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The Descartes Systems Group, Inc. | www.descartes.com | Surviving the Supply Chain and Logistics Workforce Challenge
Introduction
Workforce strategies changed because of the acute labor shortages that existed during the pandemic. It was
originally thought that the problem would go away once economies stabilized, but research such as Descartes'
study How Bad Is The Supply Chain and Logistics Workforce Challenge? shows that it has not. As a result,
companies are employing new hiring and retention strategies and aggressively applying technology to offset
the ongoing worker shortages. Because the workforce problem is pervasive, we wanted to find out exactly what
companies are doing to address it. Descartes worked with SAPIO Research to survey 1,000 supply chain and
logistics leaders in Europe and North America to better understand the strategies and tactics they were employing
to improve recruitment and retention effectiveness and how they were using technology to mitigate the impact
of ongoing worker shortages. Our goal for the study was to give supply chain and logistics leaders an in-depth
perspective on what actions leading companies are taking to address the challenge.
What are supply chain and logistics organizations doing to improve worker
productivity, attract and retain employees and find alternate labor sources
to mitigate workforce challenges today and in the future?
Top Level Findings
Below are high-level at-a-glance takeaways from the research
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Automating non-value-added
and repetitive tasks (54%) was
the top strategy for improving
workforce productivity
Delivery route optimization (54%)
and driver mobile productivity
(45%) solutions were the top
technology choices to mitigate
the labor workforce shortage
Automated real-time
shipment tracking (53%) was
the top technology choice to
mitigate the knowledge
worker shortage
Working time flexibility (35%)
and adopting the latest
technologies (34%) were the top
strategies for attracting workers
On-the-job training and education
compensation (35%) and higher
pay (34%) were the top strategies
for retaining workers
