Sharing forecast hours with staff can also improve the way they plan annual leave, so holiday requests don’t disrupt the schedule at the eleventh hour. Long-range shift planning helps businesses to forecast staff availability based on commercial need, to optimise recruitment and shift allocation. However, this shouldn’t stop you from planning ahead. Plan more than 7 days aheadĭemand-based planning is important to productivity, as your company needs to respond to activity levels. And WhosOffice even lets you customise those requirements by job type and qualifications. Shift planning tools like WhosOffice enable you to set a minimum number of staff in order for the shift pattern to be approved. Equally, you need to make sure the right mix of people are working to cover not only work demands, but meet compliance, regulation and health & safety requirements.Īchieving this balance is one of the biggest challenges of shift planning, but digital software is helping companies to schedule workload more effectively.

When you’re creating a schedule, there are two things that need to be optimised: the number of people working, and the seniority and skills of those people.Īssign too many people to a shift and you’re operating below optimal profit levels under-staff that shift and productivity will be compromised, affecting customer service. Create a set structure for who needs to work Sound good? Read on for some key considerations to help you plan the perfect shift. With the right approach and good technology to run scheduling operations, you can transform workload planning into an easy task that empowers teams to work effectively day-in, day-out.

It doesn’t have to be like this, however. Mistakes are common, and the consequences can be huge: under-staffing, poor productivity, even legal consequences if you’re lacking team members with the right skills and qualifications to start work. Shift planning is a major pain point for many businesses.

Develop the perfect shift