Managers wear many hats in a business, but perhaps their most important role is scheduling staff. After all, no work would ever get completed without workers. Proper employee scheduling creates order and adds flow to your business as a whole. If a manager delivers a poor schedule, the risks are clear in the company’s revenue generation, operations, employee satisfaction and retention, and the image of the company is impacted.
A business owner must give adequate attention to the schedules of their valued employees. We’ve compiled 5 tips to ease the complexity of employee scheduling.
1. Employees should easily access their schedule. Prevent confusion and misunderstandings by keeping employee scheduling simple, clear and easily accessible. Opt to use an employee scheduling software, the easiest app to use is Connecteam’s employee scheduling app. Apart from being super easy to use, Connecteam’s interface is set up so simply that you don’t even need to train your employees on how to use the app. Once a schedule has been confirmed or adjusted, all relevant employees will receive a text message notification thereby eliminating the risk of them not having seen the change or forgetting once it’s done.
2. Know your staff. When setting up your employee’s schedule, consider their needs and wants. It’s not a necessity but it will create an enjoyable workplace. By knowing if you have a majority of college students, parents who need to take care of their children, or those who live a considerable distance away, you can create a schedule that works for everyone. Most importantly, your employees will be happier.
3. Know your company. You can’t create a fluid employee schedule if you don’t understand your company. Understand what hours and days you’re most busy and schedule your employees appropriately in correlation. Also, remember that you don’t need every employee working but rather know who and how many employees are needed to keep things running smoothly.
4. Easy scheduling changes. Your employees shouldn’t jump through hoops to request a schedule change. You want your employees to work and not be bombarded with accusations of schedule abuse.
Have a specific procedure in place to avoid confusion. An employee handbook can help as it outlines who needs to be contacted, how much notice they need to give, and the consequences of what will happen if they don’t comply. Use one specific program that all employees have to use when requesting a schedule change. Connecteam is an easy scheduling app where you can view by an employee or by job to dispatch jobs and change the schedule, plus employees receive a text message to confirm the change.
As long as your employees know the procedure and that they won’t be punished for a schedule change request, the workflow won’t suffer.
5. Additional shift options. Quickly and easily find employees who are interested in taking on additional shifts. Employees have their own personal lives outside of work, and it’s important to acknowledge that not all employees can be treated the same in this sense.
Some employees might be willing to pick up more hours. The last thing you want is to have someone working who really don’t want to be there. That’ll only create a negative atmosphere for the company, other employees, and your clients.
You might have more flexible employees available, those who are able to take on more shifts as they have a more flexible calendar. However, also acknowledge that you might have employees who are willing to take on more shifts but their calendar isn’t as free.
Lastly, know exactly who is qualified to take on more shifts. If you work in retail, you might need a shift covered for a cashier but if the only person available is a driver with no experience manning a cash register, that is obviously not going to work.
Keep all of this information in an organized spreadsheet that you can refer to as needed. The Connecteam app makes it super simple to ask for a shift to be covered and to see who is available that is qualified.
Scheduling problems will only cause employees to be unhappy and that will only lead to your clients being unhappy. As a business, you don’t want to be confronted with either scenario. Maintain good relations with employees. When it comes to scheduling, be attentive to your employees’ needs, create an open dialogue and have a clear procedure in place, all of this is critical to creating an enjoyable work environment. The addition of an online scheduling software will ease the burden that comes with scheduling problems.
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