If the shift is good, I'm good to work." We've all heard it. Managing employees gets tricky when they’re not on the right shift. But you can't let everyone choose their favourite shifts, or no one will cover early mornings or nights. Shift management is more than just moving names on an Excel sheet. It involves planning, coordinating, scheduling, and crucially, making sure shifts don’t clash with leave requests. How can an HR professional do it in a company of, let’s say 100 employees, working in different shifts across different departments? Things get messy, right? Well, it is quite complicated and challenging but if you use the right strategies and staff management tools, shift planning can be a satisfying HR process. In this blog, we tackle some of the essential concerns people have about shift management, plus some bonus tips and best practices. Here is a quick overview of the blog:

• Why is shift management crucial for organisations?
• 5 Tips to Ace Shift Management
• Recommended shift management practices

Why Is Shift Management Crucial For Organisations?

Shift management is the process of planning and scheduling employees to cover human resource requirements at an organisation for a given shift. If the shift lacks employees with the right set of skills, it will affect the organisation’s production, causing delays and affecting the overall reputation and reliability. So organizations can’t overlook shift planning. Let’s look at five reasons underlying the importance of employee shift scheduling.

To bring openness and clarity to the workplace

We all have seen employees who complain, ‘Why do I always get the night shifts?’ Why is the HR not giving it to them?.’ Shift planning is an area that needs extreme care and precision. When the shift is clear to all employees, no one will complain like our aforementioned friend. How do we bring that clarity and openness to shift? The answer is proper workforce Optimization through effective shift management. With several cloud based automated shift management out there, the challenges in creating transparent shifts are much lesser compared to how it was earlier.

To minimize employee burnout

Kiran, a QA lead at a food processing unit, works the early morning shift from 5 am to 2 pm. Continuously attending this shift is taking a toll on his sleep and health. If this issue is left unaddressed, Kiran is likely to experience burnout, which will negatively impact his productivity. As a QA lead, his decreased performance could have serious repercussions for the company. To address this, the HR team could introduce more flexibility to his schedule by offering shift rotation or more flexible shifts. This would help minimize his sleep deprivation and allow him more time for personal needs.

To keep labour costs in check

Froz and Chill, an ice cream parlour in downtown Mumbai, sees at least five times more footfalls on weekends compared to weekdays. The company hires ten employees to manage the weekend rush but only needs three employees to handle customers during the weekdays. What can be done? Proper and flexible shift management is the solution. With a cloud-based modern staff scheduling software, you can analyze employee demand patterns on weekends and determine the optimal number of full-time employees versus contract staff needed to manage the weekend surge.

To improve employee morale

Shift management goes beyond simply scheduling your team for tasks. It’'s a way to show that you care about their personal needs by considering them when planning the roster. This approach can significantly boost their morale, sometimes even more effectively than the performance-based perks you offer periodically.

Five Proven Tips to Ace Your Shift Management

Here are some proven tips to help you excel in shift management, ensuring it caters to both organizational efficiency and employee preferences.

Preare your shifts ahead of time

Time and time again, we've seen last-minute shift scheduling requiring changes, causing panic among HR teams. Preparing shifts ahead of time is the only solution to deal with unexpected chaos. Try to identify the number of employees needed in each shift to handle production demand, in addition to the types of skills required. For instance, some companies require more human resources during peak hours and on specific days of the week. When such demands occur, having a ready team is necessary to avoid staff shortages. Additionally, when moving staff to specific days, make sure their availability is considered.

Simplify shift scheduling with tech

Manual shift scheduling is prone to an insurmountable amount of errors. Moreover, it is a clear waste of your HR team’s valuable time. There are innovative shift scheduling software available today that can simplify the process and eliminate the errors that manual rostering can generate. Mewurk’s workforce management solution features an innovative shift tracking and scheduling tool that significantly simplifies the entire process. Besides automating the process, it keeps your employees, team leaders and managers informed about every change you bring to the roster plan. So in case there is a clash due to pre-planned leaves, it instantly notifies and helps ensure that there are no overlapping schedules.

Bring transparency and flexibility to your shift plans

Today, employees value flexible workplaces as one of the major reasons to stay longer with organizations. With the job market becoming more employee-friendly than ever before, offering flexible and transparent shift choices to your team is the best strategy to retain motivated staff at your workplace. When employees raise concerns over a scheduled shift, address them if possible. Approve employee priorities on a first-come, first-served basis to avoid discontent and a sense of being treated unfairly. If your company works on a rotational shift basis, make sure that everyone gets to work across all shifts.

Ensure compliance with labour laws

When it comes to scheduling your employees for shifts, there are certain laws to take into consideration. The major ones among them are the Factories Act, 1948, and the Shops and Establishments Act, 1956. While these acts primarily focus on the working conditions of the employees, they also specify the working hours. Under the Factories Act, the working hours of employees are to be restricted to 9 hours per day, which can be extended to 10 with special permission, ensuring that it does not exceed the 50-hour weekly cap. The Shop and Establishments Act supports this. While not specifying the daily working hours, it puts a cap on the weekly working hours of an employee to 48 hours. The existing labour laws recommend transportation arrangements for employees if the shift ends after 8 pm and special allowances for midnight shifts.

Gather employee feedback to improve shift planning

Giving your employees space to air their opinions on the shift management process and share their feedback on how they find their current shifts is a good way to garner their maximum support and cooperation in the shifts. Regular feedback gathering helps the HR team stay current on actual employee issues. Improve the shift patterns based on the insights you gather from these feedback processes.

Recommended Shift Management Best Practices

Utilizing the previously mentioned tips alongside these shift management best practices will enable you to ensure efficient shift management for your organization.

Preparing employees for multiple roles:

No matter how planned your shifts are, uncertainties due to workplace emergencies can happen, leaving critical skill gaps in shifts. By preparing your employees to handle multiple roles, overcoming such challenges comes in handy. Tailor your professional development programs to help your employees upskill and be prepared for emergency skill gaps.

Following a data-driven approach:

Make use of every dataset you have, such as historical trends, production trajectory, customer footfall, and sales reports to analyze how effective your shift management has been and make necessary changes. This type of data analysis also helps you foresee staff shortages and skill gaps in certain shifts and customize staff allocation accordingly.

Adopting a resource management strategy

Every organization must have a robust resource management strategy, which should be effectively reflected in shift scheduling as well. Resource management involves ensuring the optimal combination of organizational resources. Since employees are the most crucial component of these resources, their scheduling needs to be integrated into this strategy.

Mewurk As Your Best Shift Automation Assistant

Mewurk promises as one of the most reliable employee shift planning tools to automate your shift scheduling. It comes loaded with a lot of intuitive features allowing easier and quicker shift planning and execution for small, medium and larger enterprises across all industry verticals. Some of its highlighted features include:

• Quick shift planning and implementation with automation
• Options to customize shifts as per your organizational policy
• Quick shift overview for different organizational personas
• Integration with time, attendance and leave modules
• Shift Alerts to teams, employees and team leads
• Access through web app and mobile app
• Real-time notifications for effective team collaboration.

The Final Word

Effective shift management plays a very crucial role in creating a positive workplace where employees are happy and productivity is at its best. It helps ensure that your business doesn’t stall operations, despite unpredicted changes. For those seeking to enhance their shift management with a modern tool, Mewurk is the solution. Reach out to us for a complimentary demo of Mewurk shift scheduling software.