Eighty-three per cent of casual workers in Australia prefer working for companies offering automated workplace technologies, research from Humanforce, a Sydney-based global provider of workforce management solutions, has found.

A further 22% of casual workers also said they would consider leaving a company if it did not offer technology that helped them to manage their work.

“Offering casual workers the technological tools that they clearly want, and that will help them to succeed in their roles, will show them that they are valued employees that a company is willing to invest in,” said Clayton Pyne, CEO of Humanforce. “On top of feeling valued, use of technology will make the day-to-day working lives of casual workers much easier and increase the chances of them wanting to stay in a role longer.”

Casual worker respondents said the work tasks that they thought held the most value in being automated by technology included accepting and swapping shifts (48%), communication around work availability (46%), easier and faster app-based communication (45%) and online rosters and timesheets (43%).

“There is a common misconception out there that casual workers don’t stay in one job or at one company for very long, and therefore they don’t require the same access to technology or supports as full-time employees do. Flying in the face of this, our research actually found that the majority of casual workers stayed in their casual jobs for longer time periods.”

The largest group of casual workers – 29% – said they had stayed in the one job for over five years, while a further 20% had stayed two to five years, followed by another 18% for over 12 months. At the shorter-term end of the scale, only 2.5% of casual workers had only stayed at one job for less than a month, 5.7% for less than three months and 13% less than six months.

“Casual workers are at the front-line of customer service, acting as the face of an organisation to the public. Engaged, long-term casual employees can better serve the public through a greater company, product and service knowledge. Having the right workplace technologies in place to support the work of casual employees should be a focus for all companies across Australia, especially now at a time when customer loyalty is challenged and positive customer service interactions have never been more important.”

Using apps and digital tools, advanced workplace management solutions automate a range of tasks that are commonly required of casual workers. These include employee availability, shift management, communication with management and teams, online rosters and timesheets, leave management and onboarding.

Casual workers said that they would gain most benefit from these automated technologies if they received training from their company (51%) or online (46%).

Methodology

Humanforce surveyed 503 Australian part-time and casual workers in April 2020 using a research platform.

Humanforce is a global provider of workforce management solutions for companies who need flexibility to manage complex workforces. Companies use Humanforce to manage everything from time and attendance, employee rostering, onboarding and availability. Humanforce has strong partnerships with industry leading payroll providers, with over 100 integrations and enable customer employees in over 9000 locations globally. Humanforce was founded in Sydney in 2002, and today has offices across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK. 

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Humanforce has launched the first workforce management solution app to be fully accessibility compliant, making the workplace more inclusive for people with disabilities and an ageing population.

Recent research from McKinsey found that businesses with higher diversity are more likely to achieve higher financial performance.

“There is an unresolved tension between the business and technology vendor desire for integrating the most advanced technology solutions that often best meet the needs of millennial workers, and also making the workplace more inclusive of diversity,” explained Mike McGee, Chief Product Officer, Humanforce. “Too often we see the former being the priority at the expense of workers with a disability and those that make up our ageing workforce.”

Recent research from McKinsey found that businesses with higher diversity are more likely to achieve higher financial performance. However, people with a disability are often overlooked when it comes to workplace diversity. Australian Network On Disability (AND) shows that there are over 4 million – or one in five – people in Australia with a form of disability and 2.1 million of these are working aged (15-64 years). Yet only 53 per cent of working-age people with a disability participate in work, compared to 83 per cent of people without a disability. This translates to a 9.4 per cent unemployment rate for people with a disability compared to only 4.9 per cent for people without a disability. 

AND also highlighted that the likelihood of living with disability increases with age, with 50.7 per cent of Australians aged 65 and over having a disability compared to just 12.5 per cent of those under 65. 

“Employers can be doing much more to make the workplace more inclusive for the people with a disability currently working and also to increase employment of number people with a disability looking for work. And as we see more Australians working beyond the pension age of 65 and being incentivised to do so by the government, we’re also going to see the number of people with a disability in the workplace increase.  

“A key piece of the puzzle is ensuring all the workplace technologies a business invests in to increase their success don’t work to preference younger workers, while discriminating against workers with a disability and the ageing population,” added Mike. 

The new release of Humanforce’s mobile app complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA rating. This means it meets 100 per cent of the recommendations for making content accessible to people with disabilities including colour-blindness and low vision. 

Humanforce will be exhibiting the new fully accessible mobile app at HR Innovation & Tech Fest in Sydney on 18-19 November. 

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Sydney, 29 October 2019: Humanforce, a Sydney based global provider of workforce management solutions, has found that Australian employers could be doing much more to engage their casual workforces.

In a survey conducted by Humanforce it was revealed that only 42 per cent of Australian casual employees have felt engaged in their work. 

Humanforce Founder and MD, Bruce Mackenzie, said the survey demonstrated employers could be doing a lot more to engage and motivate their casual workforce. 

“We know that engaged employees take significantly less days off and are much more productive as it’s been proven time and time again,” said Bruce. “While many employers have recognised this by putting strategies in place for their permanent employees, many are overlooking the importance of engagement when it comes to their casual employees, which is not sustainable considering Australia has one of the highest numbers of casual workers in the world.”

The OECD Employment Outlook 2019 showed that 25 per cent of workers in Australia are casual, of which more than half report having no guaranteed hours. The Humanforce survey reflected the fact that guaranteed hours is a challenge for many casual workers, with 60 per cent of respondents saying guaranteed shifts was the most important driver in selecting a casual employer.

Yet, 75 per cent of respondents also stated that flexibility of days and hours, as well as fitting around family commitments (43 per cent) were the main attractions of casual work, illustrating that while casual workers might want the same number of shifts each week, employers may need to be open to these being changeable rather than standardised week to week.

There are a number of ways in which employers can better engage casual workers and create a sense of community, with the below showing the percentage of survey respondents who view these actions as important to them:

• A positive and fun work culture – 54% 
• Wage incentives – 52% 
• Group training and learning opportunities – 52%
• Employee rewards – 45% 
• An employer that shows an interest in you – 42% 

Casual work is often subject to high turnover, and as the survey found, many casual workers (40%) move to permanent work. Therefore, employers need to do everything they can to build staff loyalty and reduce turnover when faced with a limited pool of available talent.

Workforce management solutions can help employers to better engage with casual employees by providing a real-time view of all employees that helps to measure engagement and offer employee rewards, as well as facilitate ongoing communications such as employee feedback, events and training opportunities. 

Technologies such as workforce management solutions are something that 74 per cent of survey respondents would be open to their employer using. 

Find out more about Humanforce.

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