Creating an effective and consistent employee schedule is a challenging task, irrespective of the industry you belong to. An optimal employee scheduling paves the way for hassle-free business operations and enables a smooth transition from one shift to another. In addition, assigning work schedules with maximum efficiency will improve the work structure of your organization in the long run.
Employee scheduling is critical to a successful business, whether a start-up or a well-established enterprise. When you do the job correctly, it will significantly improve employee engagement, drive customer satisfaction, and even increase overall productivity.
What Is The Employee Scheduling Process?
Employee scheduling is when an employee is expected or instructed to be on the job and start working. The employer will determine a specific set of days or hours per week. Based on the type of organization and the job description, the employee scheduling’s target could vary daily, weekly, or even seasonal.
Steps To Master Employee Scheduling In Your Office
According to a recent survey organized by Gallup, it is reported that around 38% of workers feel their companies are understaffed, and 52% say that it has the right number of employees. In comparison, 8% say they are overstaffed. Finding the right staffing balance by implementing the perfect employee scheduling process is feasible and aids in improving your sales and productivity.
Not sure how to effectively plan the employee scheduling in your office? To make things run more smoothly, here we have compiled the best practices you can adapt to master the employee scheduling for your business.
- Evaluate the levels and availability of staffing:
Identifying and evaluating your staffing availability and financial resources is the first step in creating perfect scheduling for your business. An employee’s availability can change from one week to another, which means a definite schedule is tedious to implement.
Hence it is extremely important to check in with the availability of the employees periodically. In this way, you can avoid downsides in employee scheduling like paying overtime or hiring contractors for staff support, resulting in additional costs.
- Know the needs of your business:
To effectively manage your employee scheduling, you should know the needs of your business first. It will help you to find the hours, days, and months that fit your business and allows you to ensure coverage. These factors influence your build schedule and may differ based on industry type.
For instance, if you are from the healthcare industry, you have to plan a work schedule with equal employees covering the day and night shifts to meet the large number of out-patients and be readily available to meet any emergencies round-the-clock.
- Be flexible:
Flexibility is the key part of efficient employee scheduling that helps increase employee engagement rate. According to the shift project conducted by Harvard University, it is reported that around 80% of workers have minimal or no input in their schedules and 69% of those are instructed to keep their schedules available to work whenever needed by the employers.
Such a lack of flexibility can affect employee satisfaction with the company. Building flexible employee scheduling will give more control to the workers on their schedule, eventually improving workplace satisfaction and creating the best employees for the long term.
- Remain compliant with rules and regulations:
Before you plan your employee scheduling step, ensure you know the laws and regulations covering breaks, overtime scheduling, overtime pay, and holidays. For instance, in some federal or state laws, the company has to pay the employees double pay if they are assigned more than the normal working hours of a day.
In other conditions, certain laws imply that the employer has to give prior notice to the employees regarding the excess expected working hours, including shift patterns, breaks, and more detailed employee scheduling records. The best employee scheduling software will help you remain compliant to focus on carving the perfect plan for your company and employees.
- Develop a room for effective communication:
Your team will put their best if you have an effective employee scheduling system for communication with each other. As a healthy practice, you can collect your team’s shift preferences in advance while keeping up the transparency of their availability. This will give you a better idea about the flexible nature of employees.
For instance, if one of your employees is called in sick, you may want another person to complete certain tasks. Communicating and gathering such information from employees will greatly contribute to a positive work environment.
- Publish the employee schedule in advance:
Posting the employee scheduling early will allow the employees to plan for the work by making accommodations or requesting to switch shifts if needed. Experts state that employees should release the schedule, at least a week before the actual work day to plan accordingly.
Furthermore, making the work schedule accessible in advance will reduce the chances of missed shifts or unfilled gaps in the business operations since you will have more room and time to make adjustments.
Wrapping Up
In the modern employment arena, it is clear that employee scheduling can positively impact the organization’s budgetary decisions and boost quality, productivity, and, ultimately, profitability. Despite being a daunting job, employee scheduling lays a solid foundation for building a positive and productive workspace in your office.
Managing employee scheduling is a critical part of contemporary workplace planning. WorkInSync’s employee scheduling software ensures streamlining of the process, making it more efficient and effective. With our advanced software, you can build the employee schedule in minutes, whilst managing their time, attendance, availability, and shift trade requisitions, eventually saving precious hours and reducing the cost of labor.
Transform your employee scheduling process with WorkInSync’s employee scheduling system, and keep the workspace safe and compliant.
