The use of flex workers. It sounds simple, but in practice it is difficult. In the upcoming series of articles, 'Fleks Talks', we dive into the matter with a series of experts. This time, Fleks CEO Ricardo dives into data. Because measuring is knowing. But then you have to know how to measure.
In my environment, I hear companies talk more and more about their added value. To be honest, I also do this myself during my commercial talks. The question is: what exactly is this added value? Defining it is difficult. It is usually a lot less concrete than solving a problem. Value can be created by improving the key metrics of your customer. But what are those metrics and how do you do that?
The most obvious figures such as financial figures (EBITDA, turnover, profit) are easy to analyse but often only the result. If you dig deeper, you come to certain sales deals and possible cost reductions. If you dig even deeper, you come to the more qualitative metrics. Now it gets interesting! These metrics can provide predictive value, enabling you to make certain strategic decisions (sooner).
If we look at our market and customer groups from Fleks' point of view, there are several metrics you can look at:
Employees (field service)
Employee activity | how many hours of availability do they give?
Work performance | number of hours worked, number of sales, etc.
Reliability | on time check-in and check-out
Employees (office)
Skilled planning | is optimal use made of the database, are the travel kilometres planned as little as possible?
Reliability | % of the roster filled, is the roster finished in time?
Relationship | to the field service and/or customers
The above two examples of employees are important stakeholders and essential to keeping your organisation running smoothly. They ultimately ensure a positive realisation of the EBITDA. By running an analysis on the above metrics, you are able to make the right strategic choices. Is it really necessary to hire new people or do you still have enough room in your database? Who are the top people you want to reward and retain?
Your metrics can be very far-reaching and give you interesting insights. Look at the big Facebook that, years ago, was able to predict, based on your data, whether your relationship would end (before you knew it yourself (1)). Maybe that is not quite the intention, but knowing who 'performs' well based on some simple statistics is not so bad. Start simple by collecting the data in a simple Excel file. This can be done using various 'tools' such as Geckoboard, Google Datastudio, PowerBi, or one of the many other options (a good article about this on Emerce).
1.1. Example of a DataStudio Dashboard
At Fleks, we also steer our customers more and more towards collecting and analysing these key metrics. We do this by using PowerBi which can be directly connected to the database. The data is already there, it's just a matter of visualising the figures so they are easier for our customers to interpret. With this, Fleks puts its customers even more in their power. Returning to my opening statement, this is the added value we can (now) focus on during a sales meeting.
This was part 1 of our series Fleks Talks. Subscribe to the Fleks LinkedIn page and stay up to date with our blogs.
After reading this, are you curious about your key metrics in the area of staffing and planning? Or do you not know how you can easily map this out? Feel free to send Ricardo a message. He would love to help you, no strings attached!
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