Avoiding conflicts using Proper Schedules & Work Coordination system.

It’s hard to keep everyone happy when creating a schedule for your project. Managing everyone’s requests and preferences can give you a headache, and hearing workers complain if you get it wrong is even worse. To avoid conflicts, the following Schedule & Work Coordination system will be helpful.

1. Define your Priorities.

As a manager, it’s very important to give priority to the member of your team that have earned it, such as the full-time employee that has been with you the longest. Giving the newbie the whole week off while forcing your tenured staff to work will definitely lead to workplace strife. Regardless, always be considerate of your employees’ needs. Don’t completely disregard the newbie that requests for the holidays off; instead, try to explain the situation and offer them time off in the future instead.

2. Be Direct With Schedule Requests

Creating a work schedule is hard work, so it’s important that you have all the info you need. Establish a time frame for employees to request time off and submit their availability. Be lenient while adapting the rule, but become stricter as time goes on to prevent people from waiting until the day before the schedule is released to request time off.

Additionally, allow your workers to use a flexible work schedule if it works for both of you.

3. Share the Schedule in Advance

Unfortunately, it’s quite common for hourly workers to receive little advance notice of their schedule. Use a scheduling tool to create the schedule in advance. This gives employees the time they need to rearrange their personal lives so that there aren’t any conflicts. Even better, more advance notice means they’ll have more time for team communication to see if anyone wants to switch shifts with them.

4. Communicating Schedule Information using a proper channel.

The days of posting a paper copy of the schedule on the break room wall are long past. In today’s modern world, no one wants to make a special trip to work or have to call in just to see whether or not they work next week. Instead, try to utilize technology to make it easier for workers to know when to show up for their shift. Pick a designated day for releasing the schedule and make sure not to vary from it. Then, try texting, emailing, or sending out the schedule with a communication app to keep everyone on the same page. With this method, you can simplify communication by having one centralized place for messages, tasks, and recognition. This will help keep the entire team organized and informed so that there isn’t any hassle involved with managing shift covers or staying up-to-date with changes.

5. Keep Hours Stable

In an hourly setting, it can be hard to ensure everyone gets an equal amount of hours from month to month. However, that study mentioned above also showed that three-quarters of adults in hourly jobs had a 50 percent fluctuation in their hours from month to month. This type of unreliable scheduling decrease employee morale and reduces their loyalty to you. To prevent this, try to keep everyone around their requested number of hours on each master schedule.

Team scheduling is not an easy feat, especially if your team is on the larger side. But with these tips and tricks, you should have no problems creating schedules that won’t make you the workplace terror.