The Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business (“Center”) invites you to the next talk in our Business, Environment, and Society Speaker Series!

Scheller College assistant professor and HBR-published author Qiuping Yu will give a talk entitled “What Are the Economic and Social Impacts of Algorithm-Driven Scheduling Practices?” Many companies—especially those in the service, retail, and manufacturing sectors—often practice “just-in-time” scheduling, which entails managers scheduling their employees “on the fly” based on immediate workplace needs. Just-in-time scheduling practices have become increasingly prevalent with the introduction of advanced software that calculates the appropriate number of shifts for a specific time period. One benefit of just-in-time scheduling is that it may be effective in reducing the employer’s cost of labor. However, these practices have downsides as well. The practices have the potential to create highly unpredictable schedules for workers, thereby causing a negative impact on quality of life; as a result, employee productivity may decrease.

Discussion topics related to Yu’s research on algorithm-based scheduling practices will include:

• What are the social and economic impacts of just-in-time scheduling?
• When scheduling their employees, how can companies balance economic success with social performance goals?
• What role does minimum wage play in a company’s scheduling practices?

Yu will share her research, which was the subject of a recent HBR article; engage in a Q&A with Center Faculty Director Beril Toktay and Center-affiliated faculty member Manpreet Hora; and take questions from the audience. Yu’s work has strong implications for individuals whose work addresses the intersection of service operations and social performance. You won’t want to miss the opportunity to learn more about this fascinating topic!

Speaker Bio:

Qiuping Yu is assistant professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Her broad research interests lie in the areas of service operations. Recently, she has studied how operational capacity decisions (e.g., staffing and scheduling) shape customer and worker behavior in industries such as call centers, restaurants, and ride-sharing platforms. Her research has been published in journals such as Management Science. Yu earned her Ph.D. in Operations Research and M.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.

This is a Scheller College Charge app afilliated event.

RSVP to Attend 

Due to current distance-learning circumstances, this event will be hosted virtually. The virtual platform will be BlueJeans. Please see below for instructions to download this software and join the meeting.

• Instructions for BlueJeans on a Macbook
• Instructions to join BlueJeans

The Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business was founded in 2013 to act as a catalyst and connector, bringing together students, research faculty, companies, and entrepreneurs to create an environment where business-driven solutions to sustainability challenges can take shape and thrive. In all, Scheller provides students unparalleled breadth in environmental sustainability, ethics, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and values-based leadership.