You’re hunched over your desk, wasting time on a spreadsheet to plan next month’s shifts instead of handling these serious management issues.

• It sounds like a disconnected mess, but it’s not.

• The core of it is the shift planner.

• Poorly planned shifts are responsible for a lot of your labor cost problems. Low productivity, bad attitudes, and inconsistent employee reliability are all connected.

• A shift plan is often dismissed as nothing more than a chore, but in reality, it could turn that whole stressful script on its head.

Learn How Shift Planner Can Help You and How to Use It: 

• Shift Planner: what it Really is
• The benefits
• Here’s how to get started.
• Tools for shift planning that work best

Shift Planner: What Is It?

• A shift plan is used in industries that rely on shift work, such as hospitality, healthcare, and service. It involves scheduling out your employees to cover the work they need to do.

• From handwritten paper schedules to spreadsheets to automated apps, Shift Planner has evolved over time.

• Obviously, that’s the overview.

• It comes down to the fact, however, that there are lots of moving parts. You have to balance employee time off, overtime, vacation requests, and customer demands. Ideally, a shift planner means you have a system that integrates all of these concerns by caring about the individual employee while managing what each shift requires.

• Shift planners should be more than just filling out a chart and assigning open shifts to random employees. It should be about matching employees with shifts that are ideal for both.

• Getting your shift planner right is one of the most basic and effective ways to make your business more competitive.

Shift Planner Benefits:

When done correctly, shift planning is more than adding names to a chart. It’s planning, not indifference.

Keeping Labor Costs Under Control:

Understaffing and overstaffing are two costly errors caused by poorly planned shifts.

• An understaffed shift will result in overtime expenses and dissatisfied customers. You really appreciate a well-planned schedule when you manage labor costs (and deal with overtime issues).

• If you load a shift with too many workers, you’re paying for labor you don’t need.

It is clear that understaffing or overstaffing can lead to visible problems, but it can also lead to employee turnover and dissatisfaction. When employees are overworked, or if there are too many on a shift and some don’t have to work as much, internal problems fester.

Productivity Increased:

• Increasing employee productivity is one of the top benefits of the shift planner.

• When you have enough workers with the right skills, you have a productive team. However, that is not it.

• We’ll discuss in a bit how workers who want to work the shifts they’ve been assigned are more productive. Their voice matters, and they feel that they have control over their lives, and you’ve heard what shifts they’d like to work. There is a sense of ownership and responsibility when it comes to their work.

• Assigning shifts without considering preferences, skills, work-life balance, or other factors is the opposite of this.

Flexibility is Increased:

Shift planner tools can help you inject some flexibility into your business, which is essential in these unpredictable and ever-changing times. You may be able to adjust your shifts quickly based on fluctuating demand, depending on how you choose to plan shifts.

Shift Planner: How to Get Started

Businesses and industries have unique challenges, so everyone will plan shifts differently. Nonetheless, when it comes to scheduling your employees, there is a basic path to success for all.

1. Take a Look at Your Labor Data:

Get a sense of customer demand and other trends in your current workforce by reviewing your labor data.

You’re looking for:

• Demand from customers (daily, weekly, and seasonally). High demand means more employees on shift.
• Those shifts with the most no-shows or swaps are employees’ preferred (or despised) shifts.
• You may need qualified individuals of a particular nature for each shift, based on their skill sets.
• It might not be obvious from attendance or sales records, but don’t worry, we’ll get to that next.

2. Consider the Shift Preferences of Your Employees:

Even the best data can’t reveal what your employees know. They’re on the floor, and their input is valuable.

Shifts they don’t like and why they don’t like them are well known to them. You might be able to tell if there is a problem with a shift, whether it is how it is defined during the day (or night) or how well it is staffed. Despite getting your numbers right based on data, you might not have noticed that you’re either understaffing or overstaffing.

Find out what makes your employees happy (and what irks them), and plan your shifts accordingly. Shift planning isn’t just about meeting customer demand; it’s also about reducing turnover and increasing productivity.

3. Plan Your Shifts:

Then, you can structure your shifts based on customer demands and employee preferences. If you already have a shift structure in place, you can use that information to adjust it.

Each industry has its own characteristics. Some run 24/7, while others may only require a morning and afternoon shift for two weeks. There are several ways to approach shifts, including multi-day shifts (e.g., three on, four off), overnight shifts, split shifts, swing shifts, and overlaps.

4. Changes in Shifts Should Be Accommodated:

It doesn’t matter how well you plan your shifts; your employees will always need adjustments. From pre-planned time-off requests to emergency call-outs, you must be prepared for shift changes. Manually creating a work schedule in a spreadsheet or on paper can be a headache, so be prepared.

If you need some backups for shifts, you can always call in a list of employees. For planned changes, this is fine, but not ideal for last-minute changes. It’s a good idea to use a scheduling app like When I Work to allow your employees to swap shifts right within the schedule. By allowing your employees to swap or drop shifts, other employees can volunteer to take those shifts. This gives your workers a voice over their schedule, leading to happier employees.

5. Adapt to Fluctuating Demand:

When you’re running a business, there is only one constant: change. Especially when you’re dealing with customer demand. It can be tricky to plan shifts to reflect fluctuating demand, but it’s important to keep in mind. You don’t want to be consistently understaffed or overstaffed.

Make sure your shift planner considers the times when demand fluctuates most. You want to make sure you have the data and insights you need to manage these times appropriately. To ensure that you have the right contingencies in place, you need a flexible shift planning system that allows you to make quick changes.

6. Choosing the Right Shift Planning Tool:

You’re now ready to choose the tools you’ll use to plan shifts.

• Last but not least, it’s best to start with data, employee input, and structure, and then decide on the tool that suits you (so you don’t serve the tool).

• We’ll talk about the best software for this purpose in our next section. You’ll need a method or tool that covers everything so far.