Over my career I have seen so many bad managers struggle with Timetabling and get carried away with the power that it holds and can give either the manager or the staff depending on how well it is written. It has also been another tool which has been pushed through the HR Hero text book of bulls**t where people have once again failed to grasp the point.
I worked as GM for a small business which was trying so hard to pretend to be a large chain so I got into a bit of a head to head with HR department over my first couple of weeks because they had put in a company policy which stated the rota must be posted 2 weeks in advance. Which although I agreed with that premise, the failure was in that they wanted it up two weeks in advance whether it was right or wrong and that is where I disagreed as I didn't believe I had gained enough knowledge of the staff or business to plan that far ahead without failure. So after a hefty debate in which they called me out in a conference call. Which I hate. I got stuck in. The nature of the venue was based around late night food, live sports and live music. So that was a lot to plan for.
STEP 1. Communication & Planning
In any timetabling the first step should be to communicate with the staff. So I drew up an idealistic availability rota and asked the staff to fill it out. By idealistic I mean that if they wanted every other Saturday off, they could request it. So the availability rota consisted of whether they could work that day, whether they could work AM or PM, (More specific hours if necessary), any special requests and then the minimum amount of money they wished to earn every two weeks.
The question on earnings are important for two reasons. The first reason is that staff will have a more accurate take on how much they wish to earn than how many hours they wish to work and the reason it's split over two weeks even though they were paid weekly is because that gave me the freedom to pad them out on busier weeks and then reduce them on the quieter weeks but still hit the balance over the two weeks.
After this was filled out by all staff I then discussed it with them to confirm their understanding and make sure they were being realistic.
I have very rarely seen staff that work as hard or as often as me. In my younger years as a bartender I went over 3 months without a day off, working split shifts 5 days a week. I have never been in a situation where the hours weren't available. Every single time the rota was posted I would comment and let everyone know I would be keen to cover any of their shifts I can and it was very rare that no-one would take me up on the offer. I never asked to finish early, and never left early if the management were trying to save payroll.
The hours are always there for the people that want them.
One important note that I have now learnt but have failed on so many times in my career was the concept of diminishing returns on working over so many hours. It wasn't necessarily an issue as a young Bartender but as a manager there were many nights where I had to sleep in the office from exhaustion and would then have to continue working in the morning and then there would be shifts on minimal sleep where I would be so exhausted that my reduced output would mean it would take me so longer to complete tasks than it would have if I had just slept a few more hours or took the time to have a good meal.
I am currently in the best shape of my life and wish to continue this on for myself and staff when I begin to build my Honey Empire.
Step 2. Event Planning
The next step was to design an event calendar for the year. This was 12 months in advance, every possible event, bank holiday, sports game, every band that we had confirmed to be playing. This has to be updated on a weekly basis to keep up with current events, it is also a really useful tool for marketing. Depending on how your team is structured, after I did the initial rota for the next 12 months I then handed it over the assistant to keep all the bands up to date and the marketing manager to keep the events up to date for me. All of this was done via excel where the information was formatted to automatically copy over into one calendar file and was then checked by me before I would copy it onto the rota.
This planner is an incredible tool which is used by sales to designs the Comms Rota for all Social Media which I will go into on another blog.
Step 3. The Base Rota
Once you have more knowledge of the business itself you then have to go into the figures associated in which you should Forecast, obviously most companies will have written you a budget with revenue and profitability targets. The budgets are very important but ultimately these are tools which allow management to hit bonuses or just a metric used by higher ups to analyse your business.
On top of the Event and Entertainment planning it is important to write up a management table where in everybody knows what days certain jobs must be completed such as Stock Take, Audits, Orders and Deliveries. Now most operators will choose to divide out these tasks to specific managers through KPIs which is not the direction I am going to take but I do understand why they choose to. A lot of management pressures and stresses/ lack of team mentality can stem from KPIs but I will go into this in more detail in another post.
The base rota itself should be updated 4 weekly due to the changing/ seasonal nature of the business.
It should start with rotaing in Management in terms of operation including time for opening and closing. I believe all managers at all level should work on the front lines with their staff and should be included as an operational member of staff. Even if only loosely, with time factored in to complete jobs outside of taking revenue.
The next step will be adding in your hourly staff in line with forecasted revenue. For the peak times, usually Saturday nights you should aim to have all staff members in with the potential to comfortably have two members of staff off on sick or holiday. That should be how you judge the size of your team. Baring in mind the extra staff off on the daytime as well.
The final part is adding in extra hours for sales driving or extra jobs for staff outside of taking revenue.
Step 4. Holiday "Requests"
Holidays in Hospitality is another area where management very commonly fail the staff.
I very rarely class them as "requests" if we are given at least 4 weeks notice then they should be classed as bookings. People in thus industry sacrifice so much for the job the ignorance shown by management when denying holiday requests is soul destroying.
If a member of staff gives you 4 weeks notice and you can't find cover then that is your failure as a manager in how you operate your business. Obviously there will be events in which everybody will want off such as Summer Balls or Graduations or specific holidays. These being an issue can be combated by having vast diversity in your workforce.
I have seen good members of staff quit over being denied holiday requests unnecessarily by managers, and the outcome of that is that you lose those members of staff forever and people leaving for these reasons is something that introduces poison and negativity to your team. In these scenarios, nobody wins due to these stupid power moves. I have had issues with trying to give everyone holiday on the same day but generally I have spoken with all staff who want it off and explained the situation to where they have retracted their booking or found another way in which to help us out due to the relationships I have formed with them. The other scenario is that you are short staffed for the evening which means occasionally your staff who should work at 80% capacity the majority of the time have to band together and all work at 100%.
Having a system in place is so important but I will go into that in another section
Step 5. The Write Up
Once you have gathered all of this information you then write up the rotas for the next 8 weeks with all the information you've gathered, then post the next 6 weeks of rotas.
I have always posted the rotas on Facebook with the comments off so that any issues can be spoken to me about personally. Posting so far in advance allows for the staff to think that far ahead with their holidays and time off requests to help plan better for the business. I then post 6 weeks worth of rotas every 4 weeks. So 2 weeks worth will overlap with any amendments made and then they will have a further 4 weeks of Fresh rotas.
On top of the excel spreadsheet that I use to design the rota I am planning to use PointOne Pos systems for my rota design as it runs along side the system which will be used for staff to clock in and out. The point one system will be used to let the staff know of any amendments to their current rota.
Due to the nature of the industry being able to operate from 9am to 5am, it is important for staff to know that far in advance and for managers to create a rota which gives staff some form of routine which has a large positive impact on their mental health and ability to operate.
I will go into further detail about the shift planning and staff deployment in another blog.
I hope this helped in some way, or at least got you thinking.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments