Whether you are managing a small or a large team, one of the most difficult tasks can be employee scheduling. Managing multiple individual preferences, availability and business demands can be complex. The good news is that there are simple ways to make overhauling employee scheduling easy and quick. If your business is in need of an overhaul when it comes to employee scheduling, then use this simple checklist.
Take it digital
Instead of trying to manage the multiple complicated facets of employee scheduling in an offline and paper-based system, try taking your scheduling digital. There are many great applications available today that can do the heavy lifting for you. Depending on your needs, visit Deputy.com for their timesheet app to see how many industries are handing the reins over to a reliable system. Timesheet and scheduling apps can manage multiple variabilities at the same time to make those annoying errors post-scheduling a thing of the past.
A great benefit of these types of apps is that they are capable of tracking all employees, opening hours, and can even provide feedback to help optimise your scheduling. If you have ever faced the difficulty of scheduling the right employees together, then a scheduling app could be the solution you need. Creating optimised schedules in an app means you can clearly see the skill mix of your schedule as well as the balance of hours. Digitising your employee scheduling should be on the top of your overhaul checklist.
Mapping it out
A great way to overhaul your employee scheduling and make a difference in your business at the same time is to map scheduling against sales data. It is a very old school approach to schedule employees based on instinct or gut feel. There is a plethora of business data available, thanks to the digital revolution. Mobilising that data across your business should involve employee scheduling. Instead of scheduling multiple employees on every shift, use the sales data to inform when you actually need them.
If you notice recurring lulls in particular parts of the day, then perhaps consider downsizing the workforce at those times. Overhauling employee scheduling in this way means a departure from traditional scheduled time blocks, but can improve the output of your business in meaningful ways. Unproductive hours will see a real decrease and allow you to serve more customers during peak times, offering a better experience at the same time.
Seek feedback
A lot of businesses identify very early on which employees who are capable of managing their own time and getting the most out of any shift. On the flip side, there are those employees who perhaps need more guidance. Identifying these different profiles can be tough, but if you can pair the two together it can make a real difference to upskilling your workforce. A great way to obtain this kind of mix and overhaul your scheduling at the same time is to use customer feedback.
By checking on the time and sentiment of your feedback you can then compare this to your schedule to identify any lows in feedback and then overlay with particular staff mixes. By using this kind of data you can experiment with scheduling and skill mixes to drive real improvement in your business. Through this approach, you can begin to develop your workforce with the end goal of having a team full of capable and driven employees across all shifts.
Managing staff expectations and preferences, as well as business needs, can mean employee scheduling is a gruelling task. Making meaningful changes to your employee scheduling is not only possible but easy. If you need to overhaul your employee scheduling, consider using this simple checklist to create beneficial changes for your business.