably sized
Workforce where you’ve got a lot of manual admin that would otherwise need to take place yep okay good yep and that’s just a bit and Nicola um again just again we’ve touched with it but any just clear examples um where you’ve used that technology to make processes and and kind of that
Impact that you’ve seen yeah so around the automation is mostly around the clocking in clocking out process which is really slick the same with the link to the payroll piece which is really sick removing that um element of human error around that and also the the instant comms and ship bidding side of
Things um what I would say in terms of other automation pieces of technology is that human forces are I suppose one of our first key Milestones as part of a much wider Tech Journey that we’re going on and and human Force have been brilliant in terms of supporting us and and really
Being accommodating on different partners that we’re looking to work with and actually combat compatibility with a lot of different systems is is also a huge benefit so we’re soon to be moving towards workday as as a HR System which will bring about even more Automation in
In some of the activities that we do so you know coming back to that change Pace what we’re going through now with with human Force um and that that coaching that guidance will will certainly um be synonymous with the the journeys that we’re going through with other
Systems so we can learn a lot from this to help and and benefit others as we move forward any questions don’t forget any questions if I’m not covered anything you would like to ask please pop them on the Q a and I will ask them um right so which is our final question
Actually so Nicola have you we alluded just a little bit to it in the just off the back of the poll there about so yeah can you share so how you implemented the tech you have today um how your monitor is used and importantly I guess the taker because
The take-up’s a key Point here and I guess some of the challenges you may have had and things you may have done differently so give us a give us an overview yeah I think for me coming into the business and you know understanding that um you know we’d already made the
Decision to partner uh with human Force I can understand automatically the benefits that such a system can provide but quite often when those decisions are being made it’s quite easy to have ID in the room it’s very easy to have you you know you see sweet decision makers in the room but
Quite often we forget about the people element because ultimately you know not only supporting the Casual Workforce in adopting and understanding this technology but there’s a huge support guidance coaching piece that we need to do to our existing Workforce that is actually driving this change and supporting this change and
Quite often you can miss out on having the operators in the room for them to understand actually how this can translate into reality so it it’s I would lie if I say it’s been a very smooth Journey For Us internally it hasn’t you know we we’ve um we’re now in
A place where we have a really good project team that that’s supporting and of all of our different venue uh rollouts and that’s a project team per venue supported by a central team which includes myself we’ve got um techno someone from from it from operations and and from a project management
Perspective as well so um we have weekly calls to track progress on where we’re up to if there’s any hurdles or hiccups or anything that we need to address quickly we can do so and and that’s proved absolutely vital and the support that we’ve got from you
Human forcing in in driving that and it has been phenomenal um but it took us a while to get there whereas now we’re on our third venue that’s soon to be launching it’s our smoothest rollout so far so we’ve definitely learned something from the previous two implementations
And that will act as a bit of a um a blueprint really for future rollouts we now have a tried and tested method that’s worked well we understand where the pitfalls are where perhaps we’ve missed our opportunity in getting that early engagement with our casuals and downloading the app but also our
Management and operational teams you know they also have access to a mobile app they can check if they’re at the other side of a building whether they’re the team that they’ve scheduled have actually clocked in or not and if not they can instantly communicate with them via that mobile app
And and and that’s technology at a touch point that you wouldn’t ordinarily have which we can really help um operationally to divert resource if you need to at any given moment in time so um yeah not been smooth but we’ve learned a lot we’ve gone through
Um you know some some hiccups and bumps in the road which you would expect with any Tech implementation but I think we’re in a really really good place now and have key people from the key areas that can really help to drive this and adopt this
It’s new so it’s going to take some time to fine-tune Nathan your support there I guess is important I think it makes a really good point and actually has said quite quite quickly because it’s it’s relevant to them but to those listening it’s vital the right projects they accomplish in this project
Needs to be allocated and defined and if anyone leaves the organization from one of those project roles that needs to be a Handover and a transfer process because as the implementing organization that supplier partner of Technology we have multi-location implementations like Nicholas that can take many months we’ve
Got some that are in the middle of that are many tens of locations that it’s going to have taken years because of that rollout phase in and we’ve got some that can be much shorter in days and weeks depending on the complexity but they’re always better when you’ve got
Key points of contact you’ve got owners within the organization and it isn’t the c-suite as Nicola quite rightly points out because quite often they’ve signed it off and they want to then see you at the end when it’s done and it’s those operators is where it lives and dies
With adoption and a really great bit of advice to people implementing is just be aware of your own internal team turnover if you’ve got a key operator a venue who leaves the organization flag that as an orange area that needs to be Revisited for retraining and implementation because otherwise what will happen or
What we see happen is the the creep in of a move away from standard operating practice or someone who hasn’t necessarily been taught the most efficient way to utilize the solution and you risk just some slight adjustment to adoption because for me it’s all about setting this assessment of Tricks
Driving good cons and driving adoption that’s a good implementation just to just to conclude then so um we’ll nearly run out of time any questions please do ask them now because we’re just going to finish up soon um or by all means just email us in and
We’ll get them through but any questions just just finalize off so just finish up them really um with just some top tips really um which I guess you covered a little bit there Nathan but just top ticks for implementing Tech and ensuring it it gets used doesn’t it get making sure it
Gets to use adoption as you say is key so give us give us well both of you actually a couple of couple of top tips I think I think it’s so important that we’ll say adoption again but the get your stakeholder team identified the people who are your Champions and think
About the change curve the Champions have to be brought on board in order to Champion your very process and Define it do the definitions of what you’re trying to achieve those would be my two tips I think timing is crucial so um may not necessarily be relevant to
All Industries but I touched upon it earlier in that we have different Peaks and troughs in different areas of our business and timing is absolutely crucial you know for us to launch in one of our busiest periods for a particular venue depending upon their event calendar
Has its pros and cons whilst on the one hand you can go through the training that you’re boarding and actually they can use it in real real life quickly is a benefit but at the same time this is there’s a limit to what people can do when they’ve got a day job as
Well as trying to implement and support the implementation of it of a new system so I’d say timing is absolutely critical make sure that the team that you’ve got working on this whether it’s operational or Central and don’t lose that disconnect because it’s very easy to
Lose sight of that make sure that they have the time to commit to be able to making sure this is a success because there is nothing harder than launching something 50 and trying to get it 100 you’ve got to try and get it right first time um and everyone needs to be
Understanding of that yeah I think again real life experiences there Nicola thank you for those it’s really really really powerful really useful for our audience to know right well that’s really it so listen we hope you provide you some key learning Insight best practice and mythology to help you create a richer employee
Experience for your deskless workers um and really just to find those significant productivity uh productivity games for your organization my thanks to our panel today Nicola and Nathan for your wonderful insights and knowledge to thank you both um and also human Force for partnering with us
Um there will be a recording at the end of this so we’ll put that together and send it to all of you um who registered um thank you all for watching thanks for taking part in the polls and you join us in the future right thank you Nicola thank you Nathan
Bye for now