Do you have a small business and find it challenging to create workforce schedules? Doing so effectively so that all the shifts are covered is important. However, it’s not that simple. You also need to be mindful of optimizing the schedule so that higher productivity and profitability are possible. So, the question is: is there a formula to make a perfect schedule while keeping in mind resource costs, time off requests, skill sets of employees, etc? Creating a perfect work schedule ensures balanced workload distribution, and leads to higher productivity, more efficiency, and higher business profit. But before delving into the details of how to create a perfect schedule with the help of workforce schedule software, let’s look at what a work schedule is.
What is a Work Schedule?
Going by its literal meaning, a work schedule is a schedule of employees and the department on projects and tasks they are assigned in a certain time period. This includes details such as their shift or working time, location, project, exact responsibilities, etc. The ideal work schedule is created at least two weeks before implementation. Scheduling staff’s work and tasks is an important process for both the organization and the employees. This provides clarity in understanding the requirements and responsibilities and in planning how to optimize the utilization of various people.
How to Create the Perfect Work Schedule?
1. Determine your organization’s staffing requirements
The first step is to find the exact staffing need for your department or organization. For example, how many employees are needed in various roles and shifts and what is your backup plan? Once you determine your staffing requirements for various projects, you need to check if you have enough employees with the required skill set to handle the workload. Now, there’s a catch here. If you schedule additional people on a task or project, it will lead to a waste of time and money. Having lesser people than needed will also put pressure on the existing people and could lead to missed deadlines. Thus, it’s important to make sure that you have enough staff to cover all the shifts and work towards the expected goals effectively.
- Identify tasks and sub-tasks and create a list of priorities
Scheduling is only beneficial if you set your priorities. Even after creating a perfect schedule, you may not get the best results until you list your priorities and important work first. The best way is to identify the key tasks and sub-tasks in a project. This enables you to set your list of priorities as per the importance and criticality of the task. This can be easily done with the help of the right work schedule software. You can break down the tasks and their sub-tasks and then identify the most important ones that need to be focused on first in just a few simple steps.
- Pick your milestones
Now that you have a foundation for your schedule, step back and determine your milestones. To do that, you need to spread out your milestones throughout the entire project. When you do this, you can easily monitor the progress and status of the project and improve visibility. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that you spread out the milestones consistently throughout your project and not all towards the mid or end. Though it’s not so tough to focus on the project deliverables towards the end, the ones that occur in the early or mid stages such as SOW signing and approvals are important to be able to stick to the schedule.
- Schedule some buffer or contingency time
Next, remember to schedule some buffer time to deal with any contingency, which means some extra time to deal with contingencies or emergencies. Mostly, you may schedule some number of hours to complete a project. But many times, due to scope creep or some contingencies, it may take extra time and effort. Scheduling such a buffer time helps to handle any unpredicted changes or tasks. This also gives you some open possibilities and flexibility in your schedule if you need to reorganize some tasks and handle more important issues first. The right work schedule software can help you create perfect schedules while including contingency time in a few easy steps.
- Keep a regular check on the schedule and update it from time to time
It’s important to note that scheduling is not at all a one-time exercise. Maintaining a work schedule is a dynamic process that may need to be updated on the fly. This may happen when some new tasks or client requests roll in. You may need to regularly check and update your work schedule and ensure that you include those tasks. In simpler words, you should regularly keep a tab and update your schedule with any new events. In case you are scheduling any ongoing projects, it is beneficial to have milestones. It would be good to check in on your scheduled tasks frequently to make sure that you or your team is on track. Completing the scheduled tasks and projects is very satisfying and that is why keeping a check on them is very beneficial.
- Use a work schedule software
There are many work scheduling software available in the market today. These tools can help to create automated schedules for your organization or projects. Employee scheduling tools are a lot more efficient than manual scheduling. Such tools are easy to use as they are intuitive and help to save a lot of time and effort. However, you must carefully evaluate the specific needs of your business and then find a tool that suits the best.
Implement Top-Rated Work Schedule Software – eResource Scheduler to Create Perfect Schedules
Opt for an advanced, cloud-based work schedule software, eResource Scheduler. This tool helps you create perfectly balanced schedules, which, in turn, optimize your resource utilization. You can also keep track of the status of all your projects and resources in real-time. The tool not only measures resource utilization at several levels such as project, team, and resource levels but also manages automatic updates in real-time. What’s more? Customizations are possible in a few easy steps to meet your requirements. The tool is available in various plans suiting your requirements. So, go for eResource Scheduler to streamline your resource management and scheduling processes. Take a free trial to check out the benefits and make perfect schedules.
