Into the Details: Lean Staffing

Many employees have experienced understaffing at their workplaces, especially recently, a situation exacerbated by COVID. They may not realize, though, that the circumstances they find themselves working in are not necessarily incidental or accidental. In this post we’ll discuss “lean staffing”, what the experience of this practice is like for employees, and what you can do as a job seeker to avoid it.

Lean staffing, simply put, is intentional, severe understaffing. This is often promoted as beneficial by management and management consultants, and may be described in a way that emphasizes efficiency (“do more with less”, “eliminate waste”). It is often very tough and sometimes even dangerous for employees, though, and is certainly destructive to their morale and individual productivity and well-being. If understaffing is long-term and “normal” at a workplace, it is deliberate.

Other workplace conditions such as low pay, no benefits or minimal benefits, no opportunities for advancement for most employees, irregular and/or constantly changing schedules, and high turnover, often go along with understaffing – each makes the others worse and real cause and effect can become blurred. All of these things are under the control of the employer.

 

Why do employers use lean staffing?

It saves them money.

 

What are the outcomes of this staffing model? What is the experience of lean staffing like for employees?

Understaffing can be extremely difficult for employees. Even if all staff members are working on a given day, getting everything done is a struggle with insufficient staff. Scheduled days off, of even one worker, increase everyone’s distress, and one or more people being out unexpectedly is a crisis.

Staff may find themselves forced to work longer hours, even “off the clock”, to get everything done, which eats into their personal and family time and rest, and is detrimental to work-life balance. When overwork and dealing with crises becomes a daily occurrence, staff distress increases and morale deteriorates.

Gaslighting and guilt-trips are often a part of understaffing. Supervisors may say things to employees like, “It’s everyone’s responsibility to get the work done”, “We all have to pitch in”, “You want to help your co-workers, don’t you?” "There are other employees/departments whose workloads or staffing levels are similar or even worse". Note here that the words “all” and “everyone” often do not include upper management, who can opt out at their discretion from assisting lower-paid employees, and who distance themselves from the reality of the working conditions they have created. The implication is that individual employees' laziness or uncooperativeness or inflexibility is the problem.

Employers will announce proudly that they are hiring, while leaving out the fact that they are always hiring due to high turnover and other negative working conditions caused by understaffing. Restaurants and retail stores are two types of employers that often use lean staffing (they are not the only ones though); the high turnover in these workplaces is not an unfortunate side-effect, but a known and acceptable outcome of this calculated business practice.

 

Some other consequences of lean staffing:

Staff feeling pressure (or literally being ordered by supervisors) to come to work when they are ill or injured. This can obviously lead to especially bad outcomes during a global pandemic. Staff may also be subject to retaliation or disrespecful practices if they do take a day off for any reason, even if these are days they have earned: for example, they may have to “prove” that they were sick by providing a doctor’s note.

Staff may blame one another for the stress caused by someone’s absence. This misplaced blame benefits the employer, as it distracts from the fact that the deliberate understaffing is the real problem. Staff may find themselves in competition with each other for scheduled days off, as so few workers can be out on a given day. Resentment over who gets permission to take time off can lead to further conflict and erosion of morale.

Staff may be forced to do additional duties without recognition or compensation, sometimes even doing two or more jobs for one salary.

Understaffing can lead to dangerous situations when only one person is on duty, isolated, easily targeted, and unable to summon help if needed.

The chronic high stress of understaffing can lead to mental and physical health problems and/or burnout of employees, which can lead to absenteeism and sudden resignations, making the situation worse.

 

What can you do while job hunting?

Unfortunately, as a job seeker you are limited in your ability to find out if a potential employer uses lean staffing. They might not want to disclose this information to a potential employee. If you ask point-blank in an interview if staffing levels are adequate, the employer may reply with a quick “yes, of course” (or may react badly if they perceive your query as accusatory). This “yes” may even be a truthful reply from the employer’s point of view; their idea of “adequate” staffing may differ greatly from yours.

You can inquire about turnover though. You can even use COVID as a reason for inquiring, asking something like, “How has COVID impacted your staffing levels and has staff retention been a challenge?”

You can (and should, anyway) check out a potential employer’s reviews on sites like Glassdoor. Remember that the reviews there are anonymous, and some extreme reviews (both the very positive ones and the very negative ones) may be there because the reviewers have an agenda. The best case scenario is when an employer has a large number of reviews and you see the same things being mentioned over and over – in that case you are probably getting a more accurate picture of what conditions are like at that workplace, than if there are only a few reviews.

Further reading:

The Hidden Costs of Keeping Your Team Too Lean (Inc)

Running Too Lean is Dangerous to Employee Experience (Great Place to Work blog)

Lean Implementation Staffing Bites the Hand! (HRchitecht)

A Vicious Job Market Feedback Loop Is Making the Great Resignation Even Worse — for Employers (CNBC Workforce Wire)

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