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New website on shift patterns

Find out all about how to create and manage your shift patterns

Problem Solving

The first question you should ask is: “What is your problem?” This is very often so hard to define that we look at the symptoms and not the root cause.

Take lifts. People used to complain that lifts (or elevators to Americans) were too slow. Everyone was always stuck waiting. So engineers tried to speed up the lifts. They got faster and faster, yet people were still complaining. So they started doing all these fancy models so that the elevators would travel to the most used floor or wait in the best location to minimize waiting time.

Yet people were still complaining. In the end somebody came at the problem from a different approach. They put up mirrors. Now people had something to do while waiting for the lift.

The problem was not that the lift was too slow, the problem was that people were bored.

So the next time you hit a problem don’t just try to fix a system, try to find the root cause and fix that. Sometimes it’s easier and cheaper.

When companies come to us saying that their current operation is no longer working, we always start with the most obvious problems. People are very good at seeing problems. We were designed to use our brains when we hit an obstacle; overcome it or go round.

When we are operating a business the same rules apply, we try to fix the current issue or if that’s too hard and expensive we remove the problem by cutting our losses.

Strangely enough most companies have the same root causes for all their staffing failures:

• Not enough staff
• Wrong skills mix
• Poor Holiday management
• Poor absence planning
• Change to the workload

The problem is that something has changed. When you start a business it takes time and a lot of trial and error to get everything running smoothly, but once it is you tend to forget about it. Then something happens. It may be small like somebody leaves or big like a change in the workload. So you go back and put in little fixes. Something happens again, and again and each time you don’t overhaul the whole operation, you just put in little fixes because it is easier and cheaper.

Until one day you look back and can’t remember why you did something on one occasion and something else on another. Then something happens and you don’t know what to do. That’s where we come in. We can look at your current system and assess it for staffing failures. Sometimes it just requires a few minor adjustments. Maybe a change to your procedures or implementing a new shift pattern.

On other occasions we may find that all your little fixes are making you inflexible for the future and you have a good opportunity to futureproof yourself. Put in a new way of working, with new shift patterns and flexible working arrangements. Think about contingency planning so that you know what to do when the next little problem comes up, don’t reinvent the system just look it up and then each time a common problem occurs you can solve it quickly, simply and cheaply.

Let us save you time and solve your problems contact us on alec@visualrota.co.uk or call (+44) 01636 816466 and find out how to solve your problems.

Shift Scheduling Software Wishlist

When it comes to what do we want out of software we all have our own wish lists. And we all have those things about our current software we would like to change. Like why doesn't it make it easy to print out, why can't it do this automatically etc. When we are running and working on a shift pattern it is important to have a fair and easy system to run.
Here are some common requests when running a shift pattern:

