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The health crisis has spurred a wide range of changes in how businesses operate and organize their everyday work. Employees have, for the most part, and whenever possible, moved to work from home, while many have had to mix and match to create a hybrid environment that will allow employees to stay engaged while boosting their safety.
It’s in such a crisis that your planning capabilities make or break your entire organization and productivity. If you have mastered the art of roster planning, then it doesn’t matter where your employees are – they’ll get it done in time.
If you’ve been having trouble with workload allocation and distributing all your resources, then it’s only natural to come across issues when a crisis of this magnitude hits. Even in normal, stable circumstances, strategic rostering can make all the difference for your employees and your entire business. Here are a few benefits to keep in mind.
Employee accountability increases
When you use good software to manage your schedules, your teams have a clear idea of what everyone is supposed to do, when, and for whom. This might seem simple, but too many companies underestimate the value of such detailed organization – it pushes people to be accountable for their work.
Accountability, in turn, improves employee engagement, productivity, and awareness. It helps set the tone of your culture, and it all begins with how you handle your rosters.
Enhancing business-wide visibility
How often does it happen to your teams that they have no clue who they can turn to when they come across a challenge during a project with a tight deadline? What about getting in touch with an employee that’s needed in a meeting? Transparency should be deeply woven into the culture of your business, but you also need comprehensive systems that enable organizational transparency and visibility.
Many brands actively look for the best scheduling software in order to enable this kind of organizational visibility for their teams. When everyone can communicate seamlessly via the same platform, see where everyone is, it’s easier to overcome hurdles, ask for help, and move forward. A marketer needs an impromptu meeting with the sales team? They can look at the platform to see where they are and who’s available, and book a conference room accordingly.
Productivity through the roof
Strong, fair, and transparent workload distribution and time management in any business contribute to more efficient processes overall. When everyone can reach their daily and weekly milestones, it becomes easier for the whole business to run smoothly and reach its goals as a unit.
With clear schedules, you won’t have trouble with one employee being overworked while other sits idly waiting for a project to come along. If everyone knows who is available at what time to collaborate, they can communicate freely and thus deliver better results within the available time frame. Better productivity inspires greater employee engagement and morale, which in turn means they will work smarter, not just harder, and they will be more loyal to your business.
Reducing expenses at every turn
Running an efficient business means looking for ways to cut costs, not just boost profits, even though both have the same final goal – to increase the financial stability of your business and help you stay competitive. Planning your rosters plays a vital role in this process, as much as this might surprise so many business owners.
- Reducing employee fatigue and burnout means your workers are less likely to get sick or suddenly leave your company, which means setting up a new round of recruiting that can be costly.
- Smart rostering means that your employees don’t have to pull long hours or work overtime, which is typically more expensive and far less satisfactory to sustain for any business.
- Transparency in rostering helps employees have an overview of the entire organization, making it easier for them to collaborate intelligently and deliver their product or service in time.
Quality service for your customers
Now more than ever before, and even in the post-pandemic world, companies are facing a surge of customer complaints because few brands can meet their expectations. They have questions, concerns, and most of all, they often don’t like the changes so many brands have introduced to cut business costs. You cannot expect your employees to pick up the slack left by the economic turmoil, nor can you push them beyond their abilities to work longer hours.
When you have employees getting sick, asking for sudden time off, and dealing with dissatisfaction, something is clearly not right in how you’re handling your workload. Using the right scheduling tools and strategies means that your employees will be able to distribute their work evenly, ask for help in time, and improve their output. That also means that your customers will get what they expect, if not more. With smarter time management, your employees can work without too much stress or tension, so their quality of work will impact the quality of the ultimate service you provide.
The level of competition you’re facing in your industry might have inspired you to look into improving your rostering – or it could be an unhappy employee collective. Whatever has pushed you to find smarter, better ways to organize your workload and set up your schedules, you need to make sure that you’re doing your best to help your teams be productive without experiencing burnout or excessive stress. These strategies can help you achieve that, so keep them in mind when you’re setting up your own rostering plans for the future.
