Managing Employee Schedules

Managing Employee Schedules: Effective Scheduling for Your Employees Can Save You Money! Employee salaries are a huge expense for service companies, such as PMP businesses. Thus, it becomes critical that you optimize the time your technicians and office staff spend on the clock. Managing employee schedules properly can help you to decrease downtime and therefore save your business a considerable sum of money.

Your service routes need to be tight in order for your business to get the most productivity out of your technicians’ time (we discuss this in depth in our other manuals). But that’s not the only place where you can strive for efficiency and productivity.

You must manage the time of the people that work IN your office as well.

As your business grows, you start developing a workforce in your office. When you go from 3 employees to 10 employees, you really start to see the need to grow the in-office support staff. A ratio of 4 or 5 technicians on the road per single office personnel is a reasonable number.

Managing Employee Schedules for Office Personnel: 

The roles of your office personnel will change as the business grows as well. You may start off needing someone who can wear a few different hats. This person may be a customer service rep, a bookkeeper, and a receptionist all in one. As you grow, you will split the responsibilities amongst a number of office personnel.

Managing Employee Schedules: Post Your Schedule –

Once you begin growing your office staff, you must start paying attention to scheduling to get the most mileage out of your employees. For example, if you have new employees, determine when is the best time for training activities to get them ramped up into the mix.

Create a clear schedule and post it in a place that everyone can see. This schedule will include your business’ hours of operation as well as who is “on duty” for which shifts. Make sure it’s easy to read and there is no confusion. In addition, make a contingency plan where employees back each other up should there be an emergency and someone cannot make into work that day.

Configure Your Office to Maximize Productivity – Another thing to consider is the way your office is set up. This is important as the flow of traffic through your office can increase OR decrease productivity. You want to make your office environment dynamic and keep your employees engaged in their jobs. This will make your workforce more involved while keeping unnecessary chatter to a minimum.