RFID and staffing efficiencies

One of the main reasons for the popularity of RFID in libraries, as we have seen, has been the popularity of the self-service systems it can provide, resulting in high levels of take-up by the public, and the consequent freeing of staff from routine counter procedures.

As staffing tends to account for the largest single element of most libraries’ expenditure, this understandably leads to questions about whether financial savings can be made as a result of this reduction in workload. Different library services have responded to these questions in different ways, reflecting their circumstances and the underlying aims of their business cases. Nevertheless, this topic is usually at the heart of most RFID deployments, with some library services taking 100% of the savings available to them to meet budgetary pressures or efficiency drives, others retaining all the staff time freed and using it for other purposes, or a combination of the two, offering an improvement to the customer but still saving money.

For example, in the UK the approach taken by Essex County Council's Libraries Department when building its business case to roll out RFID beyond its existing four sites was to identify the levels of saving that could be made in staff time, and then show how these could be used to achieve a mix of outcomes. It demonstrated how it could:

How much work is being saved?

However, although staff savings may be the key to many libraries’ business cases, identification of the precise amount of staff time to be saved in each case is not always easy, suppliers’ ready reckoners notwithstanding. Most libraries will have staffing schedules that they can analyse, and these will certainly be of help, but those library services that use a detailed staffing formula, based on observation by experienced work study practitioners, will be in a particularly good position to estimate the amount of staff time currently devoted to counter duties.