EXAMPLES OF CREATING A STAFFING SCHEDULE
I am often asked the question, how do I start a brand new staff schedule? It can be daunting when you are given the task of creating a brand new manning operation, budgeting for it, and presenting it to management. I have prepared this page to illustrate how I am often asked the question, how do I start a brand new staff schedule? It can be daunting when you are given the task of creating a brand new manning operation, budgeting for it, and presenting it to management. I have prepared this page to illustrate how to start. It isn't hard to do, and the example given is based on an actual request.
The Basics Behind Efficient Staff Rostering - Introduction
Specification
Example 1. I created a staff schedule for a call centre manned by 2 shifts over 7 days Morning(7am-3pm) & Afternoon(1pm-9pm). Both are 8 hour shifts. Staffing 7 days a week. There is a 2 hour overlap in the afternoon when all staff are on duty. This could be a problem with equipment, etc., where we would need 8 desks, 8 phone lines, 8 computers, twice as much room space at a rental of $£xx etc., We will have 4 staff on each shift.
Maths Part (it really is easy)
Example 1 We need to have some idea of how many staff we need to schedule, so we do some calculations.
At this time, we ignore staff holidays, sickness, training and requests.
For 2 shifts/day x 4 staff = 8 shifts/day = 56 shifts/week.
56 shifts/week = 11 staff working 5 shifts & 1 shift left over.
This shift schedule table on the right shows how to set up the shift pattern so they do 7 consecutive shifts.
It is a very popular shift pattern called '7on-2off'. It is based around the weekend.
They work 56 shifts over 11 weeks to provide 4 on the Early and Late shifts over 365 days.
This equates to a 40.7hr week if the shifts are 8hrs paid. If the shifts are paid 7.5hrs, it is a 38.2hr week.
If we wanted them to work 40hrs/week, we could give each person a 'Golden Day' every 11 weeks. Golden Days are additional days off extra to their holiday entitlement. This is a special topic in its own right as it has the exceptional ability to over roster staff whilst increasing productivity. For more information, please contact us. This gives them 4.5 days off (a week) extra each year.
US scheduling. This shift pattern won't work in the US due to the Employment Laws limiting basic paid working hours to 40hrs/week. So we need to look at other options.
A shift pattern often has constraints on how many shifts can be worked in a week. In this example 'a week' is 7 days starting on the first shift on a Monday.
Each company can decide on what it decides are its constraints, and each company is different.
The shift pattern on the left shows how to set up the shift pattern so that they work 5 shifts per week over an 11 week rotation.
They do 56 shifts in 11 weeks, so there is one extra shift worked each week if the limit is 5 shifts per week.
In this example they would work 6 Lates every 11 weeks.
For US users, one of the 6 Lates can be an overtime shift.
Example 2:
For 7 day 24 hr cover using 8 hr shifts which have 6 staff on early, 3 on evenings & 2 on nights, we have, early shift = 6 staff x 7 days = 42 shifts, evening shift = 3 staff x 7 days = 21 shifts, night shift = 2 staff x 7 days = 14 shifts.
Total number of shifts/week = 42 + 21 + 14 = 77 shifts.
77 shifts/week = 15 staff working 5 shifts/week & 2 shifts left over.
In this example they are work 5 shifts per week mainly with two weeks where they do 6 shifts in every 15 weeks.
For US users, the 6th shift in a week can be overtime.
The example above has 15 staff using a 7on-2off shift pattern based around weekends..
The rotation period is 15 weeks with 6 weeks of early, 3 weeks of Late and 2 weeks of Night shifts.
They are scheduled to work an average 41hr week based on 8hr shifts and a 38.5hr week based on 7.5hr shifts.
If they are contracted to an average of 5 shifts per week, they are entitled to 2 Golden Days every 15 weeks, about 7 extra days off a year.
Example 3 For 7 day cover, where 6 am Monday-6am Saturday is covered 24hrs/day by 3 x 8 hr shifts, Saturday has 2 x 8 hr shifts 6am-10pm, and Sunday has one shift 9am-5pm. Shifts(earlies, evenings & nights) are variously manned depending on past experience, Monday to Friday Earlies, have 8 staff(=8x5=40 shifts), Monday evening has 4 staff=4 shifts, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evening have 6 staff=18 shifts, Friday evening has 4 staff=4 shifts, Saturday early has 9 staff=9 shifts, Saturday evening has 4 staff=4 shifts, Sunday has 3 staff=3 shifts. For nights, Monday-Thursday have 3 staff=12 shifts, Friday has 2 staff=2 shifts
The shift pattern for 19 staff as described above shows one possible way to staff the operation.
There are, in fact, limitless possibilities in the number of ways we can arrange the shift pattern.
We can ‘play around’ with the shifts making new ways of scheduling the staff until we are satisfied.
Our software tracks the shifts, hours and many other factors. It colour codes the results so you can easily check if everything is going well, and points out where you haven’t done as well as required. If everything is 'green' you have created a solution you can use.
The maths can be extended over longer period if the work is cyclical or periodic. A cyclic period could be monthly, as in producing a monthly magazine. A periodic period could be seasonal, such as heating repairs reaching a max. in Autumn, or fruit and vegetable picking. The shift totals can be calculated whenever you have repeatable periods which can be estimates, or they can be based on last years shift scheduling. But sometimes your best guess just has to do
Example 4 We use the same shift patterns and staffing levels as example 3 above, but as a policy we decide to have half the staff as part-timers working 3 shifts/week, the reasons for this are numerous, but at the heart of it is the ability for the staff to have more weekends off. So, if half the staff work 5 shifts and half the staff work 3 shifts a week, how many staff is that in all? Let's call it X, and we still have 96 shifts to cover. Therefore, (0.5X x 5) + (0.5X x 3) = 96, and by using a bit of algebra, X = 24 exactly. So we have 12 part time staff. This time when we put the employees names in, we separate the part timers out. We can call them PT1, PT2, etc., or we leave a few blank lines between the two groups. Then when we start allocating shifts, we do it just the same way, except that for the part timers we start by only giving them 3 shifts at first in each week.
Calculating part time staff, this is quite complicated as there are several different types of part time staff. Some have fixed shifts each week and some have fixed reduced hours but are flexible regarding shifts. There are as many different ways of doing this as there are people, so it is not something we can plan for until the actual situation arrives.
Holidays
Holidays and how they affect the roster is an extremely important aspect of Staff Rostering. In fact, most staff rosters are centered around the staff holidays in one way or another. Holidays should be neutral to the company, but they are never neutral to the staff. This important area is covered in our training program and our books. Our short video is about the importance of holidays in designing a staff roster
