There are many different cases in which employees cannot work the shifts they were assigned. This is where you have to adapt. You can use apps like ShiftPixy to cover the shift or you could simply allow your employees to swap shifts. The problem is that you simply cannot leave this to chance. The steps that you will take are really important. If you do not handle the process in a proper way, it is a guarantee that employee shift trades would eventually cause some problems. This is why you do need to take the following advice into account.

Create Shift Trading Policies

A policy about trading shift procedures needs to be in place in order to clear up absolutely all employee misunderstandings. In this policy you need to add rules that strictly dictate when the schedules can be posted and rules about how employees have to request open shifts.

Make sure that the policy states what shifts cannot be traded without the express consent of the manager. Online schedulers can help out the system a lot and you will find that employees will request specific hours. However, such hours should only be added after they are approved.

Written policies are paramount because they reinforce all rules while keeping absolutely all employees on exactly the same page. Employees have to feel empowered and rewarded, especially if they are responsible.

Do not offer complete control over to the employees. The manager has to know who will cover shifts in order to avoid the potential cost overruns. It is possible to be faced with too much overtime. There are strict laws about this.

Proper Skillset Match

Managers have to give their final approval when a shift trade is in place in order to be sure that employees have exact same skillset. If this is not the case, the different skills can easily lead to having the other employees negatively affected.

Avoid The Overlapping Shifts

The manager has to be in charge so that he finds potential overlapping shifts. As an example, if an employee has to work 8 to 5 and the wish is to trade with an employee that works the 3 to 12 shift, a problem appears since the period of time between 3 and 5 ends up being completely unattended.

Shift swaps are often handled by employees, without manager input. Never make such a mistake. Use online scheduling systems for better planning.

Online Schedulers

The last thing that should be said is that it is so much easier to handle the shift trade if there is an attendance system and an electronic time system that are used. Automated functions can help the business save a lot of time for absolutely every single person involved, ranging from the employee to the manager.

The great thing about the online scheduler is that the employee does not have to email or call managers in order to say that they want to trade a shift. Also, waiting is often not needed since alert notifications are normally added to these systems.