Where People Make the Difference

Last year, Wal-Mart begin using a new scheduling system that called in workers - accounting staff, among others - based on store traffic in almost real-time. Today, news broke the retailing giant is about to move many of its 1.3 million workers to such a system, de-emphasizing predictable shifts in favor of more dynamic "personal availability."

Because Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart, it's a safe bet that other retailers will begin moving in the same direction. The Wall Street Journal says Payless ShoeSource, RadioShack and Mervyns already have. On the site Blogging Stocks, Peter Cohan coined a good term for this: Just-in-time employees.

Wal-Mart Inc.'s latest innovation is to treat its employees just the same as its inventory. For too long, many of Wal-Mart's employees have had regular work schedules. Wal-Mart excels at stocking each store with the items that customers want to buy and shunning the rest; and it's finally dawned on management that Wal-Mart can apply this same just-in-time approach to putting employees in its stores.

Now, before you think I'm going off-topic remember Wal-Mart saddled accounting employees with this system early on. And let's also remember that the workload of many accountants depends on the daily flow of traffic in their business - think hotels or other retailers. If you base your decision-making on pure numbers, I suppose there's much to be said for this approach. You only pay for staff when you actually need them. If you're on the staff, however, your pay becomes a lot less predictable, as does the time you get to spend with your family or just doing things outside of work.

I daresay, there's a good bit of difference between a cashier at Wal-Mart and an accountant or other professional in the back-office. But approaches like this have a way of creeping through the corporate world, so I wouldn't call this a happy development.

Wal-Mart Seeks New FlexibilityIn Worker Shifts [WSJ - $]
Wal-Mart's Just In Time Employees [Blogging Stocks]