Labour is becoming increasingly expensive, especially now that the minimum wage has increased in Ontario and will rise again in January 2019. To offset the rising cost of labour, many companies have reduced employee benefits, shifts, and positions, but there are other options to consider to reduce labour costs.
1. No Overtime
Overtime is one of the biggest labour costs. Many businesses don’t mean to have overtime. Sometimes, it takes employees longer than expected to complete tasks, and they still need to get paid for completing the task that’s required. For many businesses, overtime doesn’t happen in large chunks of time but at the end of the day when employees are making the deposit. A few minutes here and another few minutes there can add up rather quickly.
Other business owners are short on manpower and must schedule overtime to make due.
Managing and scheduling your workforce more effectively can help you reduce labour costs.
2. Automate Your Cash Management Procedures
Perhaps the easiest way to reduce your labour costs is to automate your cash management procedures. If you manually count, sort, and deposit cash in your business, employees are wasting time. Machines can complete these tasks in minutes.
By speaking with a cash management solutions provider, you can learn about the different options available for your business. For example, investing in a currency counter or sorter will cut down on the time it takes your employees to count the day’s money. The count will also always be accurate, thereby eliminating the need to count twice.
Another example is investing in a coin and bank note recycler, which can speed up transactions. The currency recycler counts, sorts, authenticates, and then recycles cash, saving you even more time on these individual tasks. When you invest in recyclers, you may be able to have fewer workers on cash. You may also be able to shorten shifts since recyclers dispense and accept floats. Your employees will no longer need to come in early or stay late to count their floats when you automate cash management.
These different options can shorten the amount of time your employees spend in the back room and can reduce the number of cashiers required. Investing in automation also helps eliminate any overtime your employees accrue since the amount of time it’ll take to create the end-of-day deposit is vastly reduced, which helps reduce labour costs.
3. Train Your Employees
Trained employees make fewer mistakes, which means they cost you less money. Whenever you change your cash management procedures or any other kind of procedures in your business, it’s important to educate and train your employees so they understand what’s expected of them. When properly trained, employees will perform their tasks more quickly, which can reduce your labour costs.
There are many steps retailers are taking to reduce labour costs, but the easiest method is to automate your cash management procedures. While there is an initial cost with automation, in the end, it’ll save you time and money since it’ll take your employees far less time to complete tasks.
Reducing labour costs doesn’t have to be challenging or stressful; update your procedures and see how your business improves.
