The Complexities of Building a Rotating Employee Schedule

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Building a rotating employee schedule can often be a demoralizing task for managers, supervisors, and workforce schedulers. Employee scheduling can force schedulers to spend hours and hours trying to decide on the number of employees the business needs on a particular time.

Also, finding the right shifts is another story. How would the scheduler know how to divide the business hours into different shifts? For instance, in a hotel that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, how would the scheduler know to assign 8-hour, 10-hour, or 12-hour shifts? A rotating employee schedule, however more complex, is more functional than fixed shift schedule.

What is a rotating employee schedule?

A rotating employee schedule is one in which employees take turns working different shifts. This can be helpful for companies that want to give their employees a chance to experience working different shifts, or for employees who want to try out working different shifts. A rotating employee schedule can also help to ensure that employees have enough time off. If you are in the business of hotel, restaurant, or retail you know that there are times when the business has more guests, customers, or shoppers. During these times, you need more people to handle more work.

For instance, if you own a restaurant, you know that Sundays and Saturdays are more crowded. Also, lunch and dinners are the busiest times in a week day. With a rotating employee schedule, no workers are required to work on these busy times all by themselves. A rotating schedule often means fairness to the workers. But for the scheduler, it’s often a big headache.

Why is creating a rotating schedule so difficult?

For employee schedulers, a rotating employee schedule means two to four hours of gruesome critical thinking. Not only does the scheduler need to think of the business’s needs but she also needs to take into consideration requests for leave, shift swaps, and availability.

Sometimes, he also needs to know the background of employees to consider them for the shift.

Is there a way to simplify scheduling?

Yes! A useful tool has been designed to provide assistance to employee schedulers, managers, and supervisors in formulating an effective rotating employee schedule for your workers.

Employee scheduling software makes scheduling easier and faster, building a rotating employee schedule with just a few clicks of the mouse. Conveniently enter your employees preferred schedule, swap, and leave requests. Also, schedule priorities and easily print the schedule or email it to your workers in advance. With employee scheduling software, building flexible staff schedules is easy.

TimeForge can save you time and money. It’s more than employee schedules, it’s a full-featured labor management package that works the way you need it to. Sign up for a free trial today!

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