Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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Many retail and service businesses have found it necessary to stay open longer than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. Examples of retailers include apparel, sporting goods, building supplies, household items, jewelers, stationers, and variety stores. Examples of service businesses include dry cleaners, pharmacies, auto repair, dentists, optometrists, and barbers/hair salons.
Reasons for expanding the hours of operation include the following:
Competition. Once a competitor changes its hours of operation, other local companies in that same line of business are pressured to do the same.
Customers. Longer hours expose a business to more prospects, which can increase sales. It also makes it more convenient for existing customers, which means more repeat business
Facilities. When the space or equipment is fully utilized, it's cheaper to increase the hours of operation than it is to rent a larger office/shop or to purchase more/larger machinery.
There are three factors that the business owners should consider when creating work schedules for the employees:
Coverage. What is the most effective way to match the number of people at work with the workload variations?
Cost. What is the most efficient way to staff and schedule the employees?
Satisfaction. Which approach will the employees prefer?
I've discussed these criteria previously, but only in the context of continuous 24/7 operations. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.shift-schedule design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. In this post, we will take a closer look at each factor from the perspective of businesses that are less than 24/7.
Coverage
Once a company selects its new hours of operation, it should estimate the workload by hour of the day and by day of the week. The best way to do this is to gather historical data using measures such as:
Number of jobs or appointments
Number of in-bound phone calls
Number of customer visits
Number of out-bound service calls
Since some calls or visits require more time and effort than others, it might be necessary to classify them into 2 or 3 categories. Each category can be weighted differently to adjust for the time required by employees. A table of the weighted data can help in the selection of shift lengths and coverage on each shift. An example is shown below. Note that Category 2 work takes twice as long at Category 1 work so it counts double in the total work volume.
Days Time Category 1 Category 2 Total
Mon-Fri 0800 to 1200 50 4 58
Mon-Fri 1200 to 1600 70 8 86
Mon-Fri 1600 to 2000 85 10 105
Sat 0800 to 1200 70 9 88
Sat 1200 to 1400 81 7 95
Sat 1400 to 1700 92 5 102
As you can see, the volume of work is not constant throughout the hours of operation. It varies by time of day and day of the week. Let's take a closer look at each of these two types of workload fluctuations.
Hourly Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes by time of day. For example, the evenings are often busier than the rest of the day in many retail stores. The three typical ways to address these hourly workload variations are:
Staggered start times
Part-time employees that work shifts shorter than 8 hours
Multiple shifts that overlap one another
Since there are so many different situations, I'll try to give a simple example of each approach.
Example #1. An independent auto repair shop is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It opens early because the owner wants to avoid commuter traffic. Most customers don't drop off their cars until 8 or 9 a.m., so he starts one mechanic at 8 a.m. and another at 9 a.m. The first mechanic leaves at 4:30 p.m. and the second leaves at 5:30 p.m. The owner stays until 6:00 p.m. to accommodate customers picking up their vehicles after work. The staggered work hours not only extend the coverage to 11 hours a day, but they also match the coverage with the workload.
Example #2. A store that sells bicycles is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are busiest from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. To match the coverage with this workload distribution, they have a 10-hour shift staffed by full-time employees plus a 3-hour shift (from 1600 to 1900) staffed by part-time employees (mostly students).
Example #3. A beauty salon is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Their busiest time of day is in the afternoon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. They match this workload distribution by using two 8-hour shifts (0900 to 1700 and 1300 to 2100). The shifts overlap from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This overlap is a little longer than necessary, but it allows the company to only use full-time employees who want to work 8-hour shifts.
Daily Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes throughout the week. For example, many businesses that deal with the public are busier on the weekends than they are on weekdays when people are at work. The two typical ways to address daily work variations are:
Weekend crews
Custom-designed work patterns
As with the hourly variations, there are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I'll just give one example of each approach.
Example #4. A stationery store is open every day of the week. The workload is fairly light on weekdays and busier on the weekends. The owner works by himself Mon-Fri. He employs several part-time people to work the weekend shifts. It's easier for him to find people to work weekends since this is usually a second job for them. Plus it gives him the weekends off. The downside, of course, is that the manager is unavailable to supervise the part-time employees. He or she is also unavailable when the store is busiest.
Example #5. A pharmacy is open every day of the week. They tracked the volume of prescriptions filled by day of the week. Wed, Thu and Fri have almost 50% more prescriptions than other days of the week. Weekends are the lightest, whereas Mon and Tue are average. The pharmacy employs 3 full-time pharmacists. All 3 pharmacists work the 3 busy days. Only one pharmacist works on Saturday and Sunday. Two pharmacists work on Mon and Tue.
