Recommendations

Staffing Employees

Proper staffing can increase customer service 

Currently, the computerized employee scheduling program at Wells Fargo recommends how many full-time employees and how many part-time employees that should be needed for a shift. The recommendations are based on the traffic generated in that Wells Fargo branch for that same day as the previous year. The computerized scheduling program works well, as it does also recommend the lengths of shifts as well as the times that the shifts should start and end for certain employees. Though the program works well, it is not 100% accurate or realistic because sometimes things will not be the same on that day, as it was the previous year. Sometimes the program can actually under-staff employees, which can lead to poor customer service. 


Wells Fargo uses a level strategy for their staffing. Wells Fargo is very big right now on not allowing any overtime as they are trying to save money. If a part-time employee, to the branch manager is at risk of getting overtime, they will cut the hours accordingly so you do not go over 40 hours. Another thing that happens is that the employee takes a full hour lunch rather than half an hour to avoid the overtime. This can lead a to a plethora of problems, especially when the branch is understaffed.  Being understaffed can increase the likelihood of an error being made due to trying to do things faster because of the line building up.  Being understaffed also leads to angry customers and resulting in low survey scores, which is a measurement of success when evaluating branches. Not having enough equipment can also result in losses such as more frequent shortages. These wastes that Wells Fargo is currently dealing with at the branches can be eliminated, or at least reduced significantly. Wells Fargo is currently attempting to cut costs as much as they can, but they do not realize that these cost-cutting tactics can hurt them in the long run. It can cause customers to close accounts, and take their money elsewhere. They will end up losing more money by not properly staffing its branches and not having enough equipment.


Hiring more part-timers can help fix an understaffing issue and not dramatically increase cost. The risk of having a part-time employee being close to overtime is unrealistic. This can solve the problem of not having enough employees and adds more flexibility to the scheduling, especially since full-time employees at Wells Fargo receive a lot of PTO. This can increase customer service by having lines move faster, reduce employee mistakes, and reduce any potential overtime needed by a full-time employee. 

Aside from solely creating employee schedules based on what the program is suggesting, it is recommended that the manager of Wells Fargo is to also pay attention when creating the schedules for employees. As it is known that the scheduling program is not always accurate or realistic, the manager should use their judgment to ensure that there is enough staff on hand to cater to all customer needs. By the manager using the scheduling program as a suggestion, as well as using their best judgment when scheduling employees, Wells Fargo can ensure that they will not be creating an environment with poor customer service. Also taking into account current forecasting trends can help solve that issue, but the change has to come from the higher-ups of Wells Fargo. 


Six Sigma

Another recommendation through six sigma would be cross-training employees. This would essentially be tellers being authorized and trained to do certain tasks that a banker would do. This would be difficult because usually, a task of a banker takes much longer than what a teller has to do. This could potentially lead to more waste on the teller side and with the customers wait time. The better solution would be to allow tellers to do the smaller tasks that bankers are authorized to do, but not tellers as of now. Tasks such as having more access to credit card information, being able to give out a temporary card, and even an address change. Those tasks could work with adding more time employees because even if the teller line is not busy for "teller transactions" the new given tasks that could be implemented with cross training can prevent employees from being underutilized and eliminating or reducing waste.