Scheduling woes
If you’ve seen Office Space, you’ll be familiar with boss Bill Lumbergh’s line: “Ahh, I’m also going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too.”
If you haven’t seen the 1999 movie, and you’re still familiar with it, you may be caught up in what a new study says are widespread scheduling troubles affecting hourly workers in the services sector.
The WorkJam study of employees in U.S. services industries found that 56 per cent of workers got their schedules only up to a week, and sometimes less, ahead of time.
“This tight timeframe provides workers with little flexibility to accommodate personal obligations such as education, child care, and elder care or other jobs,” the report said.
Almost 30 per cent, said the study by WorkJam, a company launched in January, got consistent schedules only “rarely.”
“The hourly work economy is broken due to historical misalignment between employees and their employers regarding hiring, scheduling and management,” WorkJam chief executive officer Steven Kramer said in unveiling the study, which involved more than 700 workers and 500 managers.
“This friction has resulted in widespread repercussions on the social, political and business front.”
The study is American, though no doubt the findings would be similar, at least in some ways, in Canada. And, of course, union contracts often dictate scheduling routines.
Still, there are lessons for both managers and employees in the survey by WorkJam, the company behind software that helps services companies, such as a retailer or restaurant, hire and schedule.
More than 25 per cent of workers said they quit their previous jobs because of scheduling problems, while almost 50 per cent on the management side said they schedule workers for consecutive closing and opening shifts.
Almost 70 per cent of managers said they find it hard to meet the scheduling needs of both workers and their companies.
AB InBev boosts offer
Anheuser-Busch InBev won’t take no for an answer, boosting its bid for SABMiller PLC today and lamenting two previous rejections by its rival.
The owner of Budweiser is now bidding more than £68-billion, or £42.15 a share in cash, with an alternate cash-and-stock offer. That’s about $104-billion (U.S.).
SABMiller was quick to reject the latest offer, too.
“For now, it’s uncertain if this will be acceptable and investors, judging by the muted response in the share price this morning, are cautious and probably more than a little dubious that this deal will go ahead,” said London Capital Group chief analyst Brenda Kelly.
Quote of the week (so far)
“I'm not happy about Canada's endless search for a drop of oil.”
Neil Young
CIBC sets targets
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce says it is targeting cost savings of $600-million by 2019 and will take a restructuring charge of as much as $200-million in the fourth quarter.
Chief financial officer Kevin Glass said today in Toronto at the bank’s first investor day meeting in five years that the bank is also targeting growth of 5 per cent to 10 per cent a year, The Globe and Mail's David Berman reports.
Chrysler faces strike
The United Auto Workers union is threatening to shut down Fiat Chrysler in the U.S. as early as tonight.
A strike against Chrysler, the union’s target in pattern bargaining, would be the first since 2007.
Chart of the day
Business credit has jumped 8.3 per cent over the past year, up to August, suggesting that Canadian non-resource companies aren’t particularly anxious amid all the talk of recession, Sal Guatieri says.
“In the chart, note the sharp descent in credit growth during past ‘real’ recessions,” the BMO Nesbitt Burns senior economist said in a research note.
“While credit has slowed in the past four months ... this followed big gains in the prior two that have kept the six-month trend aloft.”