These days, most customers expect round the clock service from you. To make matters complex, your customers might be on the other side of the globe. Even with stretching your business hours beyond the traditional 9 to 5 hours, you might not meet the demand. Furthermore, your employees cannot consistently work long hours. However, you cannot ignore the need for extended work hours and round the clock service. If you are not sure how to manage it, do not worry, shift management can help you.
The Post Covid Scenario
Shifts are gaining more popularity than ever. It is nothing but working with a schedule beyond the traditional job hours. Establishing shifts within the business can help you meet customer expectations and demands. It also helps to eliminate communication and service gaps. In the present times, when employees can perform most of the work from anywhere, traditional ways of work are no longer a norm. Shift management can help you tap the potential of this change in the workplace and work timings.
Realignment of Priorities
Earlier, a large number of employees gave everything to their work. However, the pandemic brought in a paradigm shift – now, most are concerned about a healthy lifestyle. Very few employees are willing to sacrifice everything for work. They are prioritising family time, travel, remote working and even night shifts over the traditional ways.
The HR manager can use this opportunity to recognise and align the employees’ personal preferences to the organisation. Setting up various shifts can help your employees give the work everything without compromising their realigned priorities. They will become more productive as their time outside work is more meaningful and satisfying than ever. As they feel more appreciated and in control, they will be motivated to give their best and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Setting up Shift Management
However, shift management is easier said than done unless you have a robust shift management system to help run things smoothly. A successful shift system needs reliable shift management software that allows your employees to manage their shifts without hassles. A sound shift management system should be able to:
- Plan shifts in advance
- Keep track of employee check-in and absenteeism during these shifts through built-in communication tools
- Reassign shifts easily
- Set up automated reminders to notify the employees before their shift starts
- Track employee time with auto-generated timesheets based on shifts
Conduct Periodic Review
It is not enough to install software and forget about everything. For effective functioning, you must conduct periodic reviews and ensure that the employees are satisfied with their shifts. You can:
- Take a monthly stock of essential factors before planning out the shifts
- Ensure attendance management by asking employees to punch in and out
- Keep consistent shift hours for each employee
- Devise a backup plan for emergencies or unexpected sick days
- Make the shifts shorter so that employees don’t get tired
- Do periodic check-ins with your shift workers
- Rotate shifts to ease into changing shifts
- Make your workplace shift-friendly
- Incentivise performances
Employee shift management can sound a bit complicated, but it is easy to have good shift management software and employee scheduling tools. These, together with an excellent system to manage your employees, their schedules, and their needs, can implement shifts at your workplace an easy task. Since we live in a 24*7 global economy all through the year, only those organisations that are smart enough to adapt to the changes – in this case, shift management – to cater to customer needs can survive and thrive. If you are looking for robust shift management software, click here.
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