Managing Understaffing and Overstaffing Challenges: Some Tried & Tested Tips

Staffing has always been a BIG challenge for…

Staffing has always been a BIG challenge for most businesses of all shapes and sizes all over the world. Without the right manpower, in the right numbers, you can’t run and expand your business properly and/or make good profits. This brings us to the two major challenges involving staffing today!

• Understaffing
• Overstaffing

[1] Understaffing:

This takes place when a firm or business doesn’t have the required number of skilled workers to function and grow as it should be.

Outcome

• Employee stress: Workers feel weighed down and stressed due to the enormous volume of work that come their way almost on a daily basis.
• Overworked and undervalued: They also feel overworked and undervalued.
• Reduced productivity: The productivity of the business nose dives.
• Low work quality or pathetic performance levels: Workers give low or sub-standard quality work even as their overall work performance decreases.
• Lack of business growth: Business doesn’t grow or expand much and continues to be where it was earlier.

Solutions

• Outsource Tasks: To get the high level of work done, outsource some work–preferably the ones not very important–to other workers or agencies.
• Open an Internship programme: This will help your business have access to a good pool of young employees. Your company can groom and train them and use their newly developed skills without paying them much.
• Seek Staffing Agencies: Check with some reliable and well-known staffing agencies to run your business properly, and fulfill your company’s growing staffing requirements, without any problems.

[2] Overstaffing:

Outcome

• High costs: Too many workers mean you have to pay more money than you could have to meet your work requirements.
• Lack of engagement: Lack of work for many workers may bring down their level of engagement and inspiration.
• Low Morale: Sitting idle may not help and bring down the morale of your workers.
• Reduced Profits: When you have a large pool of active workers on your payroll, you have to pay them a significant amount cutting down your profits in the process.

Solutions

• Layoffs: Remove some workers to save money on their salaries. You can remove them– either on a permanent or a temporary basis. When your business starts growing and getting more work/orders again, you may bring some such workers back.
• Use Technology for a Better Workflow: You will find many good technological tools in the market to assist you with this.
• Manage Your Calendar Better: Ask your HR Team to prepare helpful calendars so that your business makes the most of the huge manpower that it could have.

These ‘tried and tested’ solutions should provide a way to help you meet the various challenges related to over and under staffing, and give your business the right balance between overstaffing and understaffing problems plaguing your organisation. TheStaffPort™ can help your business manage such staffing challenges. It’s a powerful Cloud-based solution. Call for a free demo!