What Is Advanced Scheduling? Here’s What To Know

Advanced scheduling involves planning shifts weeks in advance. This approach allows you to account for employee preferences and changes in availability. Employees will have several weeks to make arrangements for child care or address family obligations. By providing ample notice, you reduce the risk of conflicts or last-minute changes. 

Did you know there’s software that can help with advanced scheduling? Try When I Work for free and see how it can transform the way you manage staff. 

Key takeaways:

• Advanced scheduling helps your business plan shifts more effectively
• It balances employee availability and skills with business needs
• Advanced scheduling makes workers feel more in control
• You can also reduce labor costs by building schedules ahead of time
• Advanced scheduling does come with challenges, but the right software can help you overcome them 

Table of contents

• What is advanced scheduling?
• What is the difference between scheduling and advanced scheduling?
• What are the benefits of advanced scheduling?
• Key challenges of advanced scheduling

What is advanced scheduling? 

Advanced scheduling involves filling shifts in advance so that employees have ample notice about their work hours. So how far in advance should you plan your shifts? That depends largely on the nature of your business. However, you should aim to have shifts finished at least three to four weeks ahead of time.

Planning shifts in advance gives you a chance to account for employee availability and preferences. Team members will have the opportunity to resolve any conflicts or swap shifts with their peers to ensure the company’s needs are met. 

What is the difference between scheduling and advanced scheduling?

Scheduling and advanced scheduling have one major difference—how far in advance you make the schedules. Regular scheduling focuses on making sure your shifts are filled. Shift assignments are published just a week or two ahead of time, leaving little room to resolve conflicts. Here’s a closer look at typical and advanced scheduling. 

Typical scheduling

Typical scheduling involves plugging employees into gaps in your schedule. You don’t really consider individual efficiency or employee preferences. Employees have little notice about their work assignments, which can cause a lot of friction. 

Roughly two-thirds of hourly food service and retail workers are accustomed to traditional scheduling. They typically receive less than two weeks’ notice about upcoming shifts. If there’s a conflict, they might call out or get upset with your management team. Either way, it’s bad for morale (and the business). 

Advanced scheduling

Advanced scheduling takes a more strategic approach. It involves planning shifts in advance while accommodating each worker’s preferences and strengths. This strategy helps prevent overstaffing or understaffing. Many businesses use scheduling technology to facilitate advanced scheduling. 

You can technically perform advanced scheduling manually. However, this task can be tedious. Employee scheduling software makes the process easier by visualizing shift data. You can access shift information from anywhere, share it with your team, and much more. 

What are the benefits of advanced scheduling? 

The perks of advanced scheduling include: 

Flexibility

Advanced scheduling also promotes flexibility for you and your team members. The sooner people know about their schedule, the more time they will have to swap shifts. 

If you don’t allow shift swapping, you might want to consider permitting it. Shift swaps are a convenient way of resolving scheduling conflicts and promoting teamwork. 

A sense of empowerment

If you always publish shift assignments at the last minute, it can leave your team feeling out of control. They are more likely to experience conflicts and won’t be able to make personal plans until they know when they will be working.

Advanced scheduling can restore their sense of control over their job. They will be able to plan life obligations around assigned shifts without waiting until the last minute. Making your team feel empowered can go a long way in boosting morale and cultivating a sense of loyalty toward your business. 

Better shift coverage

Assigning shifts weeks ahead of time will promote better shift coverage. You can review schedules and ensure you’ve got enough people assigned to each day. Call-ins and no-shows will decrease when workers have ample notice about their assignments. 

Advanced scheduling also gives you a chance to experiment with different shift structures. You can try rotating schedules or other frameworks to improve coverage. 

Reduced labor costs

What happens when someone calls out last minute or has an issue with the shift you’ve assigned? You’ll probably have to ask someone to stay late. While keeping someone over from the past shift solves your problem, it also drives up overtime costs. 

Advanced scheduling helps cut down on call-outs and minimizes your reliance on overtime. You can look ahead and resolve any coverage gaps weeks ahead of time. On the flip side, you can avoid overstaffing, which further helps reduce labor costs. 

Key challenges of advanced scheduling

Advanced scheduling is not without its challenges. Here are a few common barriers that may prevent you from planning shifts weeks ahead of time: 

Time

Some managers simply feel like their time is too limited to plan shifts in advance. They are struggling to keep up with their current scheduling responsibilities. You may share these concerns. 

Fortunately, the solution is relatively simple. You need to ditch manual shift planning and invest in employee scheduling software. The right platform can save you countless hours every week. Once you input basic employee data, you can easily build shifts and ensure your business is adequately staffed. 

Staying organized

Manual scheduling can make it tough to keep up with each assignment. Your employees may struggle to keep track of their work schedule if you give them a month’s worth of shift assignments. 

Once again, going digital is the answer. A shift scheduling platform allows you to keep employees in the loop and stay organized. You can easily view upcoming shifts and sort them by person, date, or month. 

Changing worker availability

Employees’ availability will sometimes change. While you usually have ample notice about planned vacations, last-minute time-off requests can wreak havoc on your schedule. The risk of availability changes isn’t an excuse to use typical scheduling, though. In fact, it should motivate you to plan shifts a month or more in advance.

The more notice people have of shift assignments, the easier it will be for them to make accommodations. If they can’t find coverage or resolve personal obligations, they can notify you of the issue. You’ll have weeks to fix the problem and are less likely to face call-outs or no-shows.

Advanced scheduling with When I Work

When I Work simplifies advanced scheduling while also making it easier to stay connected with your team. The messaging tool provides a secure place to exchange information and keep workers in the loop about their shifts. When I Work also includes automatic scheduling capabilities. Once you build out the shifts you need, Auto Scheduling will assign eligible, available employees to each shift for you. Then you can make any minor adjustments you might need. The employee time clock accurately tracks hours, and our payroll solution allows you to run payroll with just one click. 

Sign up for a free trial of When I Work today. After you try it, you’ll wonder why you ever managed your team without it.