Avoiding Common Crew Scheduling Mistakes: Tips and Tricks

Creating a schedule that fits the needs of the business as well as the employees is a major tool for running a successful business. Namely, errors in creating work schedules are one of the main reasons for frequent resignations by employees, which significantly harms your business.

In this article, we will talk about the most common mistakes while using crew scheduling software and how to prevent them. This will help you in boosting the productivity of your team, as well as increase the satisfaction of all your employees. Keep reading and find out more.

Workers’ shortage 

Having fewer workers than necessary is one of the most common mistakes that many businesses make. It occurs as a result of the sudden appearance of more work than expected, or you really face a problem with a lack of employees.

At first, you can easily compensate. You’ll give up days off, pay overtime, and get by with this workload, but it’s not a permanent solution.

Fortunately, there are ways in which this problem can be prevented or overcome. First, make sure you have enough employees. If you don’t have one, try to find suitable workers for your business as soon as possible. 

Second, if you have enough workers, the main problem is that you don’t predict when there is the most work. For this purpose, review the sales reports to see which days and periods have the most traffic, and create a team that can respond to the challenge.

Creating tight schedules

The second mistake is making tight schedules and putting workers to work shifts without adequate rest. This especially affects the quality of the work and the productivity of the employee, which usually results in dissatisfaction and resignation.

To that end, using crew scheduling software allows better visualization so you can see that you give each employee at least twelve hours between shifts. By doing so, they will be rested, and secondarily the quality of your business will rise.

Not having a universal scheduling tool

Problems in organization and communication when attaching the schedule are another common mistake. Posting the schedule on the bulletin board is a practice in which an employee may not see his shift.

For this purpose, the crew scheduling software helps in presenting the schedule. With that, every employee can open the application and easily see which days they work and when their shift starts. This prevents situations of unforeseen absences.

Not considering their free time and vacations

Employees’ free time is an important aspect of their private life and it should not be compromised by work. For this purpose, when creating schedules, it is important to take into account their free time. This is especially important for annual holidays, which are legally binding in many countries.

Crew scheduling software allows each employee to enter the days they want to be off. By doing so, you will be mindful when creating the schedule so that your workers are happy while the needs of the business are met.