Top 7 Scheduling Tips for Managers

Scheduling shifts can be areal pain sometimes. There are a few things to consider when planning your shifts in advance, like your business needs, your employees’ preferences, and skills, and also you need a back-up plan in case of emergency. Continue reading for more information.

Know your business’s needs

There are various things that have to be considered before you start making schedules, and they surely don’t make the job any easier. One of the most important key factors that will influence how you assign shifts to your employees is, in fact, the business itself. Depending on what kind of business you run and when you have most traffic, you may need more staff at certain hours or days. Check historical sales data in your POS to know when you have most customers. There are businesses that are the busiest in the mornings, like coffee shops, bakeries, etc., and then there are businesses that are the busiest in the evenings, like restaurants and bars. Before making any final decisions, make sure you are adequately staffed both in quiet and busy shifts.

Know your team’s needs

Besides thinking about the business, you also have to consider the individual needs of your staff. You won’t assign a night shift to a single mother of two, unless she explicitly requested. Being aware of your staff’s needs is a sure way of keeping them satisfied, but also this means that the schedule won’t be subject to constant changes. The easiest way would be to have your employees choose their preferred hours, even though that’s not always possible. If you see that multiple employees prefer one shift over the other, make sure that everyone gets and equal opportunity to work that shift.

Make the schedule easily-accessible

The most important point we would recommend is that you make the schedule easily-accessible for everyone. That way they won’t miss their shifts and you won’t have double bookings any more. There are plenty of smart job scheduling software in Australia. Your team will not only have easy access, but they will get to see any changes real-time. Also, automated scheduling generates the schedule for you, so you won’t have to do it every week.

Develop a communication system

If your staff cannot communicate with each other, you are in risk of facing emergencies that could easily be avoided. If an employee can’t make it in for work on time, or they can’t show up that day you’ll want others to be able to know about it, without you having to play messenger. You can do this via text messages, group chats, e-mails, or whatever platform you choose. This way everyone can notify each other of unexpected scheduling changes, and other things that go with it, like if a task was left unfinished, and the other shift has to cover for it.

Think about your employees’ skills

Ideally, you’ll have a strong team assigned for each shift. You know who your strongest and most skilled workers are, so think about evenly distributing them across shifts. However, even if you can’t afford to have the best workers in each shift, keep in mind that all employees have their strong and weak points. You can have somebody that is skilled, but if they can’t work with the rest of the team without fighting, then all their skills go right out the door. By scheduling strategically, you can ensure that you have the best possible team that will get the jo done for each shift, even if it’s consisted of both skillful and weaker employees. And always consider scheduling experienced workers with inexperienced, that way they both teach them the job, and they can cover for them is something goes wrong.

Allow your employees to request changes

We all know that life can happen, and things may come up that require your employees to either change shifts or change shift hours. You, as a good employer, have to be aware that people have personal lives, just like you, and that sometimes your schedule will have to be altered in emergency situations. The communication system you set up is perfect for these situations. This doesn’t mean that your staff will be able to pick a choose when they want to come to work, but it means that they can effectively communicate their needs, and let you prepare for the new situation. One solution would be to have a team with flexible schedules, so you can move them around when needed.

Create a list of employees who want extra shifts

Now that we’ve mentioned employees with flexible shifts, you ought to think about employee availability, as well. There are some employees that would like to take on extra shifts a week, so why not accommodate them? And there may be employees that would like split shifts, or even working four ten-hour-work days. You should make that work to your advantage when creating a schedule. Have a list of employees that want to take on extra work, or that have flexible hours and call them in case of schedule changes.

Regular shift planning is really difficult when you overlook the most important things – like your employees’ needs and skills and the nature of your business. Think carefully about when you’re the busiest, and when you need most staff. With our advice you’ll handle schedule-making like a pro.