Businesses that work 24×7 consider shift work to be a blessing. However, not every company’s HR department has mastered the art of shift management.
Though all shift managers wish to deliver quality customer experiences while maintaining employee productivity, doing so can take time and effort. After all, there are many things to take care of – emergency understaffing problems, overlapping schedules, efficient time-tracking, etc.
The good news is that managing shifts need not be overtly taxing. Here are some hacks to run this process successfully.
1. Hiring the Right People
As surprising as it may seem, not everyone can handle shift work. However, this piece of info could be more helpful since there is no one-size-fits-all way of assessing whether an employee is cut out for shift work.
You can start by determining the number of employees you need for shift work. Ensure they either have shift experience or are open to being trained for the same. Make it clear to the candidate what is expected of their role (timings, workflow, etc.).
Test the candidates based on the role. For instance – in the case of customer support, test the candidates on communication skills.
2. Thorough Standardised Onboarding
Once the employees are hired for their shift work, they must run a complete onboarding process wherein they are familiar with their respective tasks. Let them know their role, your company’s offerings, major expectations, and any advanced tech knowledge they’ll need to fulfil the role.
Creating an organised presentation or document featuring your company’s objectives, work culture, shift nature, products and services, customers, etc. Then, be an ever-present help during each shift employee’s first week.
Once they’re comfortable with the work environment, you can offer them greater autonomy.
3. Streamlining it All through Technology
The third hack for effective shift management is to streamline the entire process with the help of technology. Advanced mobile apps and software can help you end all scheduling surprises as you can quickly launch shift offers, swap shifts, publish rosters, and more.
Moreover, such apps will also enable you to handle unexpected absences through easy, available replacements. Finally, you will receive almost instantaneous, automatic reports and updates of each shift.
So, the entire process becomes smooth like butter; no more worries of constant phone calls!
4. Putting Proper Incentives in Place
Incentives always go a long way in making employees feel valued and like their work truly impacts the company’s growth. In the case of shift work, it is easy to get engulfed in the monotony until workers no longer feel like their work matters.
Prevent such breeding grounds by setting different incentives – maybe a positive customer rating for the employee, a photo review, opportunities for cross-selling, etc. You can even create a dashboard where employees can monitor their progress and get motivated to do more and achieve more.
Shift Management Can Become a Breeze!
While technology enhances the speed and efficacy of the process, you must never underestimate the value of the human touch. So, you must conduct one-on-one meetings with each shift employee to understand their side of the story – appreciate their efforts, ask them how they find work and the schedule, what changes they would like, etc.
This should especially be a practice for night shift employees – ask them if the schedule is impacting them negatively. An efficient shift management system is within your reach! Apply the above mentioned hacks and stay on top of the market.
