[...] Sophisticated scheduling software allows managers to plan their employees' schedules days or hours in advance, calibrating them to respond immediately to the smallest fluctuation in demand for labor. Here, it is the employees' time that is made flexible, not the firm's, and workers who want to maintain school commitments, family responsibilities, or even regular free time away from work must bend into shape. Flexible employees, who are ostensibly "free" from managerial pressure to conform to a standard working day, are in fact valued insofar as they assimilate to it.
a thought i had: scheduling software that was designed to prioritise the needs of workers while also keeping the store running ok. people could rank their shift choices, and the algo would optimise for their happiness if at all possible? and anyone who has to take shifts they dont want should be compensated more somehow (by collecctive agreement)