What is the difference between scheduling and staffing?
Every position is covered, no overlapping shifts and a clear roster is sent out promptly; this is what you would expect in the perfect HR management world. However, the reality says otherwise—shifting weekly schedules, more vacant positions, and constant understaffing or overstaffing.
If you're aiming for an ideal employee management setup, you should understand the difference between employee scheduling and staffing. Considering that your HR team consists of human beings, they aren't chess pieces you can move around.
Scheduling and staffing are two fundamental approaches that ensure your workforce goes on without a glitch. So, what's the difference between these two? Read on to find out.
1. Assigning the right roles
While understanding your employees' availability and skills is a breeze, it's only a fragment of the entire picture. You still need to know which roles are best suitable for your employees and the number of people needed for such roles.
Assigning too few workers to a specific job is problematic, but it's also costly if you roster too many employees on the same shift. You can better manage this problem by improving your understanding of your available staff and the tasks required across the roster.
2. Know your staff and their schedules
As a business owner, it's vital to know everyone in your organisation, their weakness, and most of all, their skills and strengths. Of course, knowing all this is easier to achieve if your business is smaller, yet doing so helps you choose the right people for the job.
Apart from knowing employees' skills, you will also want to know their availability. For example, some may work full-time from Monday to Friday, but how many work split shifts or part-time? Are there days that some employees can't work?
It would help if you considered these vital questions when planning schedules and tasks for your entire workforce. Setting an innovative staff management solution is one simple yet effective way of tracking individuals' availability and skills.
3. Better communication with team members
It will be ineffective if you can't communicate your strategy well with your employees. Use tools like employee management software or email apps to inform your workforce of significant changes and updates. Don't just depend on word of mouth or a printout in the lunch room.
Also, make communication easier from your employees' perspective. For instance, requesting time off should not cause any unneeded administrative issues. While asking in person is an option, it's not reliable. Hence, it's best to use an employee rostering software like RosterElf to streamline the process.
Anytime you or your managers make amends to the rota, the entire workforce should know. With the RosterElf app, there are no conflicts or overlaps with availability and timing.
4. Use a rostering software
Businesses should implement a reliable system to assign and manage the schedule. Pen and paper might still work for small businesses, but things can get out of hand when you work with more than ten people.
Several businesses utilise spreadsheets for their staff rota, usually Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. While both can be good choices for changing and managing large data amounts, they can't communicate changes with employees seamlessly. One option is to give all employees viewing access; however, there is no assurance that they will actively check changes.
One best option is to use RosterElf's rostering management system. A powerful software that can help you manage staff roster and update employees on any changes in real-time. While most are expensive, RosterElf offers the best pricing that won't hurt your budget. What's even better is that we offer a 30-day free trial period.
5. Plan beforehand
Time isn't always on your side in every aspect of staff planning. The possibility of people going on leave, last-minute covers, and not being fully equipped for the role is inevitable. Therefore, it's vital to plan ahead to ensure better task management.
Not only that, planning ahead is advantageous to your employees too. They can plan their personal lives accordingly because they know their shifts in advance. It also prevents confusion by having everything planned earlier.
Key takeaway
Your human resource manager should take the necessary steps to guarantee even workload distribution amongst your employees. It is a fundamental aspect of when making scheduling and staffing decisions. In addition, the work schedule should allow sufficient time for rest and recovery to prevent burnout and workplace accidents.
It's also essential to note that scheduling and staffing contribute to employee job satisfaction and boost workforce productivity—a win-win situation for you and your whole team.
RosterElf: rostering made easy
RosterElf's cloud-based payroll and rostering software truly is a game-changer. Say goodbye to roster conflicts and chase employees for their availability to work. Instead, employees can easily update their availability to work and notify managers about it through a smartphone app.
Staff set the times and days they can work, and RosterElf does the rest. Our software then automatically suggests available employees to fill shifts.
What are you waiting for? Time to take your rostering and payroll game to the next level and boost your business' performance. Contact us now, and our team will be more than happy to assist you.
To get a clearer view of how our app works, enjoy 30-day access to our tool for free!
