Management strategies play a big role in how successful a business is. When it comes to managing the staff, it helps to keep them loyal, and motivated.
By organizing their time correctly, you can profit from the good work they put in in turn. Staff rostering has a huge impact on employee happiness, but scheduling rosters by hand is a complex task that can often leave people and business demands unsatisfied.
Digital rostering software offers us a great opportunity to benefit from good management methods.
What is Staff Rostering?
A staff schedule or roster dictates which staff members will work the coming shifts. Typically, it is created by an HR employee and is based on the number and qualifications of staff members needed to fulfill the demands of a lucrative business day that meets the businesses’ and clients’ quality standards.
The Importance of Staff Rostering
For a long time, businesses used static staff rosters. They calculated the number of staff members needed for a workday without looking at individual factors that influence how many and which staff members are needed during specific tasks or periods.
While a clothing store will need more employees during holiday sales, the same workforce isn’t necessary for regular days. If you used the same number of staff members you would use any given day, you would suffer the consequences of over- or understaffing when the acute task demands more or fewer staff members than usual.
Good management pays off in multiple ways. You can reduce the cost of miscalculations and absences, and work more efficiently overall. At the same time, a good staff schedule will keep your employees happy and motivated. They are neither under- nor overworked, unhappy with unfair shift schedules, and you can control if or how quickly they work overtime. All in all, a good staff schedule will optimize your business and increase revenue.
The Challenges of Staff Rostering
Choosing the right employees, keeping their availabilities in mind, and keeping them happy are just one part of the equation. When we want to calculate how many and which staff members we need on a specific workday, we need to look at a variety of factors:
- Clients – Which clients are we dealing with this week/today? Do they have preferences as to which staff members they work with? Do any staff members have specific skills, like languages, that would be beneficial?
- Weather – Many businesses are affected by the weather. Ice cream parlors, for example, won’t be frequented as heavily on rainy and cold days. Some tasks even need to be canceled altogether, depending on the weather.
- Frequency – How often/long will you need staff members? How many hours have specific staff members already worked this month? Do we require additional staff members because the others would be working overtime?
- Marketing – Marketing measures, like ads or sales, will increase the demand if they are successful.
- Revenue – How much money do we have? How much revenue do we need to make? Do we have the opportunity for a great deal this week? If so, who do we need to close it to?
- Analyses – Data collection and analysis will show you how many staff members have been necessary during specific times and tasks in the past and what will be needed to work efficiently in the future. This can reduce the costs of over- or understaffing.
- Other demands – Many events can affect the planning for staff rosters, for example, the seasonal fluctuations in demand for specific products or services that repeat each year.
Staff Rostering Methods
There are different methods for creating a staff roster. For a long time, HR employees created plans either by hand or using programs like Excel.
To create a good staff schedule, they need to have an overview of the available staff members, their hours, absences, and qualifications, and the businesses’ demands regarding regular workdays, specific tasks, or seasons. Typically, individual staff members had to hand in their availabilities and other information themselves, which was collected, analyzed and matched with the business’s needs.
The Benefits of Digital Staff Rostering
Since this process includes a lot of data to collect and analyze, digital staff rostering gives us a great solution. This way, we can use the intelligence and calculating power of technology to reduce human error, automate processes, and use algorithms and analysis to optimize schedules.
- It reduces the time an HR employee has to spend on the plans and makes it easier for staff members to hand in their information. This time can be used on more important tasks.
- The programs fill the available spots with the best combination of staff members that keep track of their worked hours and qualifications. The right staff members will be at the right spot at the right time and reduce the costs of any miscalculations.
- The business can reap the benefits of giving their staff members autonomy. The digital staff rostering allows them to enter their availabilities and absences on the fly and apply to specific shifts. When they feel they have a say on when they will work, they will be happier and more motivated.
- The digital rostering software gives HR, employees, and employers access to cloud-based staff schedules anywhere, anytime. Changes can be entered and communicated easily, to react to unplanned absences quickly.
Conclusion
Staff rostering is a demanding task that can easily lead to mistakes. These miscalculations reduce the revenue a company can make by reducing efficiency, leading to unnecessary spending, mistakes, and losses.
Digital staff rostering software can bridge the gaps of human error. It easily collects and compares the needed data and optimizes the staff schedules with a variety of benefits. It makes sure the businesses’ demands are met, and the employees work the appropriate hours. By giving them some control over the process, you can increase their happiness, loyalty, and efficiency. This way, the software helps to increase a business’s revenue overall.
