How to Prepare a Work Schedule

A good manager will juggle dozens of different jobs throughout the day, and one of the most complicated can be preparing a weekly work schedule. Every shift must be filled while employee needs for time off should be considered. While this may seem to take hours every week, setting up a system for writing your work schedule will cut down your scheduling time considerably. Use the same method every week and only change your schedule to accommodate requests for days off. Your scheduling duties will be done in a fraction of the time, freeing you to do other important tasks.

• 1

  Draw a grid on graph paper with one vertical line of boxes for each day of the week, with each box representing one hour or one shift of the work day. Make each horizontal line in the grid represent each manager and employee. This is your basic schedule template.

• 2

  Write in your shift management schedule first. Each shift must have someone in charge, and the shift should be filled in after these people are in place.

• 3

  Fill in first the employees that have the most limited availability. If some of your team members have school or second jobs, these are hours that you can never schedule them. Place them on the schedule accordingly.

• 4

  Fill in hours with names until you have at least one person working on every hour of every shift. This is your basic coverage, and you will build the schedule from here.

• 5

  Add team members on busier shifts until you have the correct amount of employees for every shift in the week.

• 6

  Adjust this schedule for temporary changes after this first basic schedule has been made. Pay no attention to requests for special days off for now. This schedule is the base upon which you will build each weekly schedule. After your base schedule is finished, make a new schedule for one week by changing only those employee's shifts who need time off.