Staff Scheduling Prospects of ALDI Melbourne during Covid-19 Crisis

Introduction
ALDI is one of the most popular supermarket chains available in Australia. Despite
being a German based discounted supermarket chain, it has grown with immense popularity
across the Australian population. As mentioned by Mortimer & Grimmer (2021), ALDI
started its operations in Australia back in 2001 with two stores, one of them in Sydney’s
Marrickville and the other in Bankstown Airport. The company essentially started
functioning back in 1913 but since the commencement of their operations in Australia, it has
expanded its operations across 570 stores spreading in six states and territories eventually
employing more than 13,500 people (Aldi.com.au, 2021). ALDI’s success in Australia is
eventually attributed to their ability to understand the gap in the Australian grocery market
which was the lack of discounted supermarket chains.
ALDI has been known to address the Covid-19 crisis with a suitable plan that would
permit them to achieve their daily objectives while maintaining good customer experience.
As mentioned by Redman (2021), ALDI not only encouraged its employees to acquire
vaccination for incentives but provided scheduling flexibility to its salaried employees.
Furthermore, the company also went on hiring spree to manage the traffic in its Melbourne
store and their other outlets on a global scale especially when the traffic was continuing to
increase (Uschamberfoundation.org, 2021). Since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, the
ALDI management and the employees collectively have been working to provide necessary
services to the customers without any interruption.
The aim of this report is to focus on the staff scheduling prospects of ALDI
Melbourne in a much cost-effective way until the covid-19 crisis has been resolved. The
structure of this report has been categorised into five different sections consisting of an
introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis of the acquired data using analytical

techniques, ending with conclusion and recommendations. The analytical techniques used in
this report would consist of descriptive analysis, predictive analysis and prescriptive
analysis.
Literature Review
The preferred mode for identifying key articles and journals associated with the
subject matter was the use of ‘Google Scholar’ database because the accessibility to wide
range of journal articles and research papers from different years get much easier. The use of
certain keyword was prompted to ensure that accurate results were identified by the end of
the search such as ‘Staff scheduling’, ‘Retail Market of Australia’, ‘Covid-19 Pandemic and
Retail Staff’, and more. The use of such keywords make it easier for the learner to identify
the exact articles that would align with the perspective of the study and would enable in
achieving the purpose.
Some of the companies around the world focused on establishing a good relationship
with the customers to ensure that they can genuinely address customer needs and navigate
their functionality surrounding it accordingly. According to Dore et al. (2020), the idea of
staff-sharing plan used by companies such as ALDI Germany and McDonalds Germany
showcases how collective participation makes it easier to handle crisis. It also paves way for
securing the employment for the furloughed employees or the ones working temporarily.
McDonald’s temporary workers were redeployed at ALDI stores to ensure the effectiveness
of the supply chain and proper deliveries to its customers. Dore et al. (2020), explored the
idea that not only this was a good employment opportunity for unemployed individuals but an
effective way to handle understaffing problem mainly because the staffs were affected by
covid-19. Even though this article shares a solution of staff-sharing to deal with understaffing
issues and scheduling conflicts but this strategy would only be beneficial for short-term

effectiveness and would not aid the organisation in long-term. This strategy can still be used
as an extreme measure for a company which is facing severe issues in terms of staffing
schedules.
The aspect of staff scheduling was a major concern during the covid-19 pandemic for
majority of the supermarket chains functioning in Australia, which prevented them from
assuring the efficiency of the workforce management. Guerriero & Guido (2021), mentions
that staff scheduling problems can be easily addressed when the level of employee
satisfaction is considered by an organisation and with the use of novel optimization models, it
gets much easier to provide flexibility to the staff. The novel optimization model has to be
focused on the different working times along with employee availability and preferences.
Eventually, despite flexibility added to schedules, the purpose should be to achieve maximum
employee satisfaction and the demand requirements of the day. However, Guerriero & Guido
(2021), fails to organise every objective function of an organisation into one model because
the integration of six different optimization models would be extremely chaotic and difficult
to handle. Thus, the preference is laid on bi-objective optimization formulation and novel
optimization, among which the former considers employee availability and potential demand
requirement.
The scheduling challenges also emerge when the consumers are not available in usual
quantity that the stores are used to regularly. Due to the occurrence of the covid-19 pandemic,
many of the consumers around the world and in Australia preferred the use of online
purchases instead of going to the store to purchase necessary items. The shopping frequency
of the consumers reduced from 2-3 times a week to once a week where the flexible daily
schedules of the employees at the organisation made them feel overworked and resulted in an
unstructured schedule (Wang et al., 2020). This article has successfully highlighted how
changes in consumer behaviour can also prompt change in store’s employee management in

the long-run. It is one of the biggest strengths of the article and that consumer shopping
frequency, timing, duration, expenditure and even their switch to online purchases are
reflected. However, Wang et al. (2020), did not attempt to explore in depth how it could
affect the scheduling conundrum of working employees of a store. Thus, even though this
article points out a different element to consider, it is not entirely researched in an in-depth
manner.
The staff scheduling specifically emerged during the covid-19 pandemic partly due to
the guidelines mandated by CDC to assure hygiene and avoid extensive gatherings within the
store. According to Nakat & Bou-Mitri (2021), the companies were encouraged to revise
their sick leave policies, accordingly update the cleaning schedule and minimize contact
among workers as much as possible through shift staggering. The changes in work hours and
the implementation of additional short breaks for all the staff made it mandatory for
companies like ALDI to go on hiring spree especially at the initial stage when consumers
were busy hoarding food items for their consumption. Considering the health factors
affecting staff scheduling during covid-19 is one of the key strengths of this article but the
management decisions undertaken by companies when employees contracted the virus have
not been researched properly. This can be prompt as a weakness of this article.
The employee sharing model has been effectively successful across different sectors
in the times of crisis because technological advancements have severely transformed the
industry making it mandatory for the ones operating in the retail sector to make relevant
changes. De la Mora Velasco, Huang & Haney (2021), agrees with Dore et al. (2020), and
commences the use of employee sharing model (ESM) for the hospitality industry, which is
easily applicable for the supermarket chain as well. De la Mora Velasco, Huang & Haney
(2021), highlights that the use of an ESM would be effective in addressing unemployment,
enhance the responsiveness of the employees along with sufficient profitability. The