To begin, what is a Schedule?
Schedules are designed to aid businesses to run as efficiently as possible; ensuring they have the right amount of experienced staff to willingly align with the businesses' goals and objectives. There are a variety of work schedules and they vary on the type of industry of which you are in as well as the season you’re entering. It’s common that if your business operates over a certain length of time, this is when you focus on shift based scheduling. Not to worry, we will be looking more into the different types of scheduling further into this guide.
How long should it take to me to create the weekly work schedule?
Well if you’re here, I’m thinking it is taking you longer than it should! Other business tasks often get in the way and with payroll or HR tasks to be done, putting together the weekly schedule is the last thing you want to do. I don’t blame you, with time-off requests, staff falling sick and employees not showing up, it can all start to get a little messy! Ugh. But don’t worry we are here to help. TIP: Test if you’re spending too long creating schedules - for an entire week, track the time you spend building and managing your team schedule; also factor in changes that have to be made once published, it all uses up valuable time.
Why is Scheduling Important?
Scheduling properly enables you to make more informed business decisions knowing that you are fully compliant with any regulatory, legal, or contractual obligations. You can gain complete control over all your scheduling requirements; shift patterns, ad-hoc shifts, or even volume-based scheduling. Let's explore why:
1. Reduce time waste
Using a cumulative scheduling system, allows you to avoid wasting employees’ time by scheduling them when they are not required for that shift or are unavailable. You’ll be able to respond to any changes and shift swaps more easily and in a faster time, and you’ll always have insight to real time data.
2. Visibility
As your business grows, it becomes more difficult for managers to know who is on site and what responsibilities they are carrying out for that shift. Especially now, people may no longer be working in the same physical location, or they could be working remotely. Reduced visibility can affect productivity of employees, customer service and costs. You could be paying for people who are absent and incurring unnecessary overtime costs
3. Get real time data
Get those numbers working. Determine your labor costs through a labor budget tool and/or POS system integration and use past and projected sales to keep your costs under control. Analyze your footfall; have you noticed the previous three Wednesdays earnings are higher due to a reoccurring gathering? It is important to consider staffing up to cover these busier periods.
4. Schedule for the future with projected sales information
Know your business, down to the nitty gritty. As you accurately predict scheduling needs, your schedules get smarter. This minimizes scheduling errors, meaning you can increase engagement and strengthen morale. You may not realize it, but these factors do matter, consider the difference that a single-percent
Before you begin with your schedule, have a look at this checklist:
- Set out your budget for payroll.
- Ask all employees for their availability & shift preferences.
- Input all employees in your work scheduling platform.
- Select shift types for each employee.
- Assess the kinds of shifts you need coverage for.
- Communicate a shift-swapping policy.
- Once a schedule has been built once, use this as a weekly template to save time.
Getting the Balance Right
There are two aspects to employee scheduling
The key to saving money is making the routine of scheduling staff, and subsequently tweaking schedules, easy and intuitive. This helps ensure you and your managers get the visibility of what is going on in your business. This then leads to an understanding (the strategic), so you can make smart decisions on your schedule.
The trick is to deploy as few staff as possible, and as many as are necessary. It is quite a tough balancing act. Do labor patterns match sales patterns? It is worth taking time to identify the reasons why things go quiet. Businesses that do a lot of lunchtime takeaway business for office staff may, for example, find that things are quieter on a Friday, perhaps because customers leave early for the weekend, or go for a sit-down meal with colleagues?
Restaurants and retailers have always tried to control the cost of staffing, even more so in recent years. So it is not uncommon for our managers to be scheduling with a target number of hours and/or a target wage and salary base to consider. This can lead to a frustrating experience when scheduling as we constantly check if we have gone over budget, or ask what does each decision mean.
How to get the most out of your scheduling
Proactive Scheduling
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. As a business owner you should always be planning and looking forward when it comes to scheduling, a proactive approach means you can handle any issues that may suddenly arise for example; staff absenteeism, you want to manage problems in the most efficient and professional way.
Automated scheduling
Organizations who implement automated scheduling systems are more than twice as likely as organizations without automated scheduling to provide self-service access to employees. This is an important factor in improving employee engagement and also contributes to schedule accuracy. These organizations are also more than four times more likely to use dashboard tools that can share workforce management data with managers
Control labor spend with effective scheduling
Scheduling software makes it easier for you to build accurate schedules that ensure you have the right amount of staff available and can cover anticipated demand. That way, you can minimize having extra staff scheduled, stop being over reliant on contract workers, and decrease overtime pay which can be the reason your labor costs can be too high.
Measure schedule effectiveness to drive improvements
With the opportunity to pull Reports, it simplifies your scheduling process even more. You have the ability to review previous schedules, measure how effective they were and use this information to enhance the next schedule you create. You can also pinpoint areas where you overspent by examining available budgets versus actual report data. With the scheduled SPLH and Gross Labor costs features, it gives you even deeper insight into these costs as you build your schedule
5 benefits you will see with improved Scheduling
1. Time
No matter what type of business you’re in, labor scheduling can be a time-consuming, error-prone, and downright frustrating task. You need to match employee skill sets, availability, and preferences with fluctuating business demand in order to maximize productivity and minimize costs. Trying to schedule a workforce using spreadsheets and semi-automated systems too often results in less-than optimal performance, overstaffed shifts or undermanned rushes. Using a cloud based software to build, fill, manage, and measure best-fit schedules enable you to meet business goals, all without overspending labor budgets!
2. Better communication with staff
Poor staff scheduling can have major consequences for always-on operations, even if it doesn’t look like it on the surface. It would be worth implementing an ongoing formal process to review costs, compliance, and other key factors, especially for larger stakes. Publish and communicate the schedule with your employees so that everyone knows where and when to find it. Online scheduling solutions ensure everyone will have access to their schedules anytime and anywhere and they’ll be notified of any changes via the communication methods used.
3. Costs
Optimizing schedule costs can help to reduce your spend on overtime and ensure you always have the minimum staffing levels in place to meet forecasted demand. This limits overstaffing and contributes to operating within your budgeted labor costs. However, if peak hours aren’t taken into consideration, performance will be affected and customer demand won’t always be met
4. Performance & Productivity
Are all hands on deck at your busiest times? There should never be anyone taking their break or working in the office in the middle of service. At peak times, not only are staff on breaks limiting the service you provide to your customers, but they are increasing the pressure on the staff that are working.
5. Happy employees
As we always say, employees are the heart of every company! Treating them fairly and ensuring their happiness is vital to a business’s success. Having perks and benefits that your employees appreciate and are motivated by can contribute hugely to how hard they work and how they treat your customers. Making sure your employees are happy and giving them a great work environment will likely have a positive impact on employee retention.
