Do you find it challenging to manage your team’s schedule? There are many factors to consider with rostering and schedules. Follow these eight tips for successful and easy management.
1. Identify which work schedules you need to use
There are many types of work schedules used by organisations depending on the circumstances and needs of your business, and the structure of your workforce. The most common examples are:
- ●Full time
The most common arrangement where employees are required to work for at least 40 hours per week. The total number of hours is usually divided across multiple days. This arrangement is stable but recording overtime is difficult.
- ●Part time
Part time employees work fewer hours than a full-time employee. However, the hours can vary from 1 hour to 39 hours per week. The hours may also be inconsistent, which offers flexibility to employer and employee. Scheduling in this arrangement is dependent on the importance of the employee’s position and is often used in the hospitality industry
- ●Flexible
A flexible schedule is most preferred by employees, allowing for flexible work policies and enabling employees to meet the expectations of work on a schedule that matches their personal commitments. An employer might specify a minimum number of set hours, but leave remaining hours as flexible. This can work for shift work where employees can swap shifts with others as needed.
- ●Fixed
This arrangement is a regular, defined and predictable number of hours per week following a set start and finish time. As the hours are clearly defined, it is a stable situation for employer and employee.
- ●Rotating
This arrangement sets shifts on a schedule where employees may work a day or night shift on a rotating basis. The rotation may occur on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Common in retail or manufacturing companies which operate more than 10 hours per day, or use part-time or flexible employees. Rotating shifts allow more flexibility, but can be physically and mentally tiring transitioning from day to night work, and vice versa.
2. Planning is key
Once the most appropriate work schedule has been selected, three other key concerns should be considered:
- ●Demand
Customer demand for your products or services may determine the number of employees requires to produce the required output. Demand may change on a daily, weekly or seasonal basis, impacting your scheduling arrangement.
- ●Skills and experience required
Consider the skills and experience required to meet the demand and output. Certain employees will possess the correct skills and thus a specific combination of employee skill sets may be required.
- ●Legislation
Legislative requirements for employer and employee relationships exist at local, state and federal level. These may include break times, time clocks, and hour limits. Scheduling and planning employee hours must adhere to legislation.
3. Know your team
Each team member plays a key role in your business success. Knowing your team allows the most effective use of their skills and experience. Further, personality, strengths, weaknesses and background may assist in planning for specific demands or new products and services.
Maintaining a spreadsheet of information about your employees may assist for future planning. Information to include:
- Name
- Skills
- Certifications
- Employment status
- Overtime restrictions
- Personality type
- Personal commitments
- Other useful notes
This information helps with flexible work arrangements, changing demand, launching new products or services and industry changes. Further, the balance of skills, experience and relationships on shifts may influence the output and quality of work.
4. Write a scheduling policy
Create a policy that details your planning, expectations, and requirements. Specify how you will manage schedule requests, shift swaps, overtimes, and holidays. Making the policy available to employees is essential to streamlining the scheduling component of your business.
5. Communicate, communicate, communicate
Communication is vital when implementing changes to scheduling for your business. After writing a policy, inform your team, mention it during hiring, include it in the employee handbook, and review it with employees when changes are made. Organisation or team-wide communication tools may assist with updates or questions about the policy.
6. Choose and set up a scheduling system
There is a wide range of options for a scheduling system including spreadsheets, calendars, email, text messaging, and software. Whichever option you choose, let your team know and provide training and information about how to use it.
7. Be people centred
Employees are a significant asset, and the system should make scheduling easy for your business and employees. Keep in mind each employees work-life balance, and consider the relationships between those rostered on together. Being people centred means avoiding frustration in your employees. Find the right balance between flexibility and efficiency.
8. Aim to avoid mistakes
- ●Under scheduling
Make sure employees are given sufficient shifts to match their financial circumstances and needs. Full time and part time employees should be given shifts before casual or temporary employees.
Although mistakes can happen, your business can avoid most by considering these aspects:
- ●Over scheduling
Over scheduling employees who are not able to commit to extra hours can create issues. Consider the wellbeing of employees, balancing their shifts may be better for them long-term.
- ●Matching skill sets with employees
Remember to check the skill sets required for a shift against your rostered employees. This can lead to issues in output if the right mix is not working together.
- ●Create a strong system with flexibility
If your business offers its employees flexibility to swap shifts, or to work flexible hours, your system needs to allow for this by checking any business requirements before allowing the swap. Further, the system needs to have the latest updates on shift changes before a shift begins.
Conclusion
Managing schedules for teams and businesses is challenging, time-consuming and can result in problems. However, through careful planning, good systems, communication and knowledge, schedules can work well for both employer and employee.
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