5 Common Scheduling Issues & Solutions for Your Business

Remember when creating an employee schedule was your favorite task? Of course not. No one likes trying to fill open shifts.

Workforce management is a challenge. You have to keep an eye on your bottom line, your employees, demanding scheduling needs, your business well-being, and your own work-life balance. Luckily using a free employee scheduling app like Homebase can help. Homebase helps you simplify scheduling, avoid manager and employee burnout, and also to help you keep an eye on your costs.

Ready to make a schedule without all the challenges? Click here to sign up for Homebase today!

Let’s take a look below at how Homebase can help you overcome the toughest scheduling challenges.

1. Organizing Availability

One of the most difficult tasks of staffing is organizing employee availability. Depending on the size of your team, you’ll need to coordinate different types of employee availability. Both large and small companies experience their own challenges.

Small businesses often need to work around the limited availability of a few employees. Larger companies need to offer enough shifts for a wider variety of employees while juggling multiple availability schedules.

Solution: Let Homebase handle your employee availability.

Scheduling software can reduce manager and employee fatigue by removing some of the heavy lifting. You or your team can input employee availability into Homebase, and we’ll start creating the schedule for you. This can help reduce last-minute callouts and absences.

2. Balancing Out Shifts

When you have a lot of employees, any shift can be considered a “desirable” shift. The challenge is to create a fair schedule, avoid overscheduling, and fulfill enough employees’ time-off requests.  You also need to deal with employees being disappointed with their shifts. In a restaurant, for example, open shifts on Saturday night might be preferable for tipped staff than those on Tuesday night.

Solution: Use Homebase to reward great work with favorable shifts. Get started free today!

The best way to deal with this is to reward positive behavior with favorable shifts. Give your desirable shifts to employees who help fill unwanted shifts, fill in when needed, or offer excellent customer service.

3. Scheduling Hard-To-Fill Shifts

Let’s face it: some shifts are more desirable than others. No one wants to handle the night shift schedule. Plus, employees rarely want the crack of dawn, late-at-night or “clopen” shifts. The least desirable shifts are the back-to-back late night and early morning shifts. Improper scheduling can lead to no-shows and a high employee turnover.

Solution: Use Homebase to anticipate busy times and reward employees who take on-call shifts or open shifts.

Homebase lets you see estimated sales forecasts while making the schedule so you can use predictive scheduling to always be staffed at the right level. Try to schedule employees either early in the morning or late at night—never both. Encourage employees to take on-call shifts by rewarding them with more desirable shifts.

4. Budgeting for Scheduled Shifts

Before you can even begin to start staff scheduling, you need to determine your budget. The challenge is not just doling out shifts to top employees. You also have to schedule employees who make a lower hourly rate to fit your budget.

Solution: Use Homebase to manage your budget and track your labor costs.

Homebase can help you manage your budget and ensure profitability by allowing you to schedule employees who make different hourly rates. With Homebase, it’s really easy to build a schedule to match target labor costs to sales ratio.

5. Avoiding Manager and Employee Burnout

One of the most common employee scheduling issues is burnout. Managers can spend the majority of their time creating a schedule, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Employees can also feel the burn when you’re not using efficient scheduling techniques. And keeping shift workers engaged has become an even bigger challenge in recent years. Without knowing, you can create a work schedule that has some employees always working nights and some just the day shift. This can lead to high turnover rates, understaffing, and time-consuming problem-solving.

Solution: Use a combination of techniques to avoid burnout and fill open shifts.

Use a combination of scheduling techniques, coupled with employee scheduling software like Homebase, to help you solve most of your employee scheduling problems in less time. You might also want to cross-train your best team members. This will provide more employee engagement, career growth, and variety while also making sure you’re not short-staffed. Also, you can use our free team communication app to make sure your employees are engaged and ready to work.

Luckily, you don’t need to go over budget to purchase scheduling software. Homebase offers free shift scheduling software that can help you organize your employees’ availability, manage your budget, and minimize burnout.

Scheduling challenges can be a thing of the past with Homebase. Click here to sign up for free today!

Common Scheduling Issues FAQs

What Are the Common Scheduling Challenges in Businesses?

Businesses often face difficulties in arranging employee work hours, ensuring equitable shift distribution, filling demanding shifts, controlling labor costs, and preventing both manager and employee fatigue.

How Can Better Management of Employee Availability Be Achieved?

Utilizing scheduling tools, businesses can efficiently organize employee work hours. This technology enables staff to record their available times, aiding in reducing unexpected absences and callouts.

What Strategies Help in Effectively Balancing Shifts?

Shift balance is attainable through scheduling tools that distribute work hours fairly among employees. These tools consider individual preferences and availability.

How Can Overscheduling Be Prevented?

Understanding your business needs and the availability of your staff is key to avoiding overscheduling. Utilizing scheduling tools offers a clear view of employee workloads, helping to prevent this issue.

What Methods Can Address Employee Turnover and Absences?

To tackle employee turnover and absences, consider cross-training staff and offering incentives like bonuses, higher pay, or preferred scheduling.

What Approaches Are Best for Scheduling One-on-One Employee Meetings?

For productive one-on-one meetings, effective planning is crucial. This includes crafting compelling meeting invites, selecting optimal times, and enhancing the meeting experience.

Which Software Aids in Resolving Scheduling Problems?

For small businesses, several online appointment scheduling tools are available, such as Calendly, Thryv, Acuity Scheduling, Setmore, and YouCanBookMe.

How Can Last-Minute Employee Absences Be Managed?

Handling sudden absences involves maintaining a backup pool of part-time or on-call staff. Real-time updates on availability through scheduling software are also beneficial.

How Can Employee Burnout Due to Scheduling Be Prevented?

To prevent burnout, ensure balanced schedules with sufficient rest between shifts. Automation via scheduling software can ease the burden on managers.

What Are Effective Ways to Manage Labor Costs in Scheduling?

To keep labor costs in check, schedule employees with varying hourly rates according to your budget. Scheduling software can aid in monitoring these costs to maintain profitability.

How Can Shift Swapping Among Employees Be Handled?

Shift swapping can be efficiently managed with scheduling software, allowing employees to exchange shifts through a shared, cloud-based platform.

What Strategies Manage Employee Shortages?

Addressing employee shortages involves hiring an optimal mix of experienced and junior staff, ensuring adequate staffing for business operations.

How Is Overscheduling Best Handled?

Managing overscheduling requires robust scheduling practices and the use of scheduling software to avoid overburdening employees.

What Are the Advantages of Using Scheduling Software?

Scheduling software automates the scheduling process, reducing fatigue for both managers and employees. It aids in controlling labor costs, monitoring employee availability, and minimizing last-minute absences.

What Key Features Should Be Sought in Scheduling Software?

When choosing scheduling software, prioritize ease of use, automation, mobile accessibility, cost-effectiveness, and features for internal communication.