Tag: staffing

Guest Post: Emergency Services and COVID

Professor Howard Weiss, recently retired from Temple University, looks at quality issues arising from COVID.

Several sources have reported that due to COVID there has been a decrease in Emergency Services quality. In Philadelphia, the average police response time, the time between a police dispatcher receiving the call and the arrival of the police, was 20% higher in 2021 than in 2020.  In Los Angeles, response times to emergencies increased due to over 200 firefighters missing their shift. In San Diego, response times for its most urgent calls for service rose from 21 minutes in 2018 to 28 minutes in 2020. The problem, of course, is not limited to the U.S. Police response times have also increased in England, and Bermuda has had 48 officers unable to work as opposed to a more normal 16 officers. In addition to delayed response times, no-shows of police, has become more common since the onset of COVID.

The major reasons for the increase in response time are:

  • Unavailable emergency personnel because they have been stricken with COVID or quarantined because they were with someone who had COVID
  • Layoffs of emergency personnel who are not vaccinated
  • Staffing shortages in the 911 call centers
  • A spike in crime
  • Technology issues

A major concern, if the slow response times continue, is that if police do not respond in a timely fashion then people will stop calling the police at all.

Chapter 13 of your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook notes that “Police and fire departments have provisions for calling in off-duty personnel for major emergencies. Where the emergency is extended, police or fire personnel may work longer hours and extra shifts.” To increase capacity, some cities have done this and some cities have relaxed quarantine rules so emergency personnel can get back to work more quickly. Others have canceled vacation times for personnel. Some cities have brought in others to increase capacity. Another option is to put a web site in place for minor problems such as losing a driver’s license in order to reduce the demand for emergency services.

Not all increases in response times have been due to COVID. For example, in Montreal, response times are slower due to the merger of two police stations. Ft. Worth, Texas, which has the highest response time goal of Texas’ five major cities, had response times that were deemed too slow prior to COVID.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. As a manager in your town, how would you address this concern?
  2. What other fields are experiencing the same issues?

OM in the News: Target’s New Online Staffing System

Target now sources 80% of its online orders from stores, not warehouses.

Retailers are trying to adapt to a world where shopper behavior is changing and competition for online spending is fierce, writes The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 2, 2019). Target, Walmart, and other retailers are staffing stores differently in an effort to meet new competitive challenges, as well as attract workers and control payroll costs amid the tightest labor market in decades. (Online sales reached $7.4 billion on Black Friday, up from $6.2 billion last year, while foot traffic to U.S. stores fell 6.2%). Big chains have posted strong sales in recent years by adapting to the shift to online shopping. They use their stores to handle deliveries or convince shoppers to pick up orders rather than wait for an Amazon package.

Target says it now sources 80% of its online orders from stores, not warehouses. At the Brooklyn store around 80 workers handle internet orders, collecting products from shelves or putting items into boxes in the backroom for delivery. Target retrained the bulk of its 300,000 U.S. workers over the past year, giving them new titles and responsibilities. It hopes to mold each into an expert for a specific area of the store such as the beauty department, toys or online fulfillment to offer better customer service and use labor spending more efficiently.

Under the new staffing system, more Target workers are responsible for the full chain of tasks needed to keep their department well stocked and shoppers happy, including finding products in the backroom and stocking shelves, tracking inventory and answering shoppers’ questions. Target added technology on hand-held devices to guide workers through the store more efficiently to gather or send out online orders. And more workers are putting products on shelves during the day, not at night, to be able to help customers at the same time.

Walmart uses stores to fulfill its online grocery orders, and is increasingly relying on stores for other types of e-commerce orders.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Compare Target’s approach to that of Amazon.
  2.  What is Target doing to increase operational efficiency?

OM in the News: Robots vs. People for Holiday Staffing

On-line retailers staffing up for the holiday rush are testing a critical hiring decision this year: man vs. machine. Ch.13 lists the options open to firms facing capacity issues, but robots introduce a new wrinkle. The Wall Street Journal (Dec.20,2010) highlights 2 firms with totally different staffing approaches: Crate & Barrel and Amazon. Both firms face a similar holiday crunch and e-commerce sales are up 12% overall, now accounting for 8% of US retail sales.

At Crate & Barrel, which sees holiday sales quadruple, the warehouse gets by with just double the number of employees, thanks to a cadre of 35 robots from Kiva Systems, a firm we highlighted in a recent blog. The machines carry racks of company products (8,000 SKUs) to people who pick and pack—no walking around the building at all.

By contrast, Amazon takes a more human-oriented approach. There, employees walk 18-20 miles a day down aisles lined with shelves, filling shopping carts with orders and carrying them back to packing stations. Amazon also quadruples its holiday staff—hiring a massive force of 11,500 seasonal employees at $11/hour. The firm tries to remove waste from the  hand-picking process with weekly  “kaizen” sessions. Amazon believes that people, not robots, give flexibility to handle its wider variety of products. It also uses hand held computers to guide workers to walk the shortest distance for each order, as described in an article in London’s daily, The Telegraph (Dec.21,2010).

“Which approach is better is a matter of debate in the 15-year-old e-commerce industry”‘ concludes The Journal. But Amazon does point out that it can now take orders up to Dec.19 and still guarantee Christmas delivery, a full 2 days later than last year.

Discussion questions:

1. Discuss the advantages vs. disadvantages of the human vs. robots staffing decision.

2. Where else has Kiva make progress in the fullfillment industry?