Common rota problems and how to solve them

If there’s a staff scheduling problem that’s bothering you, you should find a solution here.

Problem: Staff confusion over different versions of the rota

Employees refer to the rota and make a note of their shifts but don’t check that it’s the latest version, or fail to double-check if it’s been updated and their shifts have changed.

The result? Staff turn up at the wrong place at the wrong time, or fail to turn up at all.

Solutions

Problem: Staff and/or management confusion over shift swapping

Staff often organise shift swaps amongst themselves, which can be helpful but also confusing (and can mess up the rota for everyone else).

Solutions

Problem: Staff confusion over requesting and booking annual leave

Confusion around requesting and taking holiday can cause you to be short-staffed unexpectedly, and annoy your employees. Either way, the chaotic leave system isn’t good for any business.

Solutions

Problem: Suspected time theft at work

You suspect that some employees regularly inflate their hours on their paper timesheets, but have no real evidence. You know that you can never eliminate paper timesheet fraud entirely, but you’re worried that a few people are taking advantage of the system.

Solutions

Problem: Staff availability is changeable or irregular

If you employ students, for example, their class schedules may change from week to week. Perhaps they don’t even find out their timetable until the last minute. You want to do your best to accommodate, but it’s a massive hassle having to continually adjust the rota based on ever-changing availability.

Problem: Staff have to phone or come into work to check the rota

The rota’s pinned to the staff noticeboard, and any changes or updates are over the top of the old version.

This system works fine most of the time, and saves you the hassle of sending copies to staff, but you’re tired of having to field calls from staff double-checking their shifts or failing to check if the rota’s been updated at all.

Solutions

Problem: Rota planning is too time consuming

According to our research, the average rota manager spends approximately five hours a week, or 20 hours a month, on rota planning (before moving to RotaCloud, of course!). The more staff you manage, the trickier it is to put together the rota.

Solutions

Problem: The rota is often published at the last minute (and your staff aren’t happy about it)

There are usually two reasons managers are slow to publish the rota: 1) they haven’t had the time to make it any sooner, and 2) they want to wait until as late as possible so that staffing requirements are clear.

Unfortunately, late-published rotas make it extremely difficult for employees to plan ahead. They must either say no to other appointments and engagements until their shifts are confirmed, or arrange things and hope they don’t clash. Either way, it’s not good for morale and will eventually result in staff looking for work elsewhere.

Solutions

Problem: It’s difficult to keep track of staff availability

Large or multi-site businesses often struggle to keep track of who’s available to work. As it’s not just employees’ personal availability that needs to be taken into account, but also whether staff are scheduled to work at other sites or departments.

Solutions

Problem: Only a few managers know or understand your rota planning processes

Your rota might work like a charm, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy system to operate. If all your shift managers left, or happened to be off at the same time, then rota planning would grind to a halt.

Solutions

Problem: Staff believe that shift allocation on the rota is unfair

On every rota, there are shifts that every employee wants to work, and shifts that no-one wants to work. The trick is to find a balance between these types of shifts, so that no team member feels they’ve been unfairly treated. But when you have dozens or hundreds of staff to schedule, maintaining fairness can be really difficult — so it’s not surprising that some people will think they’re losing out.

Solutions

Problem: Different departments have different rota systems and it’s difficult to compare data

Particularly in fast-growing businesses, rota systems tend to develop organically, as and when they’re required. In a fairly short time, different teams and departments can end up using completely different systems.

With no central oversight, it’s tricky to analyse data across the business or compare metrics across teams. This makes it more difficult to identify potential growth problems — and to solve them.

Solutions

Problem: You need to track staff time, but it’s difficult to do across so many sites

Oversight is difficult but crucially important if you employ dozens of staff based across multiple sites — particularly in sectors like care. But maintaining an accurate, reliable and consistent system across all sites just isn’t possible using traditional time tracking methods.

Solutions

Problem: You have to repeatedly cross-check the rota against other HR data (leave, staff availability etc.)

Struggling through rota planning with multiple spreadsheets open at once and paper strewn across the desk? Among this confusion, errors will creep in — or you spend so long trying to prevent the errors that every rota takes hours or even days to make.

Solutions

Wrap up

Effective staff scheduling isn’t without its challenges. It requires careful planning, experimentation with different shift patterns, and a willingness to adapt to new business challenges and unfolding situations.

But it also presents a number of opportunities to improve your business, helping you reduce overspending on staffing, improve customer service, and spot opportunities to grow your business.

Be sure to explore the various rota planning tools and methods at your disposal to create schedules that work both for your business and your team. With a little extra planning, your team’s rotas can quickly transform from a source of frustration to one of your business’ biggest assets.