Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin

How to Make a Schedule for Employees the Best Way

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.

Join Our Small Business Community

Get the latest news, resources and tips to help you and your small business succeed.

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 them.

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 booking 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!

Join Our Small Business Community

Get the latest news, resources and tips to help you and your small business succeed.

RECENT POST