How to Create the Ideal Shift Schedule (Free template included)

A well-thought-out shift schedule can be your competitive advantage, especially in industries that need to operate around the clock, like healthcare, and in companies that need to offer 24/7 support, such as banking.  

A customer service representative’s shift patterns impact their overall mental and physical health. It also disrupts sleeping patterns, which can affect an employee’s energy and durability. All of this ties into the quality of customer service you deliver, which is why it is essential for organizations to have balanced shift work schedules.

What is a shift schedule?

A shift schedule is an organized timetable created to evenly distribute workloads across team members while also making sure there are enough people available for all working hours. For example, in customer service, if you are providing 24x7 support, then you’ll need people working day and night shifts as well as a few agents on the weekends. So, your employee scheduling should prevent overworking but also adequately ensure availability on all days and time zones.

What are the benefits of a shift schedule?

The benefits of a shift schedule extend beyond that of having a more organized way of working. It also ensures time tracking and adherence to labor laws, ensuring that employees are not overworked. The impact can be seen in the metrics that matter for customer service:

1. Handle your busiest times effectively

Knowing what part of the day your support team receives the highest number of tickets lets you plan your shift length accordingly and handle the workload better. Without using a shift plan, you’ll be flying blind, and that might not yield the best results in terms of handling ticket volume or delivering excellent customer experience.

2. Provide faster resolution 

With shift schedules in place, you automatically improve your resolution times because of having enough shift workers to manage the workload for the entire day. There is less carryover of tickets from one shift to another, which reduces the time taken to respond to customers.

3. Manage your overheads better

By establishing how many people work in each shift, scaling becomes easier and more transparent. Otherwise, you end up recruiting higher or lower than the required number of people. But with numbers backing up your hiring decisions, your estimations get better, and your overall labor costs go down.

4. Better employee productivity

Knowing the weekly schedule goes a long way in preparing employees mentally for the tasks ahead. It helps boost morale because you pre-determine what shift they’ll be working in, thereby eliminating schedule changes (barring unforeseen circumstances) and leading to improved performance and better focus. It also means agents get used to the workload and the pattern of customer issues in their shift, which improves productivity.

8 types of shift schedules with pros and cons

1. Rotating shift schedule 

Rotating shifts are most common in customer service because they give employees some flexibility and allow for 24/7 support. Agents are assigned a particular shift each day, and every member of the team can rotate between these shifts every week, month, or any other time interval based on an organization's support requirements.

For example, an employee who works the night shift for a month can switch to the day shift for the next month. 

Pros: 

• Scheduling process is straightforward and hours of work are distributed uniformly 

• Agents can plan their personal events in advance.

• It is flexible enough that there are always enough people to provide 24/7 support

Cons:

• Challenging to implement if you don’t have enough members to cover each shift

• If the rotations are frequent, it gets difficult for agents to acclimatize to the timings

• Manning teams around the clock will also require significant investment in infrastructure and staffing needs.

What’s the ideal rotation schedule?

Based on the size of your team and the number of time zones that you have to support, you’ll need to vary how often your agents rotate between shifts. But ideally, each agent should at least work for 3 months in one particular shift or time zone to ensure they get used to it. Having weekly shifts can be problematic since it’ll affect sleeping patterns and not allow them to understand the customers and types of issues for that time-zone. It’s also necessary to ensure there is an overlap between shifts so you have enough coverage for people who might be on leave.

2. Fixed shift schedule

A fixed shift schedule is just one with a set number of hours. You choose a particular number of hours and the number of working days in a week, and every member of your customer service team will follow that schedule. The most common form of a fixed shift schedule is a standard 9-5 work schedule for all employees in an organization from Monday to Friday. 

Pros:

• Easier planning and cost estimations for managers 

• Agents can get used to their work schedule and improve work-life balance  

Cons:

• Cannot provide 24/7 support with a fixed schedule

3. DuPont schedule

The DuPont shift schedule uses a combination of four teams doing 12-hour shifts to achieve 24/7 coverage. Here’s how the 4-week cycle is broken down for each team:

First is four consecutive night shifts, then three days off,

Followed by three consecutive day shifts, then one day off

Followed by three consecutive night shifts, then three days off

And finally four consecutive day shifts, with seven days off

The idea is to have each team work for long stretches to ensure more consistency in support while avoiding the need for teams to overlap their shifts to cover for others. 

