CORONAVIRUS


increase with a culture of frequent hand washing. Guidance also suggests that staff should change in and out of work clothes and uniforms at the place of work rather than at home.


Firms also have a duty to provide for the needs of visiting drivers and the like: but there is obvious scope for resentment if it is felt that such visitors pose an additional risk. Canteens too are problematic: employees have to eat. Break times will need to be carefully planned and, as elsewhere, clean-down regimes increased.


Another very difficult situation is that of training. While classroom-based training can be delivered remotely, learning most tasks does at some stage involve direct interaction. Facilitating this will require care.


DOWN ON THE FLOOR


Although, particularly in the more automated sites, the average distribution of employees allows for very satisfactory social distancing, there are places where people do gather in close proximity. Technology can be our friend here. Queues around terminals can be addressed by a greater use of hand-held and wearable devices. These are becoming increasingly affordable, and as personal equipment they solve many of the contamination problems of multi- user keypads and the like.


At the pick face, many warehouse management systems (WMS) can be set to minimise conflict and congestion. Consider changes in picking strategies. In some instances, wave picking or zonal picking can greatly reduce the number of encounters on the floor. Longer term, a move from person-to-goods, to goods-to-person picking may achieve similar results. On many sites the greatest density of employees is around pack and despatch. This is a specific example of a general truth: the highest densities of employees are probably around the system bottlenecks, and it is here that the greatest return on automation investment is likely.


NEW TRICKS


All the above gives rise to a need to realign the skillsets of the workforce, through retraining or recruitment. Some roles will increase in number and importance; some new roles will be created.


Moves towards automation will require technical skills - programmers, maintenance engineers - but also managers who understand how to integrate automation with existing manual processes and have a vision of where it can be most effective. Supply chains are likely to be more volatile – procurement skills may need to be more relational, less transactional. Across the board, while successfully implementing ‘the plan’ is still of course key, there will be a greater premium on managers who can devise and pivot to alternative plans, at speed.


Some requirements are more specific. If remote/home working is to be a permanent feature, skills will be needed to manage this, and to support the tech needs of remote users. Health & Safety, with emphasis for once on Health, has renewed importance. Firms may need more H&S staff to devise and implement safe practices and these may be practical enforcers at site level, not policy generators at Head Office. So people skills will be just as important as knowledge of best practice. At another level, additional cleaning may be required, involving new or repurposed staff. Cleaning, especially around complex, expensive and sometimes hazardous equipment, is not a low-skill task – the effort needs planning, training and management.


A TIME OF OPPORTUNITY


Businesses may also choose to bring forward changes that were being contemplated anyway, and this may have staffing implications. If a company is to make big moves or investments this is as good a time as any. For firms operating below capacity changes can be introduced with less disruption. Automation prices have become very reasonable, money is as cheap as it will ever be, and rental and leasing solutions are emerging.


FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS | JUNE 2020 9


For companies that have worked out their forward-looking skills needs and strategies, this may paradoxically be an excellent time to enter the recruitment market. There are many highly skilled people (at every level from lift truck operators to supply chain directors) who through no fault of their own are without a position. There will be many more who have had the opportunity to reconsider both their career goals and their current employer and would relish new challenges.


One should not, though, neglect the opportunity to identify high-performing individuals in the current workforce, with a view to retraining, repurposing or promoting them. There will be those, at all levels, who have been enabled during the crisis to display unexpected qualities – leadership, initiative, thinking outside the box - beyond their pay grade and who would repay investment. Equally, though, if these qualities are not recognised, good staff may walk at the first opportunity.


It is possible though that a workforce, already feeling insecure, may view automation and other changes as a further threat. That brings us back to the central importance of communication. Firms need to be continually communicating with their current staff and with potential recruits, telling them about the problems faced, involving them in designing processes that work for them in the real world, showing them how the solutions work, what is expected of them and what they can expect, and what support is. Create confidence through communication and logistics firms will succeed in recruiting and retaining that most valuable commodity – the staff.


IN SUMMARY


Above all, we will need agile and progressive managers who can manage in a way that no-one has managed before – remotely but compassionately, and ready to change direction very quickly.


Bis Henderson has seen the supply chain sector through numerous stages of its evolution; from High Street to Internet, from Paper to Handheld, from Spreadsheets to Blockchain. This next era whilst daunting, may just herald the most exciting changes in supply chain recruitment since the emergence of the Web.


If you need support in adjusting your people strategy as we transition out of lockdown and into a ‘post-COVID’ world, Bis Henderson Recruitment can help.


Bis Henderson Recruitment www.bis-hendersonrecruitment.com T: 01604 876 345


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