How to make more effective shift plans in a tense personnel situation
Planning shifts is a very important activity within every organization. Making sure that the right people with the right skills are available is a key factor into the smooth running of the company. Imagine forgetting to schedule a receptionist at your doctor’s office or sufficient work force at your factory. Mistakes like this can have a great negative influence on your performance and staff happiness. Learn how to make more efficient shift plans with this article.
Use an online rostering program
Online rostering is the solution to all your scheduling problems. Programs such as Papershift, which can be accessed through the following link www.papershift.com/en/Rota can make scheduling a lot easier. Online rostering programs can be personalized according to the organization. The staff availability can be put into the system and absence can be registered easily. In this way, the needed hours can be divided fairly and equally among all the staff members. This greatly increases staff happiness as it prevents frustration over scheduling conflict.
Make sure everyone knows their schedule
Another great feature of online rostering is that the schedule is available for everyone at all times. It can be accessed through an app or in a browser and sick leave or absence requests can quickly be sent through the system. It can then be approved or disapproved by the HR staff. Online rostering also saves the planner a lot of time, making more time available to spend on other activities. Furthermore, reports of absence, costs and hours can be created.
Having an online roster that is available to everyone, gives staff more security. They are always aware of the time that they have to work with which misunderstandings can be avoided. It also saves the company a lot of time, because they do not have to notify each employee when something in the schedule changes. The scheduling program will do that for you.
Keep peak hours and low hours in mind
When scheduling, it’s important to keep in mind the times that you need more or fewer employees. If you overschedule, employees accumulate expensive overtime, whereas understaffing can put pressure on your staff. Make sure that you know what your peak hours are and schedule enough people with the right skills. For restaurants, lunch and dinner time on weekends are usually the peak hours, while weekdays are less busy. Schedule costs efficiently by calculating how many people you need and make sure that there is enough management available.
Include your staff’s wishes in the schedule
Keeping the staff happy is one of the most important things that every company should do. Happy workers can increase morale and performance, which has a direct effect on your customer satisfaction. To keep your staff happy, scheduling should be adapted to their wishes. For example, employees with small children should be able to take their kids to school and pick them up. These kinds of factors should be kept in mind for effective scheduling. Besides, unhappy employees might call in sick more often and create scheduling conflicts.
Hire full-time and part-time employees
Hiring employees with different availability can help with effective scheduling. Full-time employees are always there, but might get sick or have a scheduling conflict. In this case, part-time workers can fill in the gaps. If there are multiple part-time workers available, there is always someone to take the hours that the full-time employee is absent. Not having the pressure of finding someone to take their hours can improve the happiness of full-time employees and making some extra hours can be beneficial for part-time employees.
