Seminar (Dept. of Management Science and Engineering)

Theme：The Impact of Schedule Consistency on Shift Worker Productivity: An Empirical Investigation

Speaker：Guanyi Lu (College of Business，Florida State University)

Time：2022-03-02 10:00

Address：Zoom Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

ABSTRACT：

Problem definition: Lawmakers have begun to introduce “fair schedule” legislations that require employers to provide shift workers with more predictable and consistent work schedules. Business owners are concerned that the resultant loss of scheduling flexibility could decrease overall operational efficiency. We argue that this is a misconception. While recent studies suggest that increasing schedule predictability by reducing “just-in-time” scheduling can increase productivity, few have examined the effects of schedule consistency on worker productivity. Our study fills this void by investigating the impact of schedule consistency on cashier productivity in grocery retailing. Methodology/results: We estimate econometric models using transaction level scanner data including over 1.2 million shopping baskets processed by 126 cashiers working for a local grocer. Work schedule consistency is operationalized via two metrics: (1) hour-of-the-day consistency measuring whether a cashier is consistently scheduled to work in the same hours of the day, and (2) day-of-the-week consistency measuring whether a cashier is consistently scheduled to work on the same days of the week. We find that, on average, hour-of-the-day and day-of-the-week consistency increase cashier productivity by1.90%and2.09%, respectively. And these effects are stronger for less experience cashier, especially for new hires, at 3.20% and 6.18%, respectively. Managerial implications: Our findings suggest that (a) business owners can increase shift workers’ productivity by providing them with more consistent work schedules, and (b) the productivity of less-experienced shift workers is more vulnerable to inconsistent work schedules. These findings highlight the need to increase schedule consistency for shift workers, especially these with little experience.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY：

Dr. Guanyi Lu（卢冠一）is on the faculty of the Department of Business Analytics, Information Systems and Supply Chain at Florida State University’s College of Business. His areas of expertise are retail

operations, supply chain structure and integration, supply chain risk and security, and information and communication technology. Lu’s research has appeared in Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences, Journal of Supply Chain Management and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management among others. He serves as an Associate Editor for Journal of Operations Management and Decision Sciences Journal and is on the editorial board of Journal of Supply Chain Management. Guanyi’s service was recognized by the 2018 best reviewer award of Decision Sciences and the 2020 best reviewer award of Journal of Operations Management.

Lu earned his Ph.D. inoperationsand supply chainmanagement from Texas A&M University.Prior to his academic career, he served as an assistant supply chain manager for a leading Asia-based original equipment manufacturer (OEM).