BY BEN AMES, SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
LABOR MANAGEMENT
Technology
Desperate to retain
their best workers
in a historically tight
market, DCs are
using their trusty
LMS software in
creative new ways.
PEAK SEASON IS UPON US, AND WAREHOUSE MANAGERS EVERYWHERE
are revving up their fulfillment operations for the crush of holiday orders. The
effort to slot, sort, and ship all that merchandise calls for a classic “all hands on
deck” approach, including the hiring of extra workers to get the job done.
But for businesses planning for the 2019 peak, there’s one major problem—the
U.S. economy is in the midst of a historic labor shortage that’s making it difficult for many DCs to find enough workers to fill their shifts. The U.S. Labor
Department reported last month that the nation’s unemployment rate had sunk to
3.5% in September, a nearly 50-year low.
At the same time, the demand for labor has never been higher. The e-commerce
explosion is changing the nature of fulfillment work. In addition to filling the traditional bulk store-replenishment orders, warehouses today are increasingly called
on to pack and ship individual consumer orders—a more labor-intensive process.
And consumers accustomed to next-day delivery service expect those orders to
arrive at lightning speed.
Caught between those two trends, warehouse and DC managers are turning to
a number of unconventional approaches. Some are offering part-time shifts in a
bid to tap nontraditional labor pools, like college students or stay-at-home parents
working at night. Others are experimenting with flexible schedules, like four-day
workweeks with 10-hour shifts. Still others are experimenting with creative ways
to apply an old tool—their labor management software (LMS).
Software that eases
labor pains
