Any ideas of scheduling a staff of 25?

Question

I am a new manager for a non-profit large organiztion. We have a retail building/thrift store style outlet. My staff consists of 5 paid staff (3 part time, 2 full) and 20 or so volunteers, usually 2-4 in at any given time. Our hours are 9-5 mon-sat. I need some sort of visual board to sort the staff schedule, problem is so many people (especially volunteers) keep changing their hours, and the excel sheets I make get all marked up and illegible in a day or two. Any brainstrorm ideas? Will a wipe board make this time slot swapping worse? Thanks!

Answer 1

Heck no - a wipe board would solve your problem! BUT, you need to make everyone aware that communication is the key. Even though someone has marked up a change on the board, it doesn't mean that everyone automatically knows about it....so you as well as others will need to be told verbally.

Answer 2

have a magnetic board and coloured magnets do the rota in colours and explain that if staff are swapping shifts they exchange magnets with each other this way you can see clearly who is where and its not get un legable scrible on day2

if an employee work 7 shifts then they get 7 magnets a week then if there are any changes in shifts you can see at a glance who and where the gap is