Employee scheduling can feel like solving a complex jigsaw puzzle. Putting all the pieces together is where shift schedules come in. Creating schedules involves anticipating workforce requirements, managing requests and ensuring proper coverage while adhering to compliance and labor costs.

Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders

Optimal work scheduling improves the employee experience while enhancing satisfaction and retention. Workable shift schedules in sectors like hospitality and manufacturing are crucial to meet demands and achieve business goals.

Article Roadmap:

• What Is a Shift Worker’s Schedule?
• Fundamental Components
• Shift Schedule Types
• How To Optimize Shifts
• Scheduling Mistakes To Avoid
• Shift Scheduling Benefits
• Final Thoughts

What Is a Shift Worker’s Schedule?

A shift worker’s schedule is a tactic for round-the-clock businesses to rotate employees and manage operations. Shift schedules help companies manage resources, boost customer service, increase profits and enhance efficiency.

While some employees prefer to work eight-hour shifts five days a week, others are comfortable working longer hours for fewer days.

Many industries, including hospitality, public service, manufacturing, restaurant and bars, retail, supply chain and healthcare, adopt shift schedule models to manage workforce operations.

Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders

Fundamental Components

Shift schedules have the following components:

Shift Length

This component covers the time employees need to spend at work on a particular day. Some shift workers prefer working longer to have more time off and a better work-life balance.

Due to this, 12-hour shifts are a perfect substitute for 8-hour shifts and an excellent choice for many 24-hour operations. However, before moving to 12-hour shifts, you must consider several factors, including staff morale, output levels and overtime.

Schedule Format

Employee shifts are grouped into a schedule using a format. Rotating and fixed shifts are the most popular scheduling configurations.

Rotating shifts alternate between multiple shift patterns. They save the day in the sectors where labor volume fluctuates.

Employees who work fixed shifts have the same schedule daily. Industries that have predetermined workloads use fixed shifts.

On-off Work Pattern

On-off work patterns or call-in/call-out setups are the number of days employees have to work, followed by off days. They are of three types:

• Weekend Offs: Employees work Monday to Friday and get weekends off or consecutive days off.
• Consecutive Offs: Employees get multiple non-working days off during the week.
• Consecutive Work Days: A day off after working a certain number of days.

Overtime

Overtime is the number of extra hours employees work apart from their usual hours. It can be voluntary or mandatory.

Voluntary overtime is when employees work extra hours by choice. This arrangement is typical in professions that compensate for voluntary overtime.

Mandatory overtime is when workplaces compel employees to put in additional time. This practice is common in industries with large workloads.

Overtime is an excellent way to manage increased workloads without workforce changes and pay hikes. However, too much of it can increase absenteeism, hamper productivity and worsen turnover rates.

Scheduling Policies

These policies cover and regulate employee schedules and shift changes. They handle overtime restrictions, call-in rules, maximum consecutive workday lengths and pay regulations.

Clearly defined and documented scheduling policies prevent misunderstandings between managers, employees and the entire workforce. They’re essential for a company’s productivity, safety, work-life balance and employee needs.

Statistics suggest that most hourly workers want better control of their work schedules. As per a report, approximately 50% of hourly employees are willing to take pay cuts to gain greater control over their schedules.

Get our Employee Scheduling Software Requirements Template

Shift Types

You can schedule employees at different times depending on your business requirements. Here’s how:

A schedule setup from When I Work.

Day Shift

Day shift employees start work in the morning. Depending upon your company’s operations, these shifts can go from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Second Shift

As the name suggests, the second shift starts around the afternoon and finishes before midnight. These can be from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Employees beginning work around the afternoon have their mornings free. These are crucial for restaurants, food delivery, call centers, hospitals and retail.

Night Shift

Employees working nights start around midnight and leave in the morning. These can be between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. or 12 a.m. and 8 a.m. Night duties are ideal for students looking for full-time work or employees with personal commitments like caring for sick family members.

Rotational Schedule

Rotational shifts support businesses that operate round-the-clock, seven days a week. You rotate morning, afternoon or night duties between employees. An employee who works days the first week can work afternoons the following week and nights the week after.

You can also go for daily, weekly or monthly rotations. A rotating employee shift schedule helps your company remain operational 24/7 while breaking the monotony of a permanent routine.

Rotating schedules are necessary for sectors like healthcare, policing, firefighting, hotels, manufacturing and emergency services. They are of the following types:

DuPont Schedule

DuPont schedules operate on a four-week cycle where four different teams complete two 12-hour blocks. Each crew works four consecutive nights a month, followed by three non-working days, three consecutive days and one day off.

The roster follows three consecutive night duties, three days off, day shifts the next four days and seven days out.

Each employee works 42 hours, which is more than the traditional 40-hour workweek. However, the long seven-day off at the end of each cycle is rewarding.

Pitman Schedule

Like DuPont, Pitman schedules require you to divide teams into four crews who work two 12-hour blocks. The only difference is that the Pitman schedule runs on a two-week cycle, and employees don’t work for over three days in a row.

2-2, 3-2, 2-3 Schedule

Like DuPont, this schedule also uses four teams that work 12-hour periods in a four-week cycle. In this format, employees work during the day or night entirely for the first two weeks and the opposite hours for the remaining two weeks.

Employees benefit from not working for more than three days while getting three days off frequently.

6-4 6-4 6-4 Schedule

This format requires five teams that work 10-hour shifts per month. As the name suggests, each team will work six days, followed by four non-working days weekly.

24-48 Schedule

It uses three teams that work three shifts. The teams work in a three-day work cycle where each group works 24 hours, followed by two consecutive non-working days.