Cost
Small business owners are especially concerned with keeping costs at a minimum. That's why it's important to compare the cost of different staffing/scheduling approaches before picking one. I'll try to illustrate how to do this.
This example is a retail store that is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon – Sun. Using data on the number of customer visits by hour of the day over the past year, the manager established the following coverage requirements:
Mon-Sun 1000 to 1500 2 people per hour
Mon-Sun 1500 to 1800 3 people per hour
Approach #1. This approach emphasizes the use of full-time employees supplemented by part-timers. There are 3 full-time employees that provide 2-person coverage throughout the week using 8-hour shifts. There are 3 part-time employees that are used to boost the coverage from 3 – 6 p.m. The total cost is calculated below:
3 FT employees * 40 hours/week * $12/hour wages * 1.4 cost of benefits = $2,520 per week
PT employees * 21 hours/week (average) * $10/hour wages = $210 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,730 per week.
Approach #2. This approach emphasizes the use of part-time employees with two full-time employees who will supervise the part-timers. The total cost is calculated below:
2 supervisors* 40 hours/week * $15/hour wages * 1.5 cost of benefits = $1,800 (note that the supervisors' time counts toward the coverage requirements)
PT employees * 53 hours/week * $10/hour wages = $530 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,330 per week.
Based on cost alone, Approach #2 (supervisors + part-time workers) is the best. The owner has to balance the cost savings with the time the manager will spend hiring and training the constant turnover of part-time employees. Although using part-time employees often is the least expensive approach, other considerations may override this.
Employee Satisfaction
Although employee satisfaction is important, it should never be the starting point in the search for a new schedule. I can't count the number of times I've been contacted by managers who selected the hours of operation to justify a shift length that he or she thought employees would like better than 8-hour shifts. They often forget that longer shifts will either increase the staffing requirements or reduce the available coverage.
For example, I had a manager of a business that ran 16 hours a day (two fixed 8-hour shifts) for 7 days a week. They needed 2-person coverage. They used 6 employees working an average of 37.33 hours/week. The manager said the employees were unhappy with the schedule, so he was thinking about changing to two 10-hour shifts.
The problem with two fixed 10-hour shifts with 2-person coverage is that it would require 8 employees or the coverage would drop to 1 person for 2 days a week on each shift. The manager forgot that the extra 2 hours a day for the 10-hour shifts would increase the hours of coverage by 25%.
In most cases, shift length is not left up to employees since this is more or less defined by the hours of operation or the hours in which overlapping shifts are needed. So the choice for employees usually boils down to the preferred work pattern. Here are a couple of examples.
Example #6. A hardware store needs 4 sales people on a 10-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. To reward the most senior employees, the manager lets them bid on the days they work. He creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule has 4 consecutive days of work followed by 3 consecutive days off. The downside to this schedule is that only 2 of the 7 will get both Sat and Sun off.
Option #2. This schedule allows 3 of the 7 to get both Sat and Sun off. However, not all of the schedules feature consecutive days of work.
Example #7. An appliance repair center needs 5 people on an 8-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. The manager creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule requires employees to work 7 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. One weekend off is 3 days and the other is 5 days. All the other breaks at 2 days.
Option #2. This schedule requires employees to work 2 to 4 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. Both are only 2 days off. The other breaks are only 1 or 2 days.
In both examples, the employees are shown the two schedules. They discuss the options, particularly the pros and cons. They then vote on the option they prefer. This forces them to make tradeoffs. In Example #6, they must choose the increased likelihood of getting a weekend off. In Example #7, they must choose between more consecutive days of work with longer breaks vs. fewer consecutive days of work with shorter breaks.
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Main Street businesses face three major challenges when it comes to scheduling their employees:
Coverage, i.e. matching the number of people at work with a workload that varies by time of day and day of the week.
Staffing, i.e. figuring out the best mix of full-time and part-time employees.
Weekends, i.e. alternating the weekend work, so that employees don't have to work every weekend (unless they want to, of course).
Managers don't have time to devote much attention to these challenges. They're too busy running the business and handling all the daily problems. They don't realize they're: (1) spending more than necessary for staffing, (2) irritating customers with slow response times, and (3) frustrating employees who want more weekends off.
Let's take a closer look at each of these challenges.
Variable Workloads
The primary purpose of the employee work schedule is to align the coverage with the workload. In other words, to match the number of people at work with the volume of work at that particular time. During busy periods, more employees should be scheduled to work; when it's slow; fewer people should be scheduled.
