Barriers in Efficient Employee Scheduling

Many levels of intense activities continues in most organisations and many managers and team leaders find themselves working hard on a myriad of activities trying to get  best performance  from the resources as this is the underlying basis of the company’s success.

Optimum Human resource utilization by the means of efficient resource scheduling has always been central to success of the organization. Human capital is intangible and elusive and cannot be managed the way organizations manage jobs, products and technologies. There are many attributes of each individual and variables of each interactive resource which influence the total quality work out put. These can be categorized as  the  knowledge, skills, life experiences, morale and it’s motivation, abilities and interpersonal relations, to name a few. The value of employees is increased The profits earned by a company are governed to a major extent by Efficient Employee Scheduling, which is definitely a complex task. If this activity of Employee Scheduling  is carried out manually it becomes a very cumbersome process and is prone to many errors. Work flow requirements for the process of  good staff scheduling requires much more than what is achievable with paper and pencil or with spreadsheets. when employees  are working in shifts, have flexible working hours, work part time,share jobs and split works etc. it becomes especially complicated to manually schedule the resources . A good resource scheduling software can overcome barriers of the manual scheduling.

The barriers in optimum resource utilization are mainly related to resource scheduling deficiencies, lack of educational and training records of the employee, inadequate staffing,  time and attendance, clear job description, job analysis, diversity (racial / ethnic diversity,  more women in the workforce, single-parent households, dual-career couples, domestic partners, working mothers and family/childcare), loss of employee loyalty,  health safety and security issues, the companies going global leading to multicultural environment, technological shift and use of Internet, older employees not trained in modern techniques or exposed to today’s work culture, need to accommodate working mothers and fathers through parental leaves, ensure equality for women in  respect to employment advancement opportunities and compensations, job sharing, part time and contractual employment with  their job analysis, more sensitivity to the growing need for policies, procedure to eliminate sexual harassment, conflicts and their resolution, work place  negativity etc.

For moving forward all these issues need to be addressed, as these are a barrier in high performance work practices. Environmental scanning, anticipation and flexible, foresighted and strategic deployment of resources is the key to ensure effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals and to gain that edge of advantage over competitors which makes the company not good but great. A modern day resource scheduling software can manage different types of resources and show informative reports can also help to a great extent.

On top of this, global nature of big organisations does not help in efficiently scheduling resources. Resources are more mobile than ever, this is good from operational point of view but a night mare for a resource coordinator, as they have to keep real time record or resource engagements and future commitments.   

Consequences of Poor Resource Scheduling

The base line of any business is to achieve profitability.Efficient resource scheduling has a major impact on company’s profitability.  Scheduling resources to meet business requirements is a complex task. In previous times there were traditional office hours and shift work. Now It has become complicated especially because of extended or 24/7 working hours on one hand   and on the other employees working shifts, flexible working hours, split-working, job share or part-time hours etc.  

Business managers who undertake this task  of resource scheduling  manually spend considerable time to deliver  good schedules and in case the manager fails to deliver an optimal schedule the consequences of poor resource scheduling will be apparent in company’s operations, revenue generation, employee satisfaction, retention etc. Most important, it will also have impact on the brand image of the company.

Poor resource scheduling can lead to 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.  This will lead to repeated corrections and amendments and appear as a rough guide of the work schedule. This leads to loss of credibility of the schedule in the opinion of employees and desire to get changes as per the employee’s preferences and it is difficult to encourage an ordered and responsible approach to staff deployment.

In case of poor leave scheduling overall head count may be met but there may be poor skill mix leading to loss of proper work-flow and productivity. Furthermore in the absence of a definable work-flow, managers find it difficult to timely deliver consistent staff schedules associated with company goals.

Consequences of poor resource scheduling is generally seen in the form of workplace stress,  staff conflicts, poor productivity, increased absenteeism,  and ultimately poor retention of trained workforce. Staff finds it difficult to manage when they are confronted with unplanned schedule changes at short notice, especially those with responsibilities.

The costs associated with poor resource 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 as payments for work not performed, reduction or a temporary halt in production, possible reduction in the quality of work, vacation scheduling, negative effect on the morale of the employees, training expenses of replaced employee and administrative costs. Poor resource management leading to poor retention of employees influences employee relationship in a negative way and can also result in poor public relation. Reduction in the quality of products leaves a negative impact on the brand name.

