What is a Shift Schedule?
What is a shift schedule, and what should you absolutely pay attention to?
Table of Contents
- What is a shift schedule?
- How does a shift schedule help with workforce planning?
- What should you consider when creating a shift schedule?
- What role does data protection play in shift planning?
What is a shift schedule?
A shift schedule serves as a tool for workforce planning. It presents shifts and working hours clearly and in one place. It shows which employees are in the company at which times and what tasks they are working on. Attendance can be coordinated and, depending on the system chosen, even viewed in real-time. Working hours are also recorded in the schedule. The future shift planning, beyond the current status, draws on data from time tracking, the vacation planner, and other absences (such as illness). Thanks to this available data, shift schedules become more accurate and can more easily accommodate employees' preferences. The efficient and ergonomic use of employees can ensure high performance quality and help achieve the company’s goals. However, for this process to run smoothly and actually make planners, employees, and the company happy, several aspects must be considered.
How does a shift schedule help with workforce planning?
Workforce planning is often complex even in small companies, and many factors need to be considered. The right employees, with the right qualifications, must be in the right place at the right time. This, in turn, requires coordinating and aligning the shift schedules of full-time, part-time, and mini-job employees. There should also be enough employees available to ensure smooth operations. This number usually comes from years of experience in workforce planning or can be predicted in the case of digital shift planning. To avoid personnel shortages in specific work areas, suitable replacement staff should be found as quickly as possible in case of employee absence. A clear shift schedule can help here. Ideally, a qualification matrix is also available. At this point, the shift schedule has already achieved its minimal goal: it has coordinated and structured workforce planning. Additionally, it ensures that employees can perform at their best. To achieve this, their needs must be considered in the shift planning, and attention must be paid to their health and ergonomics. Especially in shift work, it is necessary to establish a healthy rotation.
While manual workforce planning in specific computer programs can quickly become overwhelming, securely transferring the data into digital shift planning ensures just that: maintaining an overview. However, there are several things to keep in mind here.
What should you consider when creating a shift schedule?
There are several aspects that must be taken into account for a successful shift planning process. Of course, there are some softer factors, such as successfully involving employees in the planning process, but this will focus on the legal framework. In general, in Germany, the daily working hours are limited to a maximum of eight hours. In exceptional cases, this can be higher, such as in hospitals, where 24-hour shifts are not uncommon. However, in normal cases, the average working time per day must not exceed eight hours over a period of 24 weeks.
Equally important for planning a legally compliant shift schedule are breaks and rest periods. After six hours of work, employees must take a break of at least 30 minutes. If the working hours exceed nine hours, the break must be at least 45 minutes. After finishing work, a rest period of at least eleven hours must be observed. Breaks and rest periods must be properly planned and, of course, followed. An intuitive, digital time tracking system can be very helpful here. It makes it easier for employees to record their breaks, and at the same time, they are directly stored in the system and accessible in case of an audit. Of course, there are also some industries and facilities where exceptions may apply. These include the hospitality industry, nursing, on-call services, and hospitals. For them, there may also be exceptions regarding §9 of the Working Hours Act (ArbZG), which states that Sundays and public holidays are days off. Apart from the industries already mentioned, deviations may also occur in multi-shift operations with day and night shifts. In these cases, the start or end of the Sunday and public holiday rest period can be shifted by up to six hours earlier or later.
Apart from the legally regulated working hours, the involvement of employees is also mandated. While the employer has the right to decide when employees should perform their duties when creating a shift schedule, they are obligated to consider the interests of the employees. The works council ensures that this is the case. According to § 87 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 of the Works Constitution Act (BetrVG), the works council has the right to co-determine working hours and breaks. Therefore, in many large companies, shift schedules require approval. Once a shift schedule has been created, the works council and employee representatives have a right to co-determination.
What role does data protection play in shift planning?
In principle, a shift schedule contains personal data, and its functionality is based on this. This data includes, among other things, the full name, address, and date of birth, as well as working hours, absences such as vacation and sick days, and overtime. The data from the shift schedule must not be simply published within a company. Privacy must be maintained for data protection reasons. This also means that it must be ensured that only employees with the appropriate permissions can access this information. A company must manage and regularly update these access rights. Once access and visibility rights are assigned, and data protection is secured within the organization, it remains up to employees themselves to decide with which colleagues they wish to share personal data, overtime, working hours, and vacation days, even beyond their own work area.
Easily plan online with shyftplan
Professional shift planning can be a time-consuming process. As mentioned earlier, creating a functioning shift schedule involves considering countless factors, far beyond just legal requirements. Internal company agreements as well as employees' preferences must also be taken into account. These and many other factors need to be integrated into the planning in a meaningful way. This makes shift planning a thankless task – normally. Thanks to shyftplan, the shift scheduling tool for professional shift plan creation, you can plan your personnel as needed, automatically factoring in employee absences and information from time tracking and the vacation planner. shyftplan provides the right solution for your individual requirements. This way, you no longer have to worry about the many obstacles that can arise when creating a shift schedule. Instead, you can create your shift plan online in no time.
Since personal data is required for a work schedule, data protection naturally applies here as well. A shift schedule should not simply be posted for everyone to see, and it should certainly not be photographed and shared, for example, via messenger—something that often happens in smaller businesses. However, in larger businesses, there can also be problematic interactions between work schedules and data protection. For example, if there is an Excel document that all employees can access and thus view the personal data of others, data protection is violated. Therefore, a shift schedule is a document containing confidential personal data and should be treated as such.
Regarding data protection, the law is clear on work schedules: not every employee is entitled to view the entire shift schedule. Similarly, every employee has the right to prevent the publication of the schedule—even within the company.
• Never post shift schedules publicly • Do not send photos of shift schedules to your employees • Limit employee access to shift schedule files, such as through an intranet • Ensure that each employee can only view their own data A scheduling software can assist in creating a data protection-compliant shift schedule. This is particularly beneficial for larger companies, as smart solutions consider laws and legal requirements when creating shift schedules, helping them stay on the safe side.
