Determining a Vacancy within a Department - A Personal Opinion

I am sure that during the past months many of us were looking into ways of reducing costs, and maybe looking at what “fat” we have within our Departments and whether we can do without that so called “fat”.

 In view of such “cash-conscious” periods, some of us might also have gone through the process of re-evaluating certain positions, and vacancies, while asking questions like:

• Is there actually a vacant position ?
• Do we need the position ?
• Can we do without this position for the time being ? If not,
• Can the position be filled internally, from within the Department, or from within the Company ? or
• Does it need specific skills which we might not have within ?

 Together with the Team, we went through this quick exercise, and these are some of the many internal discussions we had before we took any decision for a specific direction:

§ Work Re-Organisation:

A job or task which we are considering as vacant may be rearranged and perhaps performed by another person, team, or department. Do we have other staff redundant in other departments which can do our task(s) within their scope and their departmental objectives (e.g. safety and security objectives have a thin, fine line that separates them), or can we move redundant staff to our department to perform the job/task.

§ Automating the Job:

Many times, we are doing a task or a job, “because this is what we did for the past 20 years”. Unfortunately, we hear this a lot! 

Change is the only constant in life!

Having performed a task, or maintained a position for the past decades, does not qualify for an automated recruitment to fill the post. What added value does the task/post bring forth? Can we automate the task? Can we integrate the task/job into perhaps another function?

For example, if in the past 20 years, we have been administering airport security passes manually, we might have needed 4 persons for the job at that time: 

• One person for capturing the airport security pass application data;
• One for collecting administration fees;
• One person for authenticating the data and application before issuance; and
• One for validating, printing, and handing out the passes. 

These 4 tasks can be automated into one online application, with any human/manual processes performed at the background by one or by several persons also performing other tasks. The non-replacement of staff may be used to justify the expense of introducing new automated applications.

§ Use of Overtime:

The easiest thing to do instead of recruiting a person for a position is to use overtime. However, there is always the possibility that the task(s) to be done would need a greater amount of time, rather than the 2 to 4 hours of planned daily overtime. Hence, overtime on its own would not be feasible. 

The use of overtime may be the best solution for “short-term’ human resource shortages like for example when a key staff member is on maternity leave, and one knows that she will be returning to the workplace. However, overtime might not be the best solution for long term job/task commitments.

§ Flexible Working Hours:

Working flexible hours or allowing staff to clock-in and out on a planned flexible manner based on the departmental needs might be a solution.

Hence, staggering the working hours or introducing a flexible working pattern based on work processes and staff availability may work to fill in the gap in such a situation. Obviously, if flexible working hours is not one of the defined/agreed working patterns for staff, arrangements and agreements must be made and agreed for a win-win (Company & Individual staff) situation.

§ Part-time Contract:

The department can achieve marginal cost reductions if the replacement/filling of a position is covered with a part-time contract. Working hours may be based on a needs basis only and not on the Company’s traditional full working hours.

At a later stage, this may further give the department the opportunity of ensuring that a selected part-timer would be a permanent good candidate for the job. A post (even though might not be cost efficient) may even be filled in by two part time workers. After some time, the Company may select the best person from the part-timers and convert the job into a full-time position.

§ Sub-contracting the Job:

This is already heavily used within the industry and through subcontracting, the department avoids ongoing costs and obligations of employing staff, by transferring the obligations to a sub-contractor. Obviously, this has its own downturns, as it may result to a “no sense of belonging” culture, less direct control, and probably higher overall costs in the medium term.