Some businesses can control the workload by making appointments with customers (e.g., doctors, dentists, and vets). Most businesses can't do that. They have workloads that vary by time of day and/or by day of the week, often in a fairly predictable manner. For many companies, late afternoons and early evenings (when their customers get off work) are busy times. For others, it's the weekends. The ideal schedule will reflect these changes in demand.
Few businesses keep data on customer volumes on an hourly basis, so they have to rely on more subjective feelings about the workload over broad periods of time. Here's an example. A local hardware store thinks the busy times are first thing in the morning (contractors), evenings, and weekends. They created a table showing the coverage requirements throughout the week as shown below:
Time
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
8a - 9a
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
9a - 3p
2
2
2
6
6
2
2
3p - 7p
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
Any business with a variable workload should put together a coverage table like this one. This table then becomes the target for the schedule. You can read more about the steps to create an effective work schedule for a variable workload here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/81.html.
Staffing
Small businesses often employ both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time employees will want benefits like paid holidays, vacations, sick time, health insurance, and maybe 401Ks. They also want 40 hours of pay every week, which can be difficult to achieve if the shifts are shorter than 8 hours. Part-time employees are less expensive and sometimes more flexible. They are open to working short shifts and odd shifts throughout the week. However, finding and maintaining good, dependable part-time workers can be a tough, time-consuming job.
Many years ago, I owned an independent video store. We had 3 full-time people and a number of part-time people who were mostly students. The full-time employees worked a fairly permanent schedule, usually an 8-hour shift (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). The part-time people did the closing shift (4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and most of the weekend work. We scheduled them around their availability due to class schedules and other commitments. We overlapped the shifts in the evening because that was the busiest time of day. Friday and Saturday were the busiest days of the week, so we would schedule the most staff to work on those days, especially during the evenings.
Many part-time employees can only work weekends or certain days of the week because they are students or it's their second job. If these part-time employees are highly valued and/or hard to replace, the business must plan around their availability. This can make the schedule design for the full-time employees much more difficult.
Weekends
Most businesses schedule their full-time employees to a single shift on the same 5 days every week. If the business is open on weekends, some of the employees may have to work every weekend as shown below:
Emp
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
In this example, Employee A works Wed-Sun every week, Employee B works every Fri-Tue, and Employee C works every Mon-Thu. Employees A and B work every weekend, while Employee C gets every weekend off.
Most full-time employees want to avoid or minimize the number of weekend days they have to work. When a business is open one or more weekend days, they should consider schedules that provide occasional weekends off. This is done by creating a schedule with rotating days of work. Let's revise the schedule above to rotate the days of work and the weekends off.
Emp/Week
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B / Week 2
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C / Week 3
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
This is a 3-week schedule. Employee A begins the schedule in Week 1, Employee B begins in Week 2, and Employee C begins in Week 3. After finishing the initial week, they all rotate to the next week of the schedule. Emp. A moves to Week 2, Emp. B moves to Week 3, and Emp. C moves to Week 1. With this pattern, all 3 employees get a 3-day weekend off once every 3 weeks. Unlike the previous schedule with fixed days of work, they would share equally in the number of weekends worked (and the number of weekends off).
Summary
Many Main Street businesses are now open more than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. This can make it difficult to create a work schedule for the employees. The three biggest scheduling challenges are: (1) matching the coverage with a workload that varies throughout the day and the week, (2) juggling the mix of full-time and part-time employees, and (3) alternating the weekend work so it is more fairly distributed.
We showed how creating a coverage table becomes the basis for the schedule. This will help you decide the best mix of shift lengths and the number of people to put on each shift. You want to have the right number of people at work to handle the volume of work expected for that particular time period. You don't want to have a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do either.
The staffing mix depends on the quality and availability of full-time and part-time employees. If good part-time employees are easy to find, the schedule design can start with the full-time people. Part-time people would be used to fill the gaps in the coverage, to work shifts shorter than 8 hours, and/or to cover a lot of the weekend shifts. If you can only find a few, key part-time workers, you may be forced to design the schedule around their availability.
Full-time employees prefer to have weekend days off. You may not be able to give them every weekend off, but you can alternate the weekend work. This requires a schedule with rotating days of work. Although employees tend to prefer fixed days of work (so their days off are predictable), you'll have to explain the need for rotating days of work so that everyone is treated equally in terms of weekends off.
We've written several articles about schedules for companies that operate on a less than 24/7 basis. You might want to check these out.
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=work-schedules-for-businesses-open-more-than-8-hours-day-or-5-days-week
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=employee-work-schedules-for-retail-and-service-businesses
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=schedules-in-the-hospitality-industry
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=restaurant-work-schedules
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=car-dealership-schedules
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