The baseline of any business is to achieve profitability. Poor employee scheduling has a major impact on a company's profitability. Scheduling staff to meet business requirements is a complex task. In previous times, there were traditional office hours and shift work.
Now employee scheduling has become complicated, especially because of - Extended or 24/7 working hours, employees working shifts, flexible working hours, split-working, job share, and part-time hours.
Business and project managers who undertake the task of employee scheduling, manually spend considerable time delivering good schedules. In case, the manager delivers a poor resource schedule, the consequences of poor employee scheduling will be apparent in the company's operations, revenue generation, employee satisfaction, and retention. Most importantly, it will also have an impact on the brand image of the company.
Chaos in Operations :
The consequences of poor employee scheduling are utter chaos in the company's operations. This will be perceived as being arbitrary and will invite ad-hoc changes for reasons not connected with the business.Loss of Credibility of Schedules :
This will lead to repeated corrections and amendments and appear as a rough guide to the work schedule. This leads to a loss of credibility of the resource management schedule in the opinion of employees and desires to get changes as per the employee’s preferences and it is difficult to encourage an ordered and responsible approach to staff deployment.Inefficient Workflows :
Poor employee leaves resource scheduling that may lead to inaccurate headcounts or even if headcount is met, there may be a poor skill mix leading to inefficient workflows and loss of productivity. Furthermore, in the absence of definable workflows, managers find it difficult to timely deliver consistent staff schedules associated with company goals.Employee Conflict & Poor Retention :
The consequences of poor employee scheduling are generally seen in the form of workplace stress, staff conflicts, poor productivity, increased absenteeism, and ultimately poor retention of a trained workforce. Staff finds it difficult to manage when they are confronted with unplanned schedule changes at short notice, especially those with responsibilities.Increased Costs :
The costs associated with poor employee scheduling are difficult to define. Misunderstood schedules can be very costly to any company. Controlling overtime costs is a benefit most companies understand, but much higher costs are involved in less obvious areas of activity such as payments for work not performed, reduction or a temporary halt in production, possible reduction in the quality of work, vacation schedule, negative effect on the morale of the employees, training expenses of the replaced employee and administrative costs.Negative Impact on Organization's Brand Name :
Poor resource management leading to poor retention of employees influences employee relationships in a negative way and can also result in poor public relations. Reduction in the quality of products leaves a negative impact on the brand name.Effective resource scheduling, which includes matching specific skills with specific needs in the most cost-effective manner, is vital to achieving the goal of the company as well as providing the best possible financial results.
There is great employee scheduling software that has features to generate good schedules and provide a crucial link between the financial and productive sides of the business.