Are UK businesses leaving shift planning too late?

Being agile is a good thing when you’re running a business, but there are certain situations where late action can be detrimental. And shift planning is one of them.

Almost 40% of UK workers are currently receiving less than a week’s notice about their upcoming work schedule. Which doesn’t give them – or you – much time to prepare.

Planning shifts further in advance can increase staff productivity, lower turnover, and streamline your operational overheads. Creating a win/win scenario for both you and your workforce.

Schedule ahead to understand your resourcing needs

When it comes to shift planning, the phrase ‘more haste, less speed’ springs to mind. If you’re working hand-to-mouth then you don’t have time to consider exactly what mix of skills you need for every shift, which could result in over-staffing (or rostering the wrong people).

Planning schedules ahead of time enables you to cross-reference an upcoming workload with available resources, matching people power to production demands. So you can easily meet customer expectations without overspending on staff, or missing vital team members.

And as you optimise resourcing, you will start to find best-fit shift patterns for both quieter and busier periods. These can become templates for future shift planning, to make employee scheduling even easier to execute – particularly if you’re using online shift planning software, which can duplicate rosters in a couple of clicks.

Allow employees to plan annual leave around their rota

It’s not just employers that need time to plan ahead; shift-based workers need to know when they’re working, to make sure there are no personal conflicts. And the earlier your business knows about potential rota changes, the easier they are to manage.

If someone has an immovable commitment that they need to take time off for, it’s more convenient for your business to be notified several weeks in advance. Rather than managers or HR receiving a last-minute time off request due to calendar clashes, which they may not even see in time.

Leaving shift planning too late can also make your company unattractive to certain types of talent. For example, parents with young children may not have time to arrange appropriate childcare if they receive their roster a few days ahead of time.

By becoming more organised about shift planning, you open up your business to recruiting the best people for each role – not just those who can make themselves available at short notice.

Advance scheduling gives you time to fill staffing gaps

We’ve mentioned the value of understanding employee availability, and this is because you have more opportunity to fill staffing gaps and complete your schedule.

Managing open shift opportunities is straightforward if you’re planning work rosters using online software, as alerts can be sent out to relevant team members that more work is available. Not only does this make filling the shift quicker and simpler; you can also capture information on who has taken the shift to support other parts of your business.

For example, you can document whether additional shifts are being paid as overtime or time off in lieu – adding leave to that employee’s time off entitlement or sending details of their additional hours through to payroll.

Better shift planning means happier employees

Happy employees are more productive, it’s that simple. And advanced shift planning helps your workforce to know exactly where they stand, so they turn up ready to give their full effort – rather than feeling aggrieved that they’ve been called up to work at short notice.

Not only are satisfied staff likely to work harder; their overall commitment to your company increases. Multiple research studies have shown a correlation between employee happiness, value and overall business performance, with highly engaged staff less likely to get itchy feet and go job hunting.

And there are wider benefits to your business as well. In addition to employees bringing their ‘A-game’ every day, high loyalty levels mean lower talent and knowledge loss because fewer people are leaving the company, a reduced need for ground-up training, and less money spent on recruitment fees. All because you’re able to plan shifts further ahead of time.

Not only that, but digital software like WhosOffice’s online shift planning platform makes advanced scheduling incredibly simple to execute. With our system, you can create optimised shift patterns that highlight any gaps in your schedule, duplicating these shift patterns as far into the future as your company wants.

To learn more about our shift planning software, book your free WhosOffice trial.