How to Manage Your Team Effectively Through Fluctuating Demand

You never know what’s going to happen in life or in business. One day customers are forming an orderly line to hand over their money, the next you’re watching tumbleweeds roll through your store.

OK, this might be a little dramatic, but demand can fluctuate wildly, and when it does, it’s difficult to find the best way to manage your team.

Here are some tips on how you can manage your team effectively through fluctuating demand.

Understand Time Usage

Managing your team through fluctuating demand is all about understanding time usage. If you have accurate data on how many hours people work and what jobs they do, then it’s much easier to match predicted demand.

For instance, if you have information on how you deployed your team in a similar situation, then you can quickly replicate that strategy and adapt it as you go.

It’s difficult to manage your team effectively in the face of fluctuating demand, but the more data you have, the more efficiently you can deploy your workforce.

Plan Ahead

Sometimes fluctuating demand is out of our control. Other times, it follows a seasonal pattern and you can, with some level of certainty, predict when you’ll be busy and when you won’t.

If you do know when your busy seasons are likely to occur, then it’s important you plan ahead.

These periods can be some of the most stressful for you and your employees, so you want to make sure you have everything you need in place ahead of time. This ensures you can maintain high performance during this important time and also keep stress levels to a minimum.

If you’ve taken care of your labor needs ahead of time, then effective scheduling becomes much easier.

Open and Clear Communication

For employees, the biggest problem with fluctuating demand is often a lack of clarity. They’re happy to put in the extra hours when things are busy, but what they find difficult is not knowing what’s happening in advance.

People lead busy lives outside of work and they need some level of certainty.

One way you can help give them this is through clear communication. Make scheduling simple and share it as early as possible. Of course, things can change quickly, but if you’re adaptable and communicate well, then it’s going to make everything more efficient and improve employee morale.

Offer Flexible Scheduling

There are lots of different answers to the question of how to manage your team effectively.

This option won’t work for every business, but there are certainly some companies that can benefit from it.

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With flexible scheduling, you create shifts based on the number of employees you need and the hours you have available. You then allow your employees to choose their own shifts.

This takes a bit of coordination, and it will need a good time clock system to help you pull it off, but the benefits for your employees are evident. It’s a perk that many other businesses aren’t offering and gives them extra flexibility to deal with fluctuating demand.

Cross-Train Your Employees

Having employees who can cover multiple roles within your business is a huge benefit. It gives you a lot more flexibility in the face of fluctuating demand and makes effective scheduling that little bit easier.

Cross-training always makes it easier to manage your team efficiently because it means you have more skills available to you. It might take a little bit more investment, but it will pay off in the long run.

Conclusion: How to Manage Your Team Effectively

Fluctuating demand is a big challenge for managers. Understanding how to manage your team effectively through difficulties is part of the job, and fortunately, there are plenty of different strategies you can use.

Whatever tactics you end up using, the important thing is that you keep communicating. Employees can deal with a lot of adversity, but they need to be kept in the loop.

Start by understanding your time usage in detail, and this will give you a good basis from which to make decisions. With the right time clock software, you’ll have access to better data that will help you manage your team through fluctuating demand and make better decisions along the way.

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Businesses in diverse industries are benefiting from the latest technology in employee time tracking: cloud-based time and attendance systems. Healthcare practices, hospitality companies and service corporations are among the many industries using cloud-based time and attendance.

Many like the time-saving features, whether it’s cutting down on mounds of paperwork in a medical practice, to hospitality managers viewing employee time and attendance information from different locations anytime, anywhere.

Healthcare Industry

Eliminate the tedious and error prone task of manually tracking employee time.
For most administrators and supervisors within medical practices, keeping up with insurance, billing and compliance can be time consuming, so they need an employee time keeping process for payroll that is streamlined and effortless. Cloud-based timekeeping is the answer, since it is designed to eliminate the tedious and error prone task of manually tracking employee time. Prior to switching to PayClock® Online a cloud-based employee time and attendance solution, Meagan Bottrell, billing supervisor for Surgical Associates of Traverse City, used a mechanical time clock with paper time cards to track employee time.

“Payclock Online has greatly improved our payroll process,” she said. “Before, I used a pencil and calculator to add staff hours. As you can imagine, this was very time consuming. With PayClock Online, my payroll processing time has been greatly reduced.”

Hospitality Industry

Quickly find errors and make adjustments.
For hotel general managers, managing employee time can be a headache, especially since most managers are on the go, traveling from one location to another. Many often get calls about a discrepancy in worked hours or time off and have to take care of the situation when they get to the specific property location.

Exception Finder.
Cloudbased time and attendance tracking offers flexibility in managing employee time and payroll information remotely, wherever a manager is located. Michael Vassell, general manager of Holiday Inn Express in Tavares, Fl., can now access employee time records and information any time, day or night, make changes, resolve issues and integrate data into his payroll system.

“Employees love it,” Vassell said. “The system tells them how many hours they’ve accumulated to date, and if there’s a discrepancy, it can be resolved early. All sides are happy.”

Residential & Commercial Services Industries

Benefit time pay rules automatically applied.
Managing field-based workers is a challenge for many service-based industries that deploy employees to various customer locations day and night. Cloud-based timekeeping lets service workers clock in on mobile devices, saving time and ensuring accuracy instead of relying on manual input.

“Our workforce is remote,” said Phelia Smith of Antelope Sales and Service Inc., “so PayClock Online makes it easy to manage the time records of our team out in the field in four different states, at any time of the day or night. It’s so easy to use — from clocking in and out to making payroll — I absolutely love it.”

Manufacturing & Industrial Industries

Manage multiple employees from multiple locations.
Manage and administer employee time tracking for employees that work in the main office, remotely, or at different locations. And there’s no need to worry about when you plan to process payroll. With cloud-based software, you are not tied to a desktop computer at one location. It’s easy to prepare employee time for processing payroll from a PC, laptop or even a smartphone when it’s convenient and from any location.

Your Industry

Integrate and export time sheets into payroll.
When it comes time to process payroll, don’t waste time re-entering employee time card data into your payroll system. Save time and eliminate data entry errors with time clock software that offers direct accounting or payroll systems integration. Time clock software will export employee hours and proper pay codes directly into payroll or accounting software like QuickBooks, Paychex, ADP, and many other popular payroll systems.

PayClock Online Special Offer!

Get a Quote
For a limited time Lathem is offering special discounts to switch to PayClock Online. Special offers are available now. Whether you want to upgrade to a new Lathem time clock or use PayClock mobile smartphone apps and other web devices, Request a quote for a PayClock Online employee time & attendance system customized for your business.

What are the benefits of a cloud-based employee time & attendance system in your industry?