Micro-Shifts & Gen Z: A New Era of Flexibility in the Workplace
Deputy, a workforce management platform, recently released its annual report, The Big Shift: How Gen Z is Rewriting the Rules of Hourly Work. The report used aggregate data from its customer base, analyzing 41 million shifts worked by 429,620 shift workers. One of the biggest takeaways from the report is that micro-shifts are on the rise for hourly work, and their adoption on a broader basis could mean more inclusion for younger demographics who demand flexibility.
What are Micro-Shifts?
A micro-shift is a period of work of six hours or less designed to be more flexible for workers. Ideally, it would replace gig work as a more stable option for employees. While Deputy’s report was based on hourly work, the trend could be adopted by companies that pay a salary to offer more flexibility to workers who require it.
Gen Z makes up the majority of today’s micro-shift workers at 51.5%. Still, Gen Alpha and Baby Boomers are also seeing shorter average shifts, making this less of a trend and more of a movement that employers should consider.
Krishna Vardhan Reddy, the CEO of AiDDOS, points out that micro-shifts signal the rise of the modular worker. Multiple shifts for different employers are becoming the norm as many workers reject the rigidity of the traditional workday. “Employees are diversifying their income streams, just as investors are diversifying their portfolios,” he says.
What is Driving Micro-Shift Adoption?
Silvija Martincevic, Deputy’s CEO, sees three factors driving the adoption of this new trend:
1. Economic Pressure
One in five workers on Deputy’s platform is juggling multiple jobs. Shorter shifts would allow more workers to do this.
2. AI Adoption
AI-driven scheduling is employed at 82% of large businesses, leading to more efficient shift scheduling and micro-shifts.
3. Growing Demand for In-Person Services
Deputy's data shows an increased demand for healthcare, aged care, and hospitality, particularly from higher-income households. Martincevic says this demand could translate into more sustainable positions compared to the current ones, which are usually contract jobs.
Micro-Shifts Offer More Flexibility for Workers
Flexibility has long been a demand of all workers, not just younger ones. In Robert Half’s recent Demand for Skilled Talent report, 76% of workers agreed that flexibility for when and where they work influenced whether they wanted to stay employed at a company. Micro-shifts are a way for employers to offer flexible work in terms of time. In cases where workers are pushing back against RTO mandates, shorter shifts may allow them more time to fit in a commute, if they don’t come with a significant pay decrease.
Prodoscore’s employee productivity monitoring solution offers peace of mind that staff are working when they should be, making more flexible arrangements like micro-shifts and remote working a viable option.
Micro-Shifts Can Bring Marginalized and Contract Workers Stability
The latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that 11.9 million people operated as independent contractors in 2023, or 7.9% of the total workforce. Given the economy’s contraction and mass layoffs in sectors like technology, it is reasonable that the number went up in 2024.
Contract workers are typically in more precarious roles than full-time workers, and the ideal is to formalize their work into micro-shifts so that their work is no longer so precarious. Companies that employ on contract may or may not be amenable to shifting to a more formalized arrangement like this, as this would increase the cost of contract workers in the form of taxes, benefits, and other fees they currently do not have to pay.
It can be more attractive for a company to have long-term contract workers onboard as micro-shift workers rather than committing to offering them a full-time position. This would offer the contract worker more stability while being less expensive for the employer than onboarding and training a new full-time hire.
Women make up 68% of the report’s micro-shift workers, and most are managing multiple jobs to respond to cost pressures. Deputy’s data shows they are starting to work in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as logistics. Micro-shifts' flexibility can give caregivers the time they need to be parents or more hours available in their day if they don’t want to juggle multiple jobs.
How to Implement Micro-Shifts
To begin implementing micro-shifts, you’ll first want to have a solution in place, like Prodoscore, that can measure how and when staff are working. Then, start with a pilot program for select employees; these can either be contract employees who you move to micro-shifts, top performers who are given micro-shifts as a perk, or whatever configuration works for your business.
Be careful not to offer them only to select groups like parents or new hires, as this may cause resentment among other staff. Micro-shifts should also be distributed among average and top performers so you can see the productivity impacts for each group. Giving them only to the top performers may skew the results.
Once the pilot has been completed, you’ll have the data you need to either roll them out to everyone or at least to select departments based on your findings. A micro-shift is far better than a four-day work week because everyone can be on deck for usual business days while offering workers flexibility.
Implementing micro-shifts could provide workers with flexibility and company cost predictability. While it may take some time for the traditional eight-hour workday to be entirely disrupted, change is coming, and in some industries, it is already here.
