Article
How to make a fair rota for your venues
Creating a fair rota for your staff is quite the task, there’s so much to take in consideration from annual leave, someone calling in sick and ensuring service runs as smoothly as possible with the right amount of staff.
With so much to consider, it can be difficult to create a fair rota that works for your business and all your staff members, especially within the hospitality industry. Its a people business so if you are lacking staff it can result in poorer service which has implications on the success of your business.
However having a fair rota is more than just making sure someone's there to do their job. Having a work schedule thats unclear and keeps changing can be frustrating to employees leaving them unmotivated which only hinders productivity and the quality of service your business provides.
What is a fair rota?
A fair rota should be well balanced across your team. Your rota schedule should be created, shared and agreed in advance of the week ahead and any necessary changes should be made as soon as possible to the right people - This prepares your team for the week ahead to know exactly what is expected of them. There should be no favouritism in time allocation or changes to working hours at the very last minute.
Luckily it really isn't that complicated if you have the right management tools for the job. Hopsy online rota tool provides a clear staff rota template and system that makes creating a fair rota less of a headache. Want to see how it works? learn more about our solution to staff rotas or try our staff rota template for free today!
The benefits of a fair rota for staff
Boost morale: happy staff, happy customers
Your staff rota should be divided up into desired and undesired shifts, you need an even distribution so all staff members experience the same and feel equal to each other in return feeling valued at your business which they will feel proud to work for - they come in to work positive, they will want to work at their best and provide your customers with a great experience.
This can be challenging especially with a high number of staff at your venues but having an online solution such as hopsy helps you and staff understand the layout of the shift planner in advance and show that everyone is being favoured equally.
Better prepared for the weeks ahead
A fair rota means giving your staff enough notice ahead of their shifts, then there is time for any issues or changes to be implemented way ahead of service and no complications or difficult conversations to be had.
Having your rotas available online for managers and staff to access at any point beforehand means less time being spent on shift changes and it gives a much easier process for managers when it comes to shift planning as you see when an employee is scheduled to take their holidays so they can plan rotas weeks in advance.
Getting the right staff at the right time
Always make sure you have the right people for the job and balance your shift planner correctly, make sure there is enough support for junior staff on the busier days or peak times with having enough experienced and senior members available on hand and plan your training days correctly when you know service will be quiet.
Different types of service will require different qualities from your staff to manage these situations, an online rota can show where certain staff needed for service are placed
How to make a fair rota; 5 Top Tips
Start with the set shifts
Get those non-negotiables in first. It’s much easier to start by planning in those shifts that you can’t change. Get them locked in and figure the rest out around them. This way, you won’t forget about any agreements, or be tempted to go back on your word. A good idea might be to use a rota template with these shifts already detailed.
Input holidays and approved leave requests
Similar to the set shift agreements, approved leave is another agreement that you cannot really go back on. A poor request management process or lack of communication, can cause a whole load of complications that will affect how your venues are run. Hopsy’s leave management system dispels these common human errors in process and completely removes the chance of mistakes by automatically plotting approved requests directly onto the rota template.
Start with the busiest days and work to the quietest
Starting with a realistic idea of how busy your business is going to be is a good idea. Most of the time it’s guess work, but an accurate sales forecast is an essential start point.
Assuming that the majority of your weekly trade will come in the 2 weekend days, it’s important to get these days right. Understaffing the weekend can have a sizable impact on your ability to take sales, and a catastrophic impact on your team morale and reputation. Working on your rota from these days outwards can be a good technique.
Hopsy’s deployment graphs help by providing a visual representation of how many team members are planned for each hour of the day, making it really easy to spot understaffing and prevent overstaffing.
Check, check, and check again
Just when you think you have nailed it... That’s it, the rota is done, put it on the wall or press that ‘publish’ button if you are using online rota software. Just hold on one more second. Checking it over could be the most beneficial 10 minutes of the process.
Check everyone has the right amount of days off, that there are no horrible late finishes followed by early starts and there are enough breaks for your team. With Hopsy you can check every employee's week, line by line, confirming that everyone is working where they need to be and you have enough people to tackle the shift ahead of service.
Prevent Change
There is nothing more frustrating to employees and management when a rota is frequently changed, it increases chances of conflict between staff and management which in turn could increase the likelihood of no shows for upcoming shifts.
On occasion, change is inevitable, but it’s definitely best practice to approach employees first and ask if they have plans with free time and if making changes is ok. Just altering the rota and hoping they spot the change can be a very frustrating way of working for employees.
Online rotas: a solution to shift planners
Hopsy gives staff members tools to make their lives easier, holiday and leave requests directly through Hopsy. No more lost pieces of paper requesting specific days off. Decisions around time off are communicated directly and instantly with employees. Even better, pending leave requests show directly on the rota, meaning you simply can’t produce a rota without actioning all outstanding requests for time off
Hopsy’s rota builder and deployment analysis graphs mean creating a rota doesn’t have to be difficult, and neither does communicating it. When published, all employees have access to the one, correct rota. If changes do take place, anyone involved is notified, taking the headaches out of effectively managing your workforce.