Pros:

• The schedule is uniform across all agents with no policy of taking turns to rotate

• The week off is a very appealing break for agents

Cons:

• Agents can get really stretched because of the 12-hour shifts

• While agents get enough time off, it becomes difficult to readjust after longer breaks

4. Ad-hoc shift schedule

Ad-hoc, as the name suggests, is purely based on requirement and is used to schedule shifts that cover for employees on leave or used in situations where the need changes from week to week. It is usually not a recommended shift work schedule for customer service because of how unpredictable and irregular it can be for agents. 

But it can also be used as a complement to your primary schedule. For example, during weekends, if you only need 4-5 people for support across 24 hours, you can have agents on standby and call them on an ad-hoc basis to give the assigned team members flexibility in case some of them need to go on leave.

Pros:

• Easy to create the schedule and a flexible way for managers to fill out their weekly requirements

Cons:

• Disturbs sleep patterns because agents have to come at different times every day.

• It can bring down morale because of uncertainty and untimeliness of the shift.

5. Seasonal shift schedule

Seasonal shift employees work full time but not around the year. For instance, customer service teams might need more hands on deck during sales and holidays. A seasonal shift schedule is a roster put together during these seasons to easily allot shifts for part-time employees or/and full-time employees. 

Pros:

• Helps with staffing and streamlining operations around busy seasons

6. Flexible shift schedule

A flexible work schedule allows employees to pick their own start and finish times. An agent can even work outside the company’s business hours as long as they meet the preset guidelines for the number of work hours and duration of breaks.

Building a work schedule for flexible shifts can help ensure you have enough coverage on weekends and holidays, and may also lower chances of high attrition. 

Pro tip: For calculating billable hours or improving accountability, you can track the time an agent spends on work each day on your customer service software.

Pros: 

• Employees can pick timings that work best for them

• Improvement in agent morale

Cons: 

• Might not be ideal for customer service teams, especially when your customers require assistance around the clock — you might find it challenging to ensure that you’re well-staffed at all times.  

 7. Semi-flexible schedule 

In a semi-flexible schedule, employees choose their work hours within a particular shift. A semi-flexible shift schedule can follow a rotating schedule where agents change shifts periodically. The only difference here is that agents can choose their work hours within the shift. 

Pros

• Ideal for businesses that want to offer 24/7 support while offering more freedom to employees

Cons

• There might be periods where there are only a few agents available 

8. Remote work schedule

Remote work allows employees to work from wherever they are while being in constant contact with their colleagues and customers. A remote work schedule also accounts for differences in time zones. For instance, if a remote employee is working from a different location as yours, maybe you can allot them a shift closest to the time-zone they operate in. 

Pros

• Remote work gives agents the freedom to work from anywhere 

Cons: 

• Fewer boundaries between work and personal life could lead to call center burnout 

How to create an employee shift schedule?

When trying to make the perfect shift schedule, several factors have to be considered. Here are 4 steps to help you create an ideal work schedule for your employees:

1. Identify your requirements 

The first step is to collect valuable information on how your team operates. A few data points to take into consideration are:

-Time intervals with the highest ticket volumes. For instance, December is usually the busiest period for retailers, with shoppers probably reaching out with queries between 7-9 PM. Shifting your workforce around to expand at this time, can help manage spikes in support requests, manage agent bandwidth, and positively impact performance metrics across the board.

-Number of customers and their country-wise distribution. For instance, if a bulk of your customer base is from a specific region, then being better staffed for offering support for that region or shift can help you manage workload better.

-The most commonly asked types of questions. Do you get a lot of how-to questions that everyone on your team can answer? Or do you get technical questions that require certain agents’ expertise? Thinking about the common types of questions you get can help you choose the right team members and plan agent shifts accordingly.

