Managing your staff isn’t an easy task, especially when you lack the right tools. Being an effective manager or owner-operator means you’re in a position to ensure your business runs smoothly, thus setting it up for future success
Do you know
one major way of ensuring your business runs smoothly? Creating an optimal work
schedule, so that you’re never under or overstaffed.
Scheduling employee shifts is important for any business manager. Effective scheduling will lower your operating costs, make your employees happy, and ensure swift operation.
Click here
to learn how to make a schedule for employees the easiest and best way.
1. Gather Your Information
Do you want
to make your employee scheduling easy and simple? You need to gather all the
information before you begin the process.
How do you
gather the information?
Start an
honest conversation with your employees. This conversation is meant to reveal
who is available on certain days and what time is best for them.
Who is
willing to work extra shifts or overtime? Are there employees you can count on
to cover call-outs or sick leave? Do the willing employees have any specific
day that they must be away?
After you gather this information, you’ll be in a position to know what your employees need and what they’re willing to do. You now have a list of staff and their preferred schedules but most important you’ve just shown your workers you’re keen to listen to their suggestions and that you care. When your
employees feel like you’re a caring employer, their commitment is likely to
increase.
2. Compare and Contrast
Before you
create a new schedule for your employees, check out your current and past
schedules to establish what works and what doesn’t.
Use your past month’s schedule in comparing employee engagement and absenteeism against your productivity and sales log. Do you find any overlap? Is their drop in productivity on specific shifts?
A drop in productivity on specific shifts may indicate that the employee is less happy working on those shifts. If so,
consider adjusting their schedules to something that will make them happier.
You can also discuss this matter with your staff members.
Show the employees the logs to aid put issues into perspective, and then ask them if working on another shift will be better for them. This will
reinforce your effort in the above step, showing your employees you’re willing
to make things better for them. This is a plus to employee engagement.
3. Time for New Templates
After
gathering all the information needed and making necessary adjustments, it’s now
time to create new templates.
Why new
templates? They will make scheduling smooth and fast in the future.
You should create excellent templates so that it becomes easy to delegate scheduling duties to a trusted employee if need be since all critical information will already be included. Creating
excellent templates leads to fewer mistakes, better engagement, and happier
employees.
Your
template must meet your unique business needs and for best results, go for a
digital scheduling solution.
4. You Need a Backup Plan
One critical
thing that you shouldn’t forget is a backup plan. One call-out in the middle of
a busy day is stressful for staff already on duty, stressful for you while you
struggle to find a replacement, and annoying to the employees that you’ll have
to call asking if they’re available.
To boost
productivity, employee engagement, and efficiency, you’ll need a backup plan in
place before emergencies and the call outs.
It’s easy to
contact employees who already know their names are in the backup plan.
5. Find the Most Efficient Way to Carry Out Your
Scheduling Duty
Do you know
the right tools for scheduling duties? Do you want to go for functional or most
efficient tools?
Paper sheets and charts are considered functional tools. They are prone to damage and loss, and quite cumbersome. If you go for paper logbooks, it means that your employees will have to get to the office in order to view it.
With this
type of tool, it’s possible for some staff to miss changes made on the
scheduling sheet since many don’t bother to check it on a daily basis. This
type of schedule is likely to reduce employee engagement since it doesn’t
provide a smooth and simple way for staff to check the schedule.
So, what’s
the most efficient way to carry out your scheduling duty?
Go for
digital solutions such as staff scheduling software. With the right scheduling
software, your staff can easily access the roster from any Internet-enabled
device.
This digital
roster encourages employee engagement as they can make requests, send notes,
and check up the roaster anytime, anywhere. Be sure to learn
more about
scheduling software.
6. Observe Labor Laws
One of the challenges of scheduling employees is ensuring you observe all the labor rules. What happens
if you breach labor laws? You’ll end facing expensive penalties and the
reputation of your company will also be at risk.
Such a
breach sends a message to your staff that you don’t care about their time,
health and needs. It’s a perfect way to kill your employees’ morale and lower
their engagement.
How do you
make sure you don’t breach labor rules?
There are some scheduling apps that have labor rules built-in, and they send you alerts when a specific scheduling decision breaches any of the rules. Such an app
will save you time in that you don’t have to check out labor laws, or research
about penalties.
How to Make a Schedule for Employees Simplified
As you learn
the hacks and tips on how to make a schedule for employees, remember your goal
is to save time, save money, boost profits, and improve employee engagement.
Scheduling should also provide you with an opportunity to show your employees
that you care about them. Once your employees are happier, they’ll be more
productive and profits will start flowing!
