As a retail scheduler, you know how important it is to have the right staffing levels in the store at all times. You have to manage full-time employees, part-time employees, high school students, and college students, each of whom has their own availability. That availability can change over time, and for employees who are still in school, varying school schedules also come into play.
Up-to-date information on when employees are available is therefore essential when creating a weekly schedule. In this blog, we’ll explore how up-to-date availability data and school schedules can benefit you as a scheduler, what requires extra attention in this process, and how you can practically organize this together with your team.
In the R&R Job App, employees can submit their availability themselves. As a scheduler, you can see which availability entries are pending approval and the time period they cover. Once approved, you’ll see them when creating the schedule.
That way, when you’re creating the schedule, you’ll know who’s available to work at any given time, without having to double-check. You’ll also reduce the chance that, once the schedule is set, an employee turns out to be unavailable at a scheduled time. This cuts down on last-minute changes, the need to find a replacement, and the resulting back-and-forth via phone or WhatsApp.
Even once the schedule is set, information about availability remains valuable. Do you unexpectedly need extra staff—for example, due to sick leave? In that case, in addition to the scheduled shifts, you can also see when your employees are still available. This allows you to continue planning right away without having to ask again who can work.
For high school and college students, their availability depends largely on their school schedules. That’s why R&R also lets you take school schedules into account. In the Job App, an employee can submit his or her school schedule, and once you’ve processed it, you can factor those school times into your scheduling.
That availability based on school schedules does require some extra attention. New school terms, exam weeks, and internships mean that school hours change throughout the year. And if a school schedule is incorrect, it immediately affects your planning: R&R takes into account the information that is currently available.
Fortunately, with a little coordination, this doesn’t have to create any extra work. If employees know when you need their current availability and class schedule and are aware of how to report changes, you’ll have the right information to create an effective store schedule.
You and your team are responsible for managing current availability and school schedules. We’d like to share some practical tips to help you with that:
Availability and school schedules are therefore a key factor in achieving optimal store staffing. With up-to-date information in R&R, you as a planner have more options for organizing your staffing effectively, both when creating the schedule and when you need to make adjustments later on.
Good to know: availability and school schedules are also essential inputs for Auto-Schedule, one of our newest features that we are currently testing with various users.
Would you like to get started with optimizing your store scheduling? Our colleagues in Customer Success would be happy to help you figure it out. Please contact us!