Effective scheduling, which includes matching specific skills with specific needs in the most cost effective manner, is vital to achieving goal of the company as well as providing the best possible financial results. The resource scheduling software are capable enough to generate effective schedules and  provide a crucial link between the financial and productive side of the business.

Dynamics Of Employee Scheduling

In any dynamic, resource intensive organization “expertise” in employee management and scheduling is essential to thrive. The task of employee scheduling is complex, time consuming, tedious and at times the best human efforts are not enough to meet it’s complex and diverse requirements. The objective of employee manager is to schedule the employee’s duties perfectly and optimize the workforce to improve the outcome.

Employee management and scheduling encompasses the Initial creation of staffing vacancies, both day-to-day staffing decisions and long-term scheduling strategies, strategic and timely decisions regarding human capital optimization etc. For all this, Managers need to have timely, accurate and detailed information about the employees, such as their qualifications, trainings, abilities and past records. Besides this many financial aspects e.g. complex pay policies, contractual staffing, overtime rate and calculations, multiple shift codes etc. have to be considered for effective management of employees, in big as well as small organizations.

In present day, these multiple array of complexities can be handled by resource scheduling software. These software understand the nuances of scheduling, provide integrated workforce management solutions, can predict just about all of the different scenarios you can find in any organization and also know how to handle them. They can also provide advice for solving “specific” challenges. These software with robust functionality can empower the staff to make a bigger positive impact on implementation and financial outcomes. 

Data-driven human resource scheduling can provide the ability to deliver high quality work out put while managing costs. These resource schedulers ensure effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals by Coordinating staff credentials with job requirement, reallocating workforce more efficiently, managing floating resources and creating predictable, flexible schedules.

Resource scheduler software are also perfect solutions for pay calculations depending on the output of the resource. Managers can spend less time on administrative tasks and executives can have the information they need to track trends and make strategic proactive decisions for other beneficial, futuristic, developmental efforts dedicated to improving processes and outputs. These resource planners lead to development of systems that can make job easier and organization more effective. The employee management and scheduling software are designed for the overall success of the industry. These software should be from highly professional vendors who besides providing professional expertise can also have a really strong relationship with their customers. Effective resource scheduling truly empowers your organization to complete projects in time and budget.

Maximise Resource Utilization with Scheduling Software

In the past 2 decades, organizations have grown many folds, mainly due to introduction of lenient and pro-business laws which have opened up the entire world in a single market place. On top of that the technological revolution has realized the concept of virtual office and real time information sharing.

As a result, the entire world has become like a unified market for medium and large size organizations. Now organizations have offices and representatives in multiple countries and projects have become even more complex and demanding in terms of technology and worker skill sets. This new development has its own pros and cons. Benefits include bigger market, more business and higher profits, but at the same time it has its own set of unique challenges.

As the organizations are growing, so are the number of employees and other resources, this comes along with big issues such as efficiently scheduling resources and maximizing utilization, so that profits can be maximized and associated costs can be justified. It’s easier said than done. Out of all the different types of resources, employees are the most challenging to schedule and optimize, mainly because every employee can have multiple attributes (skills, roles, trainings, certification, experience, preferences etc…) and capturing and maintaining these attributes can be tedious and never-ending job. Not only this, employees are spread across continents, are highly mobile and therefore can be involved in different projects at multiple locations. Therefore visibility of resources and their attributes is a bigger issue than ever.

What should a project resource coordinator do if he / she is not able to find a resource with the required skill sets in his own team or department? The usual solution is to hire or to contract an outside resource, but this at times is not economical, can be time consuming and not practical due to operational reasons and policies. Other possibility is to extend the scope of search within the organization and look for the required resources in other departments, offices and even offices in other countries, this option has benefits of being economical, comparatively faster and motivating for employees. But identifying the right resources on the basis of required skill sets is only possible if organization is using a collaborative resource scheduling and planning tool that captures and maintains comprehensive profiles of all the resources across the organization that can share resource information (skill sets, commitments, availability etc…) in real time so that efficient resource scheduling and utilization can become a reality.

‘eResource Scheduler’ by Enbraun is a good example of collaborative Resource Scheduling Software. It can be configured to schedule custom defined resources e.g. Rooms, equipment etc. Main features include configurable groupings & resource attributes, drag & drop Scheduling, billable & non billable bookings, timesheet, resource utilisation report, resource forecasting report and financial report.