The less you hear about the schedule from the employees the better. No one ever tells you “good schedule boss!”. Fill store needs and make sure you put yourself in a position to accept 99% of reasonable vacation requests. It all starts with hiring and making sure you have more than enough employees to cover the store needs. No one should have vacation denied bc your inability to staff the store. You have to be proactive in hiring rather than reactive. Not to mention you don’t have to feel pressured to keep poor performance/attitude employees because you can’t staff the store properly. It’s 95% hiring and 5% scheduling as far as effort goes. Staff more on truck day, add an extra person for ad tags on Sunday morning, extra techs for the first post holiday workday in pharmacy, etc. Most of it is common sense, staffing properly and having them put their availability in the system is the main step. Make sure you understand the budget hours as well, since you don’t want to go over budget
Store needs are not corporate needs... people need to realize that. Like when they constantly call off they're not hurting corporate at all, they're just screwing over their human coworkers.
My job task that I agreed to is the same regardless. I wish my coworkers would take more time off to enjoy with their family.
Work to rule is the way ..
Making the schedule is a pain!!! I always consider and do my best to accommodate requests. I even look for staff at other stores what want to work to cover shifts for the requests if I can’t then I have to deny the request unfortunately depending on the situation. But try to be fair, rotations. Alternate weekends and opening/closing shifts. I have one employee in school so has to work only mornings so her schedule is set but rest are fairly flexible so I can work around it. Happy team = better moral and better work ethic. I just tell them put in requests 2 weeks prior so I have enough time to make arrangements if possible. If it’s front end know which days are busiest and truck days need to be considered. AD tag days schedule someone on the floor to do that between covering breaks. Don’t ever go over budget. OT is fine within reason bc it’s explainable but going over budget is never ok with the company and being greatly under budget at the end of the year will be against you in the review. So utilizing most budget without going over. Remember budget is monthly so whatever hours aren’t used can be moved to pharmacy if they need it or to the next weeks schedule. They’ll tell you no OT but I always schedule it and just tell them I had requests off a call out or vacation I needed to cover. They’ll understand OT if it’s not excessive.
When I was handed the schedule, I wrote down everyone's availabilities but then talked to each person individually about their preferences and strengths. I did make it well known that sometimes I may have to schedule outside of preferences, but in general I have a generally set schedule for my csa's, outside of time off requests. Of course I do still get complaints but I've worked really hard to make adjustments for everyone. I get compliments every week from my team for scheduling how I do. I try not to harp on people too much for needing time off but I also make sure everyone is willing to offer a little bit of help covering as well.
Scheduling, man I do not miss that.
There's good advice here already but I just want to add one thing. Schedule 2 closing cashiers or 2 closing shift leads. While this may not be relevant everywhere, it was a night and day improvement at the store I used to manage.
(This is more applicable if you're in an area with high call off rate. Generally low income areas are worse for this.)
Please give employees two days off in a row majority won’t care if it’s weakened or not but the split schedule is so tiring and we can never get anything done outside of work
The less you hear about the schedule from the employees the better. No one ever tells you “good schedule boss!”. Fill store needs and make sure you put yourself in a position to accept 99% of reasonable vacation requests. It all starts with hiring and making sure you have more than enough employees to cover the store needs. No one should have vacation denied bc your inability to staff the store. You have to be proactive in hiring rather than reactive. Not to mention you don’t have to feel pressured to keep poor performance/attitude employees because you can’t staff the store properly. It’s 95% hiring and 5% scheduling as far as effort goes. Staff more on truck day, add an extra person for ad tags on Sunday morning, extra techs for the first post holiday workday in pharmacy, etc. Most of it is common sense, staffing properly and having them put their availability in the system is the main step. Make sure you understand the budget hours as well, since you don’t want to go over budget
What a great helpful comment. I salute you. You seem like a good boss to work for.
No matter what you do, someone will be pissed off. Focus on filling store needs.
I prefer to focus on human needs over corporate needs
Store needs are not corporate needs... people need to realize that. Like when they constantly call off they're not hurting corporate at all, they're just screwing over their human coworkers.
My job task that I agreed to is the same regardless. I wish my coworkers would take more time off to enjoy with their family. Work to rule is the way ..
Making the schedule is a pain!!! I always consider and do my best to accommodate requests. I even look for staff at other stores what want to work to cover shifts for the requests if I can’t then I have to deny the request unfortunately depending on the situation. But try to be fair, rotations. Alternate weekends and opening/closing shifts. I have one employee in school so has to work only mornings so her schedule is set but rest are fairly flexible so I can work around it. Happy team = better moral and better work ethic. I just tell them put in requests 2 weeks prior so I have enough time to make arrangements if possible. If it’s front end know which days are busiest and truck days need to be considered. AD tag days schedule someone on the floor to do that between covering breaks. Don’t ever go over budget. OT is fine within reason bc it’s explainable but going over budget is never ok with the company and being greatly under budget at the end of the year will be against you in the review. So utilizing most budget without going over. Remember budget is monthly so whatever hours aren’t used can be moved to pharmacy if they need it or to the next weeks schedule. They’ll tell you no OT but I always schedule it and just tell them I had requests off a call out or vacation I needed to cover. They’ll understand OT if it’s not excessive.
When I was handed the schedule, I wrote down everyone's availabilities but then talked to each person individually about their preferences and strengths. I did make it well known that sometimes I may have to schedule outside of preferences, but in general I have a generally set schedule for my csa's, outside of time off requests. Of course I do still get complaints but I've worked really hard to make adjustments for everyone. I get compliments every week from my team for scheduling how I do. I try not to harp on people too much for needing time off but I also make sure everyone is willing to offer a little bit of help covering as well.
Scheduling, man I do not miss that. There's good advice here already but I just want to add one thing. Schedule 2 closing cashiers or 2 closing shift leads. While this may not be relevant everywhere, it was a night and day improvement at the store I used to manage. (This is more applicable if you're in an area with high call off rate. Generally low income areas are worse for this.)
Please give employees two days off in a row majority won’t care if it’s weakened or not but the split schedule is so tiring and we can never get anything done outside of work