The Impact of Chaotic Shift Work Schedules

Chaotic and shift work schedules are two phrases you don’t want to see together. The schedule creation process should be as easy as possible! If you’re still using excel spreadsheets or paper time sheets as work schedules then you need to keep reading. 

What are the benefits of an effective shift work schedule? 

A shift work schedule is an integral part of any business that operates on shift work. It means you are scheduling employees in set time blocks throughout a week or month. It allows someone to be available 24/7. An effective shift work schedule is hugely beneficial to businesses. It can: 

• Reduce labor costs 
• Improve employee turnover 
• Improve employee morale 
• Increase productivity 
• Save your company time and money 

However, creating said effective shift work schedule isn’t as easy as it seems. It can be challenging to set up and maintain if you don’t have the right tools in place.  

Impacts of a chaotic shift work schedule 

Incorrect staffing levels:

A chaotic schedule means you may find it difficult to get staffing levels correct. This may be over-scheduling employees where you end up paying more in labor costs than necessary or under-scheduling where you have too few employees to get the job done efficiently. This can actually have a really negative impact on your workers as they are left feeling stressed and burned out.  

High employee turnover:

Companies that operate using shift work can see high turnover regardless of the state of the schedules. In fact, the service industry has a turnover rate of 12.5% in the US. When you bring inefficient and messy schedules, this number is guaranteed to increase. Employees will eventually get tired of continuous bad schedules and look for work elsewhere which increases your turnover rate. What does a high turnover rate cost? A lot of money. Your company will have to spend time and money on hiring and training replacements. As well as that, the remaining employees may experience low morale as they are expected to pick up the slack.  

Wasted overtime expenses:

When your shift work schedules are disorganized, management struggles to accurately match staffing levels to demand. When this happens, overtime is likely to occur as the demand for workers increases. As you probably know, paying employees overtime rates can be very costly to your business. This may go unnoticed at the start but when this is an ongoing issue it will eventually impact your bottom line. The worst thing about this is that it could have all been avoided if the schedule was created properly using effective tools!  

Decrease in employee morale:

Over time, your scheduling errors may result in low morale levels and as a result of that, poor performance. For example, employees who are scheduled to work too often may begin to feel stressed or burned out. This has a massive impact on a person’s mental state and physical health also. Unhappy employees are less productive as they don’t have the same motivation to do good work. Whereas, when employees are coming to work with adequate rest times between shifts and when they are not overworked, they will do better work and be more productive.  

How can you combat chaotic scheduling?  

So, what can you do to combat a chaotic schedule and avoid the above-mentioned problems?  

The best way to avoid a chaotic schedule is to implement employee scheduling software like Celayix. We aren’t just saying it! Employee scheduling software helps you to have control over your workforce management. Using software automates the scheduling process and as a result, reduces the number of errors that causes a chaotic schedule.  

It ensures your staffing levels are correct every time and makes it easy to track employees’ activities and attendance. If you’d like to get in touch with us today to see how Celayix can help get in touch here.