As companies begin reopening across the country, many are wondering how do we manage our workforces and maintain pre-pandemic outputs with new safety measures like social distancing, staggered shifts and cleaning practices? Operations across the country are seeing significant dips in productivity and output—in fact, many are seeing up to 40% drops in overall output.

Much of the decrease in output is due to social distancing measures, which requires people to stand at least 6 feet apart from one another. Essential business still open during the pandemic are utilizing creative methods such as taping off areas of the production line, staggering shift schedules and some automotive plants are trialing employees wearing watches that alert workers if they come too close to another worker on the line.

What else can you do to ensure you’re meeting output standards to ramp up revenue for your business?

Open new shifts

Do you have flexibility to add an additional shift to your business as you ramp up demand? Adding an additional shift can help your teams increase output quickly while allowing your teams to continue staggered shift schedules.

Consider partnering with someone like SIMOS and “shift a shift” to us where we can help recruit, onboard and manage your entire shift of workers and align to your business KPIs—including output.

Run an assessment

When was the last time you revisited your overall workflow and workforce management? If it was done before the pandemic, it’s likely that your operations could use a third-party assessment of how to improve efficiencies. Simple things like how many touches a box gets or re-organizing the layout of your production floor with social distancing measures in place could go a long way with improving overall output. Similarly, consider the people executing those workflows – are they operating the most efficiently with the right level of management and guidance?

Not sure how to run an assessment and evaluate your workforce? Contact us to schedule an assessment for your operations.

Consider outsourcing to a labor partner

Sometimes the easiest way to boost capacity is to change the culture of the workforce at your operation. Outsourced labor providers can often build incentive programs and structures that entice workers to not only meet your output, capacity metrics and quality—but exceed them. Learn more about some of SIMOS’ incentive programs here.

Not sure how to navigate or change your operations in the face of new safety measures? At SIMOS, we’re the experts in helping operations teams through our cost-per-unit staffing model which can help save 10-20% on costs, while improving productivity levels. Learn more here.