Also known as the ABC pattern, this format is popular with United States fire departments.

4-3 Schedule

The 4-3 schedule requires six teams to work three overlapping ten-hour blocks. It operates on a three-week cycle where each team works four consecutive first shifts followed by three days off, four successive night duties followed by three days off and then four consecutive second shifts followed by three days off.

This format allows employees of all six crews to work on the same day, once a week. You can schedule this day to overlap with your company’s high-activity day or in-service training day. Employees work 40 hours per week in this format.

With multiple scheduling options available, you must understand your company requirements, and your employee needs to pick the one that works for you.

According to a recent Gallup study, 61% of employees surveyed emphasized improving work-life balance and personal well-being, compared to just 53% in 2015.

Get our Employee Scheduling Software Requirements Template

How To Optimize Shifts

Creating effective shift workers’ schedules requires understanding business and staffing needs while balancing the two. Here are some steps to help you design optimal employee schedules:

Determine Labor Needs

Understanding labor requirements to meet operational goals is the first step. Ensure that you put time and effort into planning your labor needs accurately since it is the key to achieving production targets.

Determining staff requirements for each role by shift duration and location is crucial to create efficient employee work schedules. Using whiteboards or spreadsheets to organize resources will make your job easier. Quick historical trend analysis helps anticipate workforce requirements during high-activity periods.

Analyze Employee Pool

After determining labor needs, you must assess whether your current workforce matches those requirements. At this stage, factor in any non-personnel resources in addition to hourly employees.

Allocate extra resources for an upcoming busy season by location, role and availability. Include all equipment and utilities in the master schedule to ensure proper coverage.

Identify Scheduling Rules

Ensure that your shift schedule reflects common factors like overtime status, staff seniority, location and certifications. Formulating clear guidelines for managers and staff is crucial to avoid confusion before work starts.

You must ensure that your staff doesn’t work beyond the hours permissible by law and adhere to fatigue management guidelines.

Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders

Assign Shifts

Once you map out your shift work scheduling and are confident in meeting your resource needs while ensuring that your staff understands the guidelines, you can start filling open slots.

Consider tweaking the top-down scheduling approach where managers assign shifts with minimal employee input. You can complement your current scheduling method with the bottom-up approach, where employees request shifts they are qualified to take.

Employee participation in shift work scheduling processes can reduce scheduling time significantly while boosting employee satisfaction and retention by offering them more autonomy.

Manage Schedule Changes

No matter how foolproof your schedules are, last-minute changes will happen. You’ll have to navigate these changes while communicating in real time with your workforce.

Create a backup pool of contingent or part-time employees who can jump in to manage demand surges.

Conduct Periodic Reviews

Conduct periodic reviews at the end of every scheduling period and before the onset of a fresh one. The transition interval between two scheduling periods is also the time for payroll and other operational reports.

At this juncture, assessing the effectiveness of the last shift schedule is crucial. The assessment should involve various stakeholders from management, finance and human resources for inclusive feedback.

Compare the actual forecast with resource demand, analyze the health of your workforce and measure employee productivity in your periodic reviews.

Leverage Helpful Technology

Adopting employee scheduling software simplifies creating and managing shifts. These tools automate schedule creation processes, manage daily schedule changes, foster real-time communication and help comply with rules and regulations.

You can familiarize yourself with automated shift scheduling methods by trying out free employee scheduling tools.

Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders

Mistakes to Avoid

Choosing the proper shift schedule will depend on the business type, staff pool and seasonality. Even when you have painstakingly zeroed in on a workable shift, it might require changes in the coming months. Here are some common scheduling issues to avoid that can hamper your operational efficiency:

Insufficient Shift Coverage

It is essential to have enough staff available to cover operations. Frequent employee unavailability will make full roster coverage a challenge and hamper efficiency. Conversely, over-staffing to raise customer service levels can swell labor costs.

Excessive Turnover

Not having enough employees to work the required daily positions is a strict no-no. Staff crunch thwarts your company’s ability to tackle peak seasons while earning you a bad reputation.

Additionally, you’ll have to conduct a reality check if your existing employees decide not to turn up frequently without informing or giving advance notice.

Logistical Sloppiness

Training employees before allowing them to handle customer complaints is crucial. Untrained employees can commit grave mistakes while hampering customer service.

It is beneficial to encourage clear employee communication in case of swaps, call-ins, subs and no-shows that can prove costly to your business. Prioritize regulatory compliance to avoid expensive penalties.

Primary Benefits

Once you learn to balance staffing and staff scheduling requirements, you can easily overcome common shift scheduling errors. Here are some benefits of effective shift scheduling:

Reduce Labor Costs

Optimized shift work scheduling slashes labor costs. With the right amount of staffing, customer service improves. Using appropriate scheduling tools, you can save precious work hours on shift creation.

Improve Accountability

Formal schedules improve employee accountability by providing a reference point to avoid no-shows and miscommunication. Efficiently designed and shared shift schedules drastically reduce employee phone and text queries.

Increase Staff Engagement

Employees are more receptive to workable shift structures as they improve work-life balance more than non-structural approaches. Schedules that consider staff’s time-off needs and inform them of their working hours boost employee morale.

Enhanced employee morale improves attendance and productivity.

Get our Employee Scheduling Software Requirements Template

Final Thoughts

Employee shifts are vital for smooth business operations. You can ace the process to create optimal shift workers’ schedules and reduce labor costs, boost team morale, improve customer service and save time.

However, there’s a constant struggle to create and update schedules as time goes on. You need to follow a step-by-step process to create successful shifts.

As Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

How have effective shift workers’ schedules helped your organization? Tell us in a comment down below!