There’s a lot to do as a manager. You need to manage projects, keep spending in line with budgets, inspire your team, write reports, occasionally discipline and manage the performance of wayward employees — and, unless you’re a CEO or managing director, keep your own boss happy. Even then, there’s the Board to impress. There’s a reason managers are paid more and are often always full time (with extra hours of course).
It’s because they’re vital to the operation of an organisation. However, one thing that can stop many managers in their tracks is the challenges of rostering, especially if you’ve got a rotation of casual or shift staff on the books. So, let’s master management and go through a quick guide to employee rostering.
Let Technology Be Your Friend
If you’re writing out rosters by hand and sending texts or phone calls to notify your people of their shifts, we hate to tell you, but you’re doing it all wrong. Get into the 21st century and get a shift roster app into your workflow, pronto. A good app will manage the entire rostering system for you, from checking employee availability through to allocating shifts and sending out roster notifications to staff. Great rostering software can even integrate with your payroll systems to people get paid the right amount, on time and without delay.
Give Preference to the Best
This may seem like superfluous advice to some, but you need to be rewarding your best workers with the best shifts. Your staff are your staff, not your friends, even if you might develop a good sense of camaraderie with your team. So, give the plum shifts to people you know will deliver to targets and KPI’s, rather than to the staff that you’re friendly with or the one that brings you a coffee every morning. In the end, this will drive the success of the business.
Plan the Roster Before Planning the People
It makes sense to plot out the shifts you need filled before filling them with bodies. So, if your roster is weekly, fortnightly or even monthly, determine how many hours you can allocate. This may depend on business priorities like production schedules or deadlines and the budget allocated will also determine just how many hours you can afford to give your staff. Once you have this worked out, begin to fill the shifts, accounting for employee availability and preference — but don’t be too soft, you may have to give someone a shift they don’t want in order to fulfil business needs.
Give Your People Time Off
Even if your company operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, people still need time off. Give everyone on the roster two consecutive days off, unless they’ve asked for additional hours. This gives people time to rest, restore, rejuvenate, and to come back on deck ready to generate profit for the company.
A Concise Conclusion
Check out a rostering app to see if it can make your life easier, and give the best shifts to the cream of the crop. Plan your roster out before choosing workers, and make sure to give people time off, preferably with consecutive days. Managing a team can be difficult, but having the correct rostering systems in place will make a world of difference.