Tips for Taming Your Employee Scheduling

The schedule you make for your business is the starting point from which everything else happens. It impacts your profitability, the satisfaction of your customers, and the morale of your employees. Scheduling can be challenging, especially in service-related industries that have to juggle a mix of emergency and scheduled appointments. Fortunately, the nightmare that is your schedule can be tamed. A business management software program that fits the way you do business can be a tremendous help. Use this advice for simplifying your scheduling system.

Know How Your Employees Work

Understanding your staff will make it easier to manage your schedule. Consider things like which staff members have kids that need transportation to school and which ones have flexible schedules and a desire for extra hours. When you make reasonable scheduling adjustments to accommodate your employees’ needs and preferences, then you can greatly reduce the number of last minute scheduling changes that need to be made. When you hire an employee, review their availability in full, and have a standard system set up for employees to make requests for scheduling changes. Ideally, through the interview process, you can build a staff that has a combination of preferences for set schedules and preferences for flex scheduling.

Manage On-Call Work

In many service-related industries, being on-call for emergency customer needs is part of the business. However, on-call work has become a central issue in a national debate about scheduling abuse, so it’s more important than ever to handle on-call scheduling carefully. Be upfront about on-call hours during the hiring process and give a clear assessment of how many hours per week an employee may expect to be on-call. Consider hiring employees strictly for on-call work, when possible, or ask your employees who want more hours to take on additional on-call shifts. Be mindful of the impacts of on-call work for employees’ lives and incomes, so spread out the responsibilities as much as possible.

Rely on Business Management Software

Scheduling software is an essential part of successful management. Through your business management software, you can not only have a central location for you and your employees to view the schedule, but you can also analyze the efficiency of past schedules. This lets you make adjustments that improve your bottom line and the satisfaction of your employees.

Our business management software program was designed with service-related industries in mind, so you’ll find all of the tools you need to master the kind of scheduling that works for you. Learn more about our award-winning business software by visiting our website. You can also bookmark our blog to stay up to date on the latest advice for business owners.