Flexible workforce allocation as driver of economic and human-oriented shop floor organization

The shortage of skilled labor makes economic and human-oriented organization of working time and organizational structures for blue-collar workers a competitive factor. Shift work has an extremely bad reputation among workers, families and potential applicants: Shift work decreases the attractiveness of manufacturing companies significantly. In this research, we combine a comprehensive literature review with insights from a multiple case analysis to show how the different needs of employers (i.e., regarding capacity utilization and know-how) and employees (i.e., regarding time flexibility) can be matched. Therefore, we derive first guidelines for a successful flexible workforce allocation.