Until last April, there had really been just two ways to make 350,000 pounds of cheese a day at the Land O’Lakes plant in Melrose, Minn,: Start at 5 in the morning and work till 5 at night, or the other way around.
Rigid factory shifts were the default for churning out cheddar, as they are at factories the world over that make all kinds of products. “The most efficient way to keep production humming uninterrupted, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is to start and end in unison, bundling dozens of individuals’ efforts into a single unit of labor,” writes The Wall Street Journal (March 11, 2024).
The rigid schedule makes sense logistically. Each day, 70 or so trucks from member farms empty milk at the Melrose plant. Converting the unending inflow of milk into 500-pound blocks of cheese requires running the factory 24 hours a day. Divvying the day up into 2 shifts makes it easier for supervisors to ensure sufficient staffing.
But in recent years, the plant has struggled to find candidates willing to work full-time—a problem emerging across the company–and the country. There are less and less people going into manufacturing every year. And, like many employers, Land O’Lakes found its rigid traditional shift system buckling.
When companies need to boost hiring, higher wages are usually the lever they pull because it’s logistically easier to adjust to higher labor costs. But “giving workers more control over their schedules is a very valuable aspect of the job,” says a Land O’Lakes executive. Now employees choose their own start times and shift lengths. Part time positions proved easier to fill than full-time openings, and had the knock-on benefit of boosting retention.
There are some trade-offs. The company needs 2 or 3 flex workers for every full-time employee, raising the cost of training. There are also increased costs that come with figuring out the weekly shifts. Some of this, however, is offset by cutting back on overtime pay.
Flex employees work with their supervisors every couple of weeks to choose their shifts. The supervisors then cobble together the schedule each day of the week, ensuring that all positions are covered.
Factories all over the U.S. are hiring only 6 people for every 10 openings posted, compared with 8 or 9 a decade ago. And some 2.5 million factory workers will retire by 2030, contributing to a shortage of around 2.1 million manufacturing jobs.
Classroom discussion questions:
- This system works well in the service sector, but will it work in all manufacturing companies?
- Why is there a shortage of manufacturing workers?
Work and home in the U.S. once were at the same place—the farm or the shop. The notion of working away from home emerged at the start of the 19th century, when New England mills hired young women and, later, immigrants, to tend machines and the mills put them up in dorms. Expanding offices hired clerks, who moved to cities and lived in boardinghouses. But