The Berlin delivery service Gorillas apparently wants to introduce a new shift system that favors fast drivers. This emerges from an internal document that is available to the Tagesspiegel. The draft for a works agreement stipulates that shifts should be assigned by an algorithm in the future. The “Spiegel” had first reported about it.
According to the plan, in the future employees should enter “their preferred working hours” in the Quinyx personnel deployment software in advance, on the Sunday before the start of the working week. At the same time, the employer creates a forecast of the order volume and other factors that affect the personnel requirements, such as the weather, traffic volume or sick leave.
On this basis, the necessary shifts are to be created for each time of day, either manually or using an algorithm. The riders can choose from these layers. However, they must register their choice within a specific time window of ten hours.
However, particularly high-performing drivers should be able to choose their shifts ahead of the others: “The employer is entitled to set a further time window within the time window in which only drivers may take part in shift picking who, in their last 20 actual working days (holiday/ illness are not taken into account) have rendered special services.”
This refers to the 25 percent of the team who have delivered the most orders per hour. Gorillas refers to this reference value as the “utility rate”, but reserves the right to use other parameters “as long as an objective comparability of the employees is guaranteed.”
Within the two groups, all shifts should be assigned according to the “first come, first served” principle. Social factors are not mentioned in the document. For example, it doesn’t seem to matter to the bosses’ mind games whether the employees have other commitments through studies or a family.
The background to this idea is probably a problem that gorillas has been chasing for a long time: the sales per purchase are low, but the personnel costs are comparatively high. In order to generate profits, this imbalance must be balanced. According to reports, this is what investors are demanding. One way to do this would be to increase the number of trips per hour.
Management has been testing the new shift system for weeks. As the Tagesspiegel learned from employee circles, experiments were being carried out in a branch on Martin-Luther-Strasse in Schöneberg. The management is currently negotiating with the works council about the introduction of this internally controversial system.
