Our Story - By Adeline
It all started with mom paying my tuition
I knew before starting school at MIT that I wanted to study math. My mom had other ideas since she was paying for my tuition and thought a math degree meant an express ticket to the unemployment line. As a compromise, I double majored in management science, which is how I discovered operations research. You ask, what is operations research? My mom didn’t know and still wasn’t sold, but gave up on trying to steer me in another direction. If you have only one take away from “what is operations research”, it’s that scheduling is one of my favorite topics.
Helping kids achieve success at their own pace
While working in consulting, I had the opportunity to help a set of NYC public schools build tools to solve their challenging scheduling problems. It wasn’t until much later, when I became a parent, that I fully understood and appreciated what the school system was trying to offer students - individualized education plans (IEPs). Working with school principals, we built course schedules to ensure struggling students were able to take specific courses to catch up and students who were performing above-grade level were able to continue to forge ahead at their own pace.
Easier said than done.....
Sounds simple, but it certainly wasn’t. Science labs were often two consecutive periods, real estate was limited so gyms and cafeterias were often shared amongst two or more schools, and with staggered schedules, teachers were limited to a certain length day. What took weeks for a principal to accomplish by hand now took minutes and multiple working schedules could be reviewed to then determine which one made the most sense to use.
When everyone wins
Years later, I ended up working in the car service industry, which had a reputation for having a toxic work environment (that I discovered after joining). Dispatchers were told when to show up for work with little to no input into their schedule, and they were micromanaged and blamed for anything that went wrong. Drivers felt the effects of this and in turn would blow off rides and strand customers when they got into arguments with dispatch. This trickled over to customer service, who had to deal with irate customers, which was particularly difficult when they were so tired from switching between overnight and day shifts each week.
“You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.” --The Rolling Stones
Optimally designing work schedules helped transform the culture and drove increased employee, driver, and customer satisfaction. The employees felt like the company cared and their needs were met. The single mother was able to work while her child was at school. The full-time student was able to work weekends, the part-time student was able to work evenings. We were able to cross-train and leverage workers in Europe to eliminate overnight shifts in dispatch. Night owls who liked consistent schedules took over night shifts, reducing the need to schedule others with a mix of day and night shifts in the same week. The sunny disposition became contagious - the drivers were much happier too and on-time rates soared, resulting in a 93% net promoter score amongst happy customers.
Here we are today
This is why we decided to start Innovative Optimizations. We don’t want to build tools that are basic. We want to build tools that can basically solve all your complex business challenges. Our goal is to increase both productivity and employee satisfaction because they go hand in hand. We want you to hire single mothers, students, the superstar worker who can only get to work when public transportation is running, and everyone in between. We believe a diverse workforce makes for a great workforce. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too.