This is the third blog in a series of five about the most common causes of schedule unpredictability and their associated solutions. Today's blog addresses the impact of an incorrect schedule.

Any time you have to change employees' schedules regularly for any reason other than absence coverage, your current schedule isn't working effectively. For example, if your current schedule is Monday through Friday, and you're constantly working employees on the weekend, you probably need a new 6-day or 7-day schedule. Yes, employees enjoy the extra overtime from the weekend work. But they hate not knowing until the last minute whether they have to work it or not. It's difficult to plan your time off if the weekend work is unpredictable. Another section of my website addresses the expansion from a 5-day operation to a 7-day operation. You can read it here.

If your coverage does not consistently match your workload, it's probably time to start looking for a new schedule. The best solution is to plot your actual workload over the course of a week by hour of the day. You'll want to develop a schedule that matches that shape by changing the shift start times, using longer shifts, part-time employees, or the strategic use of overtime. I've written more extensively about variable workloads here.