The key rota metrics your business should track
Effective scheduling is an essential part of any successful business.
You need to have the right people there at the right time.
That ensures you have the correct skill sets, sufficient capacity, and full coverage across your hours of operation.
All of those will ultimately lead to satisfied customers and a profitable business.
But what does effective scheduling actually look like?
There is data you can collect and use to measure whether your rota is working for you as intended.
This article will look at the metrics which will give you a clear idea of your schedule’s quality.
Labour costs
Obviously, one of the most prominent things you can track is how much your staff are actually costing you. Luckily, Findmyshift’s real-time reporting shows you your labour costs as you schedule shifts.
You’re looking for your costs to be as a low percentage of your revenue as possible while still maintaining a high level of customer service. While 30% is often bandied about as a target figure, this will vary widely by industry.
What could be more insightful is tracking this metric by team or area within your business. Which of your teams are running a tight ship and what parts of your business aren’t as efficient? This can help you make targeted improvements that fix the biggest leaks in your bottom line.
Gaps in coverage
There are few things more stressful as a manager than missed shifts, especially when they happen in multiples or during busy periods. And while they might simply be annoying as one-off incidents, if they become regular occurrences, they can be disastrous for your business.
As such, it’s important to keep track of when missed shifts happen and what roles and areas are affected. If there are patterns, it’s important that you are able to recognise them and take remedial action.
For instance, there might be certain days or shifts that are often missed, suggesting that these are less desirable, or that the staff commonly assigned to them are having availability issues.
You may also find that many missed shifts are coming from last-minute swaps between staff members. Findmyshift’s controls allow you to review and respond to shift swaps easily and with full oversight of your rota. This will help you to manage swaps without causing disruption.
Scheduling accuracy
Does the reality of each shift match your plan? Or are you finding yourself having to chase down cover and deal with late-notice requests? It could even be that when things go smoothly, the staff there aren’t the ones you’d originally scheduled to be at work.
That is still something that’s worth attention and consideration. Even a smooth shift with a totally different lineup to what was planned means that time has been wasted in scheduling and managing swaps to get to that stage. Why are staff swapping? Are there factors you could be taking into account?
It could be the case that the system is working, but the communication is not. Breakdowns in the flow of information can be just as damaging as poor information. But often these problems are easy to fix.
For instance, if staff members simply aren’t aware of their shift times, the reminders and notifications built into Findmyshift could be a great way to keep them in the loop and reduce no shows.
How your staff feel
That last point leads nicely into one crucial metric: how your staff feel about your rota and their shifts. Things could appear to be running smoothly from an administrative perspective, but if all your employees are unhappy, that will reflect in the service they provide and the customer satisfaction that results from that.
Take time to talk to your employees about these metrics, why you’re tracking them, and any issues or concerns that come up before they turn into serious issues. You might find yourself building trust and respect with your team as well as addressing shift problems.