Tips to Plan your Shift Roster Successfully

ZenHR’s Roster Shifts feature provides an easy way to schedule and view the calendar of your shift-based employees. Based on the number of working hours and job duties of each of your roster employees, the type of roster scheduling software that you use has become an essential and productive business tool that helps keep operations running smoothly so you can reach your business goals.

Here are some tips to help you create a roster that serves your business goals:

Plan the roster before assigning employees to it

Managers need to start with allocating shifts and responsibilities based on the hourly rates of their employees and then they can proceed to add the employees with the needed skills. This can help you build the roster around the specific needs of your business.

Allow your staff to check their roster schedule

Preparing the roster schedule online gives employees the opportunity to view their schedules and plan their lives accordingly. This reduces the need to get in touch with HR or their managers.

Provide options to your roster employees

To avoid any time-related conflicts, managers should provide a shared schedule with different options to all employees. By providing some kind of flexibility, your people will feel more productive and more in control of their time, and as a result, they will be more committed to showing up promptly.

Assign the most skilled employees to the busiest shifts

Analyze your business peak times during the day, and assign your most experienced roster employees to the busiest shifts. This will help to avoid coverage gaps.

Use HR Software to automatically handle time-off requests

Even employees on roster shifts will need to take a few days off. Managers need to rely on HR Software to review, approve, or reject time-off requests, especially if they depend on these employees to fill schedule gaps. The ability to handle time-off requests online makes things easier for everyone. Ignoring or forgetting time-off requests can impact your attendance negatively as some roster employees might begin to call in sick or even worse, they might resign.

Begin the roster week on your busiest day

Most managers create the roster shift schedule based on the starting day of a typical working week “ for example: Sunday to Thursday”. However, if your busiest day happens to be on a Monday, then you can begin your scheduled hours on that day.

Help your staff plan for personal obligations

For a roster to be successful, it should be planned ahead of time. This gives your employees enough time to plan for personal obligations around the different schedules or to see if they can switch schedules with their colleagues.