This will give you a baseline you can work with to understand your schedule requirement

2. Determine your workforce strength

With the desired information, your next step is to know if you have the required number of employees to cover all shifts and time zones. Based on the number of shifts you’ll be needing and the number of customers, you can take a call on whether you’ll need to hire additional resources or not.

3. Decide on schedule type and rotation policy

Once you’ve taken stock of the number of employees you have and how many hours a day you have to provide support for, you can make the decision on the type of schedule. Usually, in customer service, 24/7 support is the norm, in which case a rotation shift schedule works best. Decide on how many shifts you’ll have and how often you need to rotate your agents. This can be either weekly, monthly, or variations of these periods.

4. Add ad-hoc and on-call schedules to fill gaps

After setting up your finalized shift schedule, you’ll still have days when people might be on leave or have sudden emergencies, which might leave you without replacements. For these scenarios, you can create ad-hoc or on-call schedules so you can have someone fill in for people who aren’t available during a particular shift. You can use an employee scheduling tool or excel to create your shift schedule template and fill it out based on your requirements.

Bonus: 2 easy alternatives for building a shift schedule

Option 1: Use your customer service software

A robust customer service software will enable you to build and manage shifts right from within the tool itself. Using your customer service software for shift management eliminates the need to switch back and forth between spreadsheets to build shifts and assign work. For instance, with Freshdesk, you can:

– Create different shifts and map agents to each shift

– Change agent schedules easily 

– Assign incoming questions to agents in the right shift automatically

With a tool like Freshdesk, you can plan and distribute work better by leveraging real-time insights on ticket trends and agent performance.

Option 2: use a shift schedule template

A shift schedule template is a ready-to-use schedule that you can customize to suit your requirements. These templates are often offered in Excel and sometimes available on project management software like Monday.com and Microsoft Office. 

The biggest benefit of using a shift schedule template is that you can map out the ideal schedule for your team right off the bat. You can even find specific templates like the DuPont shift schedule template and 24/7 shift schedule template that make building schedules easier.

Download a free copy of the rotating shift schedule template and DuPont shift schedule template here.

Issues with shift scheduling you need to be mindful of

A poorly built shift schedule can leave a dent on agent productivity and customer experience.  So you need to anticipate what can go wrong and have solutions ready. To make things easier for you, we’ve put together common issues with shift scheduling that you need to think ahead of –

Not accounting for unexpected absences 

Sometimes, due to personal emergencies and reasons beyond our control, agents might have to take sudden leaves. While operating with one less employee for just a day might not be too challenging, you will be better off ensuring that you’re well-staffed in cases of more prolonged absences. A flexible policy that allows or incentivizes agents to switch to another shift and momentarily fill in for absences can be helpful in situations like these.  

Not accounting for employees quitting  

More often than not, it’s hard to predict when an employee will move on and switch companies. Employee attrition  is also one of the biggest challenges facing support leads across iindustries. So, it helps to plan for shift coverage to build a buffer when a teammate decides to leave. Again, it helps to have agents who are willing to swap shifts. 

Not accounting for heavy workload  

Most customer service teams face periods where they deal with more workload than usual. If you’re understaffed during those seasons, your team’s mental health and the quality of the customer service delivered will take a hit. Be sure to refer to trends in ticket volumes before building schedules. One way to tackle a heavy workload is to have longer shifts on a few days of the week, and extend the number of days agents can take off on a rotational basis.

Not ensuring shifts are being allotted fairly

You need to ensure that all employees are being allotted shifts fairly. For instance, if you follow a rotating shift schedule, you need to ensure that each agent in your team has worked equally in all shifts. And in the case of fixed shift schedule, you need to compensate agents working out of business hours fairly. This way, you can improve employee loyalty and prevent burnout.

Conclusion

Having a shift schedule that works for everyone is the objective to keep in mind when creating your plan. Your agents need to be at their best possible condition to perform well every day. Using rotations also helps break the monotony and gives your team exposure to different tasks and scenarios. Overall, a well-planned shift schedule will directly impact the customer experience you deliver, and how well you can retain clients and grow your customer base.

Start building a fool-proof shift schedule to improve workforce management and elevate the quality your customer service using Freshdesk. Get started for free