“The State of the Deskless Workforce” addresses logistics management labor concerns

Quinyx, a global cloud-based, workforce management SAAS provider, recently released a report on “The State of the Deskless Workforce,” which addresses logistics management labor issues. 

The report notes that nearly 30% of logistics workers think taking more than one consecutive sick day is a fireable offense. Furthermore, states the report, nearly 20 percent of logistics professionals came into work sick during the COVID-19 outbreak - risking the health of themselves, their colleagues and customers.

Acccording to Quinyx’s CEO, Erik Fjellborg, the survey was designed to ask deskless workers what businesses can do to support them, keep them happy and stay in their jobs longer. 

“The findings allowed us to gauge how the workforce is evolving in light of new regulations, technologies and global challenges,” he adds. 

In this exclusive interview with LM, Fjellborg expands on his observations:

The fact that a distinct need for flexibility and sick time exists across the deskless workforce was not particularly surprising, especially in the current climate, but certainly valuable in enforcing the notion that these are basic rights all deskless workers want and deserve. 

Through our research, we found that workers are stressed about their schedules and experience an overwhelming lack of flexibility, causing 49 percent to miss out on major family and friend milestones. 

On top of this, one in four would choose to have a flexible work schedule over making more money, and 31 percent left a job because their employer didn’t provide schedules in advance. Even ahead of this report, we supplied businesses with the needed tech to allow for schedule flexibility - and our research further enforced the need for continued reform when it comes to workplace needs. 

In addition to flexibility, we were surprised to find that only 6 percent of logistics workers have paid sick time.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we relied on the logistics industry to keep our society functioning. To find that during this time only 6 percent of workers had access to paid time off while being expected to continually serve and meet increasing demand was maddening, especially knowing this meant workers had to make the decision of coming in sick or not getting paid. 

Within the logistics industry and across deskless workplaces, we should be striving to improve the employee experience, and a great place to start is by implementing paid sick leave and prioritizing workers’ physical and mental wellbeing first.