Shift Scheduling software?

[TangoJuliet]

My job is 24/7 365 and we work shift work. For years they have had the same schedules. Most are 6 days on 2 days off. One week of 8am-4pm then next 4pm-midnight. There are also steady shifts of either 8-4 or 4-midnights with the same 2 days off and of course rotating midnight shifts. There are some other shifts but I wont go into details since there is only 1 or 2 of them.

For years this has stayed the same because nobody wanted to do the leg work to come up with better schedules. Is there any type of software out there where I could put in the amount of employees (52) types of shifts and it can spit out the different variations? I would prefer it to be freeware because I know the company wont go for it. But if not, then maybe I can start a collection and see if everyone can chip in.

Anybody know of any good software that can do this? I checked google and a couple things popped up but I have no idea if its good or not.

Thanks!

 

[TangoJuliet]

no managers up in here?

 

[Kelemvor]

There are some out there but I can't remember the name from my call center days. Some hook into call center systems and use the call volume to schedule people and such. Might search for Call Center Scheduling Software and see what you find.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor
There are some out there but I can't remember the name from my call center days. Some hook into call center systems and use the call volume to schedule people and such. Might search for Call Center Scheduling Software and see what you find.

cool, thanks

 

[dude8604]

Let me know what you find. I'm looking for software like this too.

 

[kingtas]

I worked rotating shift work for a long time and it can really suck. Especially when it's rotating every few days. I worked a sing/mid/off schedule that rotated every three days. You're body gets pretty messed up. I also worked 12 hour shifts that rotated every three months. Much better for adjusting to sleep/wake periods.

How many people have to be there on each shift? This can get complicated if the skills are different, too. In my case, everybody pretty much did the same thing.

 

[tw1164]

I used eWorkforce to make schedules for a call center (450+ ppl). Aspect is a great company to work with, they we're quick to remedy any problems we had. I've heard good things about blue pumpkin too, although I've never used it.

Like other have said, it can get pretty complicated for schedules. Do you have a person who does the call forecasting? How long is the avg handle time? Is there more then 1 queue?

I don't know of any open source software. For only 52 shifts I would use Excel and make the shifts by hand.

 

[PowerEngineer]

We have many positions that must be covered on a 7x24 basis. In our departement, we have a pool of 20 people covering three rotating shift positions and a couple of day support positions.

I went looking for a PC-based shift scheduling package a few years back (to replace our paper system) and was surprised that there wasn't anything that fit our needs. It turned out that our practices for handling holidays, vacations, working on unscheduled days, etc. were all unique enough that the off-the-shelf software could not be configured to account for time correctly.

I ended up using Excel with some pretty complicated macros to produce shift schedules and do timekeeping.

If you're just looking at building a workable shift schedule, you might start by identifying the number of people in the pool to cover each shift position. If the pool actually covers several shift positions, your life becomes more difficult. You should be able to set up a shift schedule that is equal in length (measured in weeks) to the number of people in the pool. This'll mean that if you weave the people into a coverage schedule for week one that every person can rotate through every one of those coverage schedules (and then repeat...). I've found that this is more of an art than a science, and the best shift schedule is the one that the people on it actually like.

Good luck!

 

[TangoJuliet]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

The workforce consists of 52 people. However there are something like 47 actual shifts and 5 "vacation relief" shifts. Everybody does the same job so we all are equal.

As it goes now

Shift staffing goes as the following

midnight - 8am = 6
8am - 4pm = 11
4pm - midnight = 11
11am-7pm = 1

So every day there are 29 shifts to be filled.