Warehouse staffing needs
To run a successful and efficient warehouse, there often is a need for temporary staff. Temporary staff can be used consistently or to aid in seasonal demands and fluctuations in orders. When looking for a temp staff solution, a few key factors warehouses need are flexibility, control, speed, and high fill rates.
Flexibility
Warehouse staffing needs to be flexible. The warehousing industry is always fluctuating, and a staffing solution should have the flexibility to match each warehouse's specific needs.
Control
To run an efficient warehouse, warehouse managers need to have control over their staff. Control over schedule, worker wages, and worker quantity are key factors to optimize warehouse performance.
Speed
The warehousing industry is quick-paced, and it’s vital that warehouses have the speed and efficiency to get orders completed. Temporary staffing plays a big role in hitting performance goals. If getting workers is a slow process then the entire warehouse productivity suffers.
High Fill Rates
Lastly, warehouses need high fill rates. If workers don’t show up to work, then nothing else matters because work isn’t getting done.
Traditional Temp Agencies
Traditional temp agencies have been around a long time. Once a warehouse signs a contract with an agency, the agency will send a set amount of workers for a set amount of time.
Temp agencies don’t offer warehouses much flexibility. They require contracts that dictate how many workers a warehouse receives and for how long the workers need to work at the warehouse, making it difficult to actually match staffing to staffing needs.
The control over staffing with temp agencies is also limited. The temp agency maintains the control over workers wages, workers hours, and which workers are sent.
The speed of temp agencies is slow, sometimes taking weeks before workers are sent. And fill rates for traditional temp agencies are an average of 46%.
On-Demand Staffing Platforms
On-demand staffing platforms allow warehousing managers to post the shifts they need filled on the platform. The shifts are then pushed out to qualified workers on the app, who apply for the shifts they want to work.
On-demand staffing is the most flexible way to staff any warehouse. On-demand staffing allows managers to seamlessly match their temporary staff to their specific needs day to day.
This is possible because of the control on-demand apps give warehouses. With on-demand staffing, warehouses have the control to choose how many workers they need, when the workers are needed, what skills the workers must have, and what the workers are paid.
Because these platforms work on an on-demand basis warehouses can have temporary workers in house as soon as the next day. Which meets the fast paced industry of warehousing.
Lastly, on-demand staffing gives workers the ability to choose the shifts they apply for. With this increased control on the worker side shifts get filled at much higher rates. The average fill rate of on-demand staffing is over 90%.
BACON for the Win
On-demand staffing apps are the better way to staff warehouses. On-demand staffing platform BACON is used widely by warehouses to supplement full-time staff and to meet seasonal demands.
BACON is used consistently by the doTERRA fulfillment center to match their staffing with their fluctuating demands. DoTERRA struggled to get quick staffing and high fill rates with traditional temp agencies, even when they had 5 different temp agencies simultaneously. With BACON, doTERRA was able to get staff within 48 hours and reach a warehouse fill rate of 97%.