• I want it to record sickness
• I want to know what my sickness rate is (easily)
• I want to know how much sickness everyone has taken
• I want to know when I am short staffed
• I want it to record holidays
• I want to know how much holiday everyone has taken
• I want to know how much holiday everyone has left
• I want to know how much holiday I have to fit in till the end of the year
• I want to know what my holiday resource is
• I want to know when my holiday resource will run out
• I want to know when I am over staffed
• I want it to record everyone's hours
• I want to know how much training everyone has taken
• I want to know what I'm doing at Christmas
• I want my two weeks off during the summer
• I want to know how much I am going to be paid
• I want to know how much the operation will cost the company
• I want to know if there is enough people for the work
• I want to know how much overtime everyone is entitled to
• I want to record overtime
• I want to know how many weekend everyone will be working
• I want to know how many nights everyone is working
• I want to know that nights are scheduled fairly
• I want to know that weekends are scheduled fairly
• I want an equal opportunity for overtime
• I want to include cover shifts
• I want to divide the cover shifts fairly
• I want to be able to swap shifts
• I want to commute with my friends
• I want to go on holiday with my wife
• I want to know my shifts in advance
• I want to know when I can deny or approve a holiday request
• I want to know when I can deny or approve overtime
• I want to know when I can deny or approve authorised absence
• I want to know when I can deny or approve training
• I want to know when I can deny or approve shift swaps
• I want to know if I can take on additional work
• I want to know when I can fit it additional work
• I want to know if I can met my deadlines
• I want to know if I can met my SLAs
• I want to know when I can preform maintenance
• I want to "sweat the assets"
• I want to monitor my KPIs
• I want to use Banked Hours
• I want monitor Banked Hours
• I want to carryover holiday
• I want to be able to contact people about working shifts/overtime
• I want to be able to generate reports for the board (easily)
• I want to use Annualised Hours
• I want to use shutdowns
• I want to know how much holiday a shutdown will cover
• I want to be able to introduce a new starter
• I want to be able to accommodate a leaver
• I want to be able to schedule maternity leave
• I want to be able to do what-if analysis
• I want to be able to produce graphs of KPIs
• I want to know how sickness was taken last year
• I want to know if my holiday management worked
• I want to be able to compare years
• I want graphs on holidays taken
• I want to met the working time directive
• I want to know who is on a break
• I want to know who is available to cover shifts
• I want to know how many consecutive shifts people are working
• I want warnings for potential problems
• I want people to be able to see their shifts
• I want to be able to print out easily
• I want to be able to use the software easily
• I want to be able to include agency staff
• I want to include ad-hoc work
• I want to include additional working hours
• I want to see who is on-call
• I want to see who is down to work today
• I want top be able to tell the shift manager who is in
• I want to make sure I do not exceed anyone's hours
• I want to know what is their start and finish times
• I want to included golden days
• I want to monitor floating days
• I want to be able to book holidays in
• I want to monitor holiday quotas
• I want an audit trail of every change
• I want to be able to do an annual reconciliation
• I want to recode Bank Holidays
• I want to share out the Bank Holidays fairly
• I want to make sure I always have the correct skill mix
• I want to be able to observe as many shifts as possible
• I want to include team meeting
• I want to have a monthly meeting
• I want to employ people with different contracts on the same rota
• I want to be able to employ short term and temporary staff
• I want to be able to set it up for a year in minutes
• I want to be able to run a 2-shift system
• I want to be able to run a 3-shift system
• I want to use 12-hour shifts
• I want to be able to use 8-hour shifts
• I want to use different length shifts
• I want to vary the number on shift
• I want a different number working at weekends to during the week
• I want a different rota during vacation periods
• I want a different rota during term time
• I want to calculate my shift allowance
• I want a migration plan
• I want a call-out system
• I want to use TOIL
• I want my staffing levels to match my workload
• I want to match up people to work together
• I want people to work in teams
• I want people to move teams regularly
• I want people to be able to change depart/group/location easily
• I want to be able to monitor medical conditions
• I want to schedule the annual health check
• I want to be able to reintroduce people slowly after a long time illness
• I want to be able to have training after every long break
• I want to be able to roster people across continents to create one global shift pattern
• I want my rota to run itself

These are not in any particular order and everyone has their own priorities.
Our software VisualrotaX does most of these and can be adapted to do the rest if required to find out more go to our website

How to Staff for the Workload

Staffing for a given workload is very complicated. Yet covering the workload is the whole point of work. You want people there when they are needed. So how do you do it?
If the workload is flat, that is it doesn’t change from hour to hour, then you can have flat staffing. So you work out how many people you need and ensure that you always have that number. If the workload doesn't require a whole number of people then you either;

• need to find other work for them to do in the downtime,
• or understaff,
• or understaff part of the time,
• or overstaff and just have people there even when you don't need them.

If the workload changes, you have to decide how to change the staffing levels along with that fluctuation. Do you want that change to happen

• ahead of the increase and decline after the work starts to reduce,
• or after the increase and before the decline.

The image above shows a variable workload (yellow). You can either staff under the workload (pale green) and go short or you can overstaff (turquoise) and have people sat around but always know your workload is covered.
It depends what sort of operation you are managing, e.g. complaints line. If you miss a call, it is not going to be the end of the world. So you would staff to the pale green line. However if you were the 999 service, then you need to have someone there to answer the phone. Each missed call is a matter of life or death, so you over staff (turquoise) because the cost of having someone sat around for five minutes twiddling their thumbs is a lot lower than missing a call.
Once you have decided, you need to set up the shifts to match your staffing levels. Saving just one man hour per day is the equivalent of 1/5 of a person. To find out more about staffing to the workload visit our website