How to Make a Schedule for Employees

Do you know what is the cornerstone of your successful staff management? That is shift scheduling, no need to say! When your team has a strict order to follow, and an optimized schedule to understand when they need to start working and when they can be off, that creates a streamlined workflow which is essential for profitable and successful business. Yet, do you know how to create an employee schedule which will be effective, simple to comprehend, and flexible enough to cope with multiple contingencies? We have some ideas about it.

What Is a Work Schedule?

The first thing we have to comprehend is what the work schedule is. It is a graph or a table which is submitted by a manager or anyone who is in charge of assigning working hours, shifts, and days off for all the personnel working in your company, its department, or a certain establishment. This schedule provides CEOs with accurate information about who and when is in charge, who needs replacement, and how many hours each employee worked in a certain period.

Thus, with employee scheduling, an owner or a manager can solve a bunch of possible issues at once, including the following ones.

• Accounting routines with payroll and assigning bonuses or penalties.
• Control over task assignments and their performance.
• Control over the working hours of each worker and overworking monitoring.
• Management of possible emergencies like personnel’s absence, sick days, vacations, etc.
• Time and staff management as a whole.

You can be sure that even in terms of a small business with no more than a dozen employees, shift scheduling provides progressive improvements in the workflow. No need to say that it is a must for big companies, establishments working in the service sector, and manufacturers.

The Top 5 Widely Used Work Schedules

There are numerous methods on how to make a schedule for employees, yet, we picked up the top 5 with proven efficiency and ease of implementation.

• Dupont shift schedule

Dupont shift scheduling adheres to a standard 40-hour working week and provides quite a flexible shift assignment. It suits greatly for establishments with around-the-clock workflow i.e. it’s a perfect hospitality or medical staff schedule model.

The principle of Dupont’s model is to make a 12-hour shift schedule for 4 teams which rotate according to the following scheme: 4-night shifts, 3 days off, 3-day shifts, 1 day off, 3-night shifts, 3 days off, 4-day shifts, 1 day off. Then the circle repeats. That helps to maintain enough personnel in the field and not to overload each team. This model can be integrated into a police station or security scheduling software, as well as in healthcare institutions’ scheduling.

• 4-10 shift schedule

That’s what each weekend lover may appreciate. This employee scheduling suggests 4 working days and 3 weekends per week. At the same time, it provides 10-hour shifts. That can work greatly in contact center scheduling or in companies with 4 business days per week. Besides, you can use it in a floating mode when you have two teams to rotate them.

• Flexible schedules

These models are diverse and depend mostly on the company’s needs. A flexible work schedule has no strict fixed shifts, it can be different from a standard 40-hour week, and it is created by taking into account the peculiarities of your business. For example, it works tip-top in cleaning scheduling when you distribute assignments among your staff, and you do not control time but only the completion of tasks. The faster the worker does his assignment, the more time he saves. It can also be useful in project management where results are more important than working hours, or in creative industries like design, media, etc.

• Full-time

That’s what we imagine when we talk about classy office work. As usual, this model proposes 40 or 50 working hours per week with a fixed period for everyday shifts. In case when full-time employees work more than 40-50 hours, they get paid for overworking. This model is standard for offices but it also can work OK if implemented in scheduling software for restaurants or retail spots.

• Part-time

Part-time employee scheduling is opposite to full-time and refers to shortened shifts of workers. For example, it can be used on weekdays when the company needs someone to be in charge while full-time employees are absent. This model can also be used to enforce a team occasionally on hot periods, i.e., during seasonal sales, Black Fridays, etc.

How to Choose the Ideal Work Schedule for Your Employees

So, when you have a scope of work schedule types, which one may suit you the best? Just consider the following features to make a perfect match.

• The type of your business is a cornerstone. For office work, full-time suits the most while a restaurant sometimes requires extended shifts and several teams to work in it.
• Consider how many hours your employees have to work per week.
• Set clear goals: what do you want from them? Do you need to maintain office workflow or do you have some assignments to be done with no time limits? Do you need your staff to be always present at their working places during business hours or they can work flexibly?
• Evaluate how you can provide employee scheduling technically. Do you intend to write it on paper or do you have special employee scheduling software (the last option is the best idea, especially, if it is a kind of Shifton)?

Based on these features, your work scheduling will be easy to create and maintain.

Why is work scheduling so important?

Making a brief conclusion about the importance of shift scheduling. It works properly and helps to reduce costs, manage time and staff, and provide a seamless workflow when it is chosen correctly. In any case, you need to get a good tool to develop schedules for your employees. The best idea is to automate it and make it accessible for all the staff. Thus, you can inform your employees about shifts and assignments, control their performance, and ease your accounting processes.