Your Guide to Shift-Swapping

Creating schedules for shift workers requires juggling employee preferences and staffing demands. Often, just as soon as the schedule is made, employees need to make changes. Though shift-swapping may seem like constant disruptions, there are ways to help it run smoothly for you and your workers. Read on for a comprehensive guide to shift-swapping.

What Is Shift-Swapping?

A shift swap happens when an employee trades their assigned work shift with another employee. It’s common in industries such as food service, hospitality, healthcare, and retail. There are many reasons employees may need or want to swap shifts: to care for a sick child or elderly parent, attend a school play, go to a doctor’s appointment, or handle an emergency like a broken vehicle. Allowing shift swapping for employees’ life events gives them flexibility and ensures the company stays fully staffed.

Benefits of Shift-Swapping

Consider the ways swapping shifts can be helpful to your business operations:

• Reduces absenteeism. Without a system for shift swapping, employees who need to handle unexpected life events may either call in sick or not show up. Both situations present potential panic where managers have to fill the shift, sometimes with very little notice. Swift swapping helps prevent chaos.
• Ensures like-for-like staff coverage. An organized swift-swapping system helps managers know which employees request the change, ensuring that the training and experience are appropriate swaps. 
• Helps manage overtime. A desperate manager may be forced to fill a shift with someone who will rack up overtime hours. The company is obligated to pay overtime when it’s due, but the labor budget may begin to feel the strain with unplanned overtime.
• Gives employees control over their schedule. A Workwhile survey of 5,200 hourly employees revealed that 77 per cent of workers prefer flexible scheduling. Attitudes towards shift work are adjusting to accommodate employees’ work-life balance, and companies that refuse to adopt a flexible approach may face a retention problem. Allowing shift-swapping demonstrates a respect for workers’ outside lives and needs.
• Improves morale. Shift swapping produces a collaborative environment among the employees, even those who don’t regularly work together. When a colleague is willing to help someone in an emergency, it often fosters a sense of teamwork and a willingness to return the favor. Workers can find solutions to scheduling problems among themselves.

Shift Swap Challenges

While there are many benefits to implementing a shift-swapping system, there may be some challenges along the way:

• Figuring out the process. You may need to try a few methods to see what works best for your company. You’ll need to iron out details like eligibility, how long in advance requests are required, or how the manager will approve or deny requests.
• Unequal pay rates or hours. Employees who swap may be paid different rates for the same work, according to their seniority or training. Over time, too many unequal swaps may end up costing the company more per shift.
• Skill gaps. Swapping a restaurant server of 10 years for someone hired 6 months ago for a busy weekend night presents a problem for everyone working that shift. Skill gap matching should always be a primary consideration.
• Confusion. Without clear policy and communication, the person requesting the swap and the person who agreed to cover may not realize which one of them is supposed to work, leaving the manager scrambling anyway. 

How to Create a Shift-Swapping System

You’re convinced of the benefits, aware of the concerns, and now you’re ready to set up swapping capabilities for your shift workers. Here are some vital parts of the process:

Require advance notice

Determine how many hours in advance employees must request a swap. Give managers a set amount of time to respond, or allow certain types of swaps without manager approval. Managers will handle arranging substitutes for true emergencies.

Designate blackout times

Based on your company’s practices, determine when swapping requests are not an option, such as Black Friday in a retail store or Valentine’s Day at a restaurant.

Set a number of swaps allowed in a given period

If certain employees appear to be abusing the privilege, limit access to the swap request form and devise a disciplinary system that all employees understand in advance. 

Use technology

Scheduling software can do all the hard work for you. Employees can use a pre-set form to make requests, and managers can respond with the same language to each request, eliminating any confusion. For example: “Sarah’s request to change shifts with Mary is approved. Sarah will now work Thursday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Mary will work Friday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.”

Implement a ranking system for pay and experience

Each employee should receive an in-house designation of skill and pay level without revealing specifics to others. This helps disallow requests that are too far apart.

Be prepared for high-volume swap periods

You’re likely to have a higher number of swap requests during the summer holidays, end-of-school events, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Plan by preparing a list of employees who are likely to say yes to swaps. Or you could set policy by allowing swap priority by seniority or some other metric.

Communicate the policy

Especially at a company with many policies to follow, certain details can get lost in the shuffle. Incentivize your employees to learn about and understand the program with a true/false quiz, for example, with a small prize for completing it. Make the rules front and center within the app so that with each possible swap request, the employee can access the rules.

Allowing swift-swapping can be an effective way to keep your company staffed and allow employees some flexibility for life events. With some careful planning and communication, you can create a shift-swapping system that works.

Explore how WorkforceHub makes it easier to create schedules and allows employees to swap shifts within the platform. A shift trade board allows employees to manage their own shift swaps without involving their supervisor. And time-off requests are accessible through the same system, ensuring that employees with approved time off aren’t scheduled for shifts during that time. This solution is a must-have for any business that employs hourly, shift-based workers.