The Benefits of Shift Swapping
June 12, 2024
“Shift swapping” is simply the practice of allowing hourly employees to trade regular work shifts with one another should one of them need to, say, schedule a meeting with their child’s teacher, accompany a family member to a doctor’s appointment, attend a funeral, or any number of other things that come up in people’s lives.
It’s not uncommon for demanding service industries like healthcare, restaurants and catering, hospitality, and call centers to employ shift swapping to ensure that their bases are always covered. Many retail businesses, which, in general, have a relatively low employee-retention rate, have found that the increased flexibility that shift-swapping brings to employees serves as a corrective to high turnover.
Some benefits of shift swapping are:
- Improved morale: Increased employee flexibility and autonomy contributes to a respectful workplace and better work-life balance for employees.
- Less absenteeism: An employee with a last-minute scheduling conflict is much less likely to be a no-show if they’re able to trade shifts with a coworker.
- Less work for managers: With shift-swapping protocols in place, managers can let employees do much of the work when schedules need to be juggled.
Still, many workplaces are hesitant to adopt a shift-swapping policy. And shift swapping does come with some challenges, such as:
- Keeping shift swaps equitable: It’s important to keep track of swaps to ensure that an employee isn’t swapping schedules to accrue more hours than they’re entitled to—in other words, to rack up overtime.
- Taking federal and local labor laws into account: You must take all relevant regulations, such as minimum numbers of hours required between shifts, into account when implementing shift-swapping policies.
- Making sure that only same-level employees, with equivalent skills and experience, swap shifts: After all, it wouldn’t make sense for someone in accounting to trade shifts with a machine operator.
If your organization decides to implement shift-swapping, creating a clear policy starts with answering some basic questions:
- Where can employees find a written copy of the policy? To whom should they direct any questions (to their manager, HR)?
- Who is allowed to participate? All hourly employees, or just those employed by the organization for a minimum amount of time?
- Who can swap with whom? Employees with the same job title, or all those with equivalent skill sets?
- Do swaps have to be for the same amount of hours? Or can employees swap for a shorter or longer shift (as long as it doesn’t put them into overtime)?
- How does an employee request a swap? How far in advance does a request have to be made (a few hours, a day)? Who needs to approve it?
- What are the consequences of failing to follow the policy? What happens if employees swap shifts without prior approval, or do so in a way that creates unapproved overtime for one of the parties?
Be thorough in your scheduling policy, but avoid making its implementation overly complicated. After you create a policy and guidelines for shift swapping, take time to investigate the many electronic programs and online templates, often customizable, dedicated to scheduling and shift swapping.
And join the growing number of organizations reaping the benefits of a more flexible workplace.