Lee High School

A Successful Work Schedule

Abel Carrillo

Capstone Research Paper

Brian S. Cahoon

April 21, 2017

Before a worker can start the day in their workplace, he or she needs to know when to

start. The set time for which someone is meant to be working is referred to as a work schedule.

The person who has the responsibility of scheduling employees falls upon that of the business

manager. There are extraordinarily important factors that play into a schedule, so, before a work

schedule is set in stone, a business manager must have the knowledge of three things. That which

is, knowing your employees demands, demands of the store and having a strategic plan on a day

to day basis for delivering customer service make up the three necessary things a business

manager must have when composing a work schedule.

The first factor of a successful schedule is knowing your employees demands. This factor

revolves around acknowledging your employees have a personal life outside of the workplace.

Personal life carries a huge and unpredictable toll on scheduling because it may often collide

with an employee's casual leisure time or important family crisis (Taneja 1). To have a

successful schedule a business manager must have open communication available to employees

to express their specific needs ( Henrich 1). Communication along with the knowledge of

individual performances of employees is crucial. For instance a manager must be made of aware

of an employee's capabilities in order maximize resources. An example of this would be adding

more employees to the schedule in order to pick up the slack from a new employee requiring

training. Another example of maximizing resources using the work schedule would be a manager

scheduling a strong employee they are aware is capable to cover more than one position at a time

or on a given day. This scenario would only be profitable or applicable if the manager had a

standing line of communication or knowledge of performance to and of the employees. Now a

business manager has to be careful not to abuse an employee with a workload too great (Lloyd
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1). Not only does it make the business lose money but also could raise alarm to other employees

of the loss of hours and money as well as the strain the employee (Taneja 1).

The second factor of building a successful schedule is knowing the demands of the

business. When approaching this a manager has to analyze the different components of the

business such as the financial, interpersonal and market demands of the business. Financially the

schedule has to be made so employees arent working more than the absolute necessary. It is

difficult to argue that the reduced hours can increase a business's outcome, but studies suggest

that it is possible. (Taneja) To better understand, one just has to think about and calculate how

much over-time costs a business. Interpersonally the schedule must more or less accomodate for

the needs of employees (Lisa 1). If an employee isnt making the money they need and

company cannot afford to meet their needs, then a business manager has to be prepared to hire a

new employee. When this happens the company doesnt make money but loses money in process

of training a new team member. To avoid this and avoid having to form a new working schedule

a manger wants to accommodate all his or hers employees to the best of their ability, but to first

and foremost put the needs of the business above all else.

The third factor of a successful schedule is to have strategic planning for delivering

customer service. This involves knowing your customer base and staff (Economy, Nelson

163). To put in perspective, it would be most profitable for manager to observe and know the

type of customers the business serves, for example two classes such as the elderly and juvenile.

If a business this was to serve those class of customers on the weekdays than a manager would

believe it best to schedule an employee who is joyful, a good listener, with respectful attitude to

best complement the customers . Where if on the weekend the business had more teenagers and
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strong spoken customers, then a manager would most likely wish to schedule an easy going,

polite employee.

In conclusion, for a business manager to build a successful working schedule; he or she

needs to know every employee's availability and needs, know the demands of the business which

include the financial, interpersonal, and market needs. Finally a business manager must use

strategic planning to plan the schedule in order to maximize customer service. Without the items

just previously mentioned, a work schedule will be unsuccessful and more than likely lead to a

business being unorganised, unprofitable, and dissatisfying.

Works Cited
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Economy, Peter, and Bob Nelson. Managing for Dummies. 3rdrd ed., Hoboken, Wiley

Publishing, Inc, 2010, pp. 161-74.

"Flexible work schedules." Supervision, June 1990, p. 3+. Academic OneFile,

Joesin, Lisa. Personal interview. 27 Mar. 2017.

Lloyd, Joan. "Alternative work schedule has to be reasonable." Receivables Report, Sept. 2012,
p. 7+. Academic OneFile, [Link]/ps/[Link]?
p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id=GALE
%7CA302300241&it=r&asid=9c7c733912fe4bc96803df45c99f3399. Accessed 13 Apr.
2017
Taneja, Sonia. "Sustaining work schedules: balancing leisure and work." Academy of Strategic
Management Journal, vol. 12, no. 2, 2013, p. 113+. Academic OneFile,
[Link]/ps/[Link]?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lom_accessmich&v=2.1&id
=GALE%7CA353105984&it=r&asid=c8fc5a3c422b48d84bf64d51618b9d1b. Accessed
2 Apr. 2017