In the hyper-competitive world of e-commerce, the “Buy Now, Receive Today” button has become the best defense against abandoned carts. For customers, there’s something irresistible about ordering online and having the product in their hands hours later. Marketing leaders love this, and often place this delivery guarantee at the core of a brand’s identity.
But while same-day delivery is easy to promote, actually fulfilling it is an entirely different story. Turning a marketing promise into a delivered package requires a fully optimized warehouse floor. But if your fulfillment center is still relying on a static workforce, you are likely failing to meet your same-day service-level agreements (SLAs) when order volumes spike.
When you unwittingly break your same-day promise, it’s typically not due to a logistical failure. This is a labor problem, and only a modern approach to staffing can solve it. Here’s a look at the connection between your workforce and same-day delivery, and how you can reliably meet your SLAs.
Where the Same-Day Promise Breaks Down
To meet a same-day delivery SLA, an order must be picked, packed, and handed off to a carrier within a timeframe that’s much more compressed than in a normal warehouse.
You may have only two to four hours after a customer places an order to get the package to the loading dock. Meeting this timeframe as your team processes potentially thousands of orders in any given day requires no bottlenecks in your workflow.
If you don’t have the hands on the floor to clear the queues when a surge hits, your workflow grinds to a halt. The SLA has been broken long before the package ever reaches the loading dock. So, it’s not supply chain issues or slow-moving delivery drivers that cause you to break your same-day promise. The problem almost always comes down to not having enough hands to process a surge in volumes.
Why a Fixed Headcount Can’t Solve a Variable Demand Problem
While understaffing is the root cause, simply hiring more pickers and packers won’t solve the problem. You’ll end up paying people to stand around when times are slow, or pay overtime when demand spikes. Both strategies eat away at the sometimes razor-thin margins in e-commerce. The real problem is more fundamental: you’re applying the fixed-headcount model to a variable-demand problem.
And the demand is variable because e-commerce surges are inherently unpredictable. Anything from viral social media trends to regional weather events can create sudden increases in order volumes. A fixed workforce, regardless of how small or large, isn’t built to handle this variability.
You can neither maintain a peak-season workforce nor a skeleton crew year-round. You’ll either end up destroying your facility’s margins or routinely fail to meet your same-day delivery promise. The real solution is to forget the fixed headcount and embrace a flexible staffing model instead.
A Flexible Staffing Model Makes Same-Day Delivery Possible
When you add flexibility to your fulfillment center staffing strategy, you can move orders as fast as you need to. Instead of trying to plan for unpredictable surges, you can tap into on-demand warehouse labor whenever necessary, and scale back to your core team during normal volumes.
The key to adopting this staffing model in your e-commerce fulfillment workforce is finding the right partner. A staffing agency with a pre-vetted bench of fulfillment workers can deploy additional floor labor within hours of a surge.
Such an agency will be familiar with the demands of fulfillment centers and tight SLA windows. They’ll know how to vet candidates to find those who understand pick-and-pack workflows, are familiar with modern warehouse management systems (WMS), and know the fast-paced intensity required for same-day operations. This means avoiding general staffing agencies and partnering with one experienced in last-mile delivery workforce planning.
A Staffing Partner for Same-Day Delivery SLAs
Snelling is the premier staffing agency for today’s ultra-competitive e-commerce landscape. We offer on-demand staffing and temp-to-hire options that best align with your fulfillment center staffing strategy. You’ve made the same-day delivery promise to your customers, and now Snelling can make sure you have the workforce to keep it.
To find out why Snelling is the staffing partner for warehouses with same-day delivery SLAs, contact us at a location near you today.
