How to stop the most common scheduling conflicts

Common scheduling conflicts occur when two events compete for an employee's attention. This type of occurrence can be stressful for staff, and bad for productivity. For this reason it is vital that managers do all they can to prevent these problems from occurring, and if they do occur to resolve them as effectively as possible. Failure to resolve these common scheduling conflicts, or if they occur to regularly, could lead to disgruntled staff members and problems with staff retention. One of the most common scheduling conflicts occurs when a member of staff is scheduled to work at two locations at the same time. This type of scheduling mistake is far too common in some businesses, and the usual cause is that there has been a lot of changes make to the schedule by different staff members. In order to prevent what is one of the most common scheduling conflicts it is vital that full consideration is given when making any changes to the schedule in order to ensure that this won't cause problems elsewhere on the staff schedule. It is also a good idea to try and have only one person responsible for scheduling because when too many people are involved there is more risk of mistakes. Another one of the common scheduling conflicts occurs when there has been poor arrangement of shifts on the schedule. What happens here is that shifts are placed too close together with not enough of a break in-between them. For example a member of staff finishes the day shift and finds out that they have been scheduled for the night-shift as well. Double-shifts are another of the common scheduling conflicts that can lead to big problems for staff morale and productivity. If employees feel tired or overworked they will not be able to give their best, and could quit in frustration. Failure to allow enough of a break between rotations from days to nights is yet another of the common scheduling conflicts. If your employee has worked a week of nights and you want them to go straight back on to the day shift then this can be a big problem for them. It takes time for the body clock to adjust and changing too quickly from days to nights can adversely affect mental and physical health. To avoid this example of common scheduling conflicts you should give your staff a break of a few days in-between shift rotations. That way they will have the chance to adjust.The above are just some of the common scheduling conflicts that can occur and some of the suggested ways there are of dealing with them. In most of these situations there has been human error involved, or it can be that you just expect too much from your employees. The demands of any business can create dilemmas for most employees, and they can be tempted to try and inflict less than ideal scheduling on staff as a way to meet these demands. In the long-run though, this can be very counterproductive.