Combine Team Shift Patterns

Scheduling complexity is not always created by the numbers of staff to be scheduled. Complexity arises more often by the number of shift patterns and roles staff can be allocated. For example 200 staff working standard three 8 hour rotating shifts 24 hours a day 7 days a week (24/7) is less complex than 20 staff working several 8 hour shifts rotating or otherwise. The complexity arises when you have staff with different shift patterns working together.

Manufacturing is a good example where you have production staff working three 8 hour rotating shifts on a 24/7 schedule working closely with maintenance staff working two 12 hour alternating shifts 24/7. Similarly in a service industry you will have staff working one 8 hour traditional office hours alongside job share staff working 4 hours a day, or staff prefering one of two 8 hour flexitime arrangements for earlier or later working around core hours.

The principle workflow in Schedule24 Professional enables a manager to design and structure different work patterns for different business goals. For example guaranteed 24 hour staff cover, adequate availability of particular staff roles, or maximizing staff preferences for flexible working. That does not mean all get equal priority, but it does mean they all get equal consideration.

It is much easier to solve complex staff scheduling with two or three well designed shift patterns which are then combined in one schedule. Staff can then be allocated to their respective shift pattern, or re-allocated to another shift pattern, using the drag and drop features within the Team Manager. In this way complex staff scheduling requirements are managed by combining simple solutions rather than attempting the whole problem in one go, often by constraints requiring even more complex conflict resolution programming to get a workable staff schedule.