Construction Employee Scheduling: A Step-by-Step Guide

Wouldn’t life be easier if your employees could manage their schedules themselves? Construction employee scheduling is always complex. Not only do you have to juggle multiple jobs, but you also need to schedule employees and contractors based on their skill tasks and skill sets.

But you already know that construction employee scheduling can be a chore. Today, we’ll provide you with a step-by-step guide that will make construction employee scheduling easier for you.

Step 1. Setting Up Employees With An Electronic Schedule

Using an employee scheduling app ensures that you have a central electronic schedule stored in the cloud that is always up-to-date and instantly available to all of your construction employees.

Using an electronic schedule enables you to also quickly communicate and managing changes. Most programs will automatically notify employees of changes as you make them.

There are a lot of great employee scheduling apps out there, Workyard has developed job scheduling software for contractors that’s specifically designed to be easily to learn for construction employees. It provides the key tools most contractors need to communicate exactly whats needs to be done including the ability to share project documents, photos and checklists to be completed.

Step 2. Prioritize Your Projects by Deadline and Complexity

Once you’ve got an employee scheduling app setup, it’s time to start thinking about your projects. Prioritize your projects by deadline and complexity—and look to the most complex projects first. 

In construction, there are always stages to each project. Perhaps you need to pour concrete on Tuesday to finish the work on Wednesday. Maybe you need to complete framing on Thursday because Friday will rain. The easiest method of project prioritization is to go through projects by urgency, scheduling as you go.

Workyard makes this easy because you can modify your schedule on-the-fly and notify your employees immediately. You can even check in on where employees are throughout the day to ensure they’re making it to sites on time.

Step 3. Analyze With the Critical Path

Critical Path scheduling is a method of scheduling that is too complex for most projects. But at its most basic, you need to identify what needs to get done and who needs to do it. Build out project milestones, such as

• Old roof removal
• New plywood sheeting
• New roof installation

Critical Path scheduling doesn’t have to be complex, as you can see above. But it’s a list of tasks that need to be done in chronological order. For instance, you could send only two people for the old roof removal if it needs to get done, but you’re short-handed. But with three people, it will be faster. 

You identify potential bottlenecks by charting out all your projects through their most critical path. Maybe you have no one to do plywood sheeting between the roof removal and installation. You need to resolve this or push the roof installation back.

Workyard allows you to track tasks, milestones, and projects—so you can make sure you complete the tasks you need for your project to remain on time.

Step 4. Add Time Buffers and Address Potential Conflicts

What happens if you can’t do Job #2 on time? Will that make Job #3 late? Take a look at your schedule and assess it for potential conflicts and risks. If you have a specialist, such as an electrician, is there the possibility of double booking them? Are there particularly tight turnarounds that you need to address?

Add a buffer of time to each project. Add padding to factor in delays for workers finishing other jobs, delivery delays etc. Realistically, there will be things that go wrong. If you schedule yourself too tightly, you aren’t maximizing your efficiency—you’re increasing the chances of a cascading failure.

Step 5. Address Changes in Real-Time

You already know that schedules are like suggestions, they are going to change. Workyard helps you address your construction scheduling in real-time so you can make modifications as you go. Change your scheduling (or approve things like breaks) on-the-fly while ensuring your construction in progress is going as expected.

By improving your construction employee scheduling, you can avoid underbilling, improve ROI, and make your day less hectic.

Improve Your Construction Employee Scheduling With Workyard Today

Start scheduling with Workyard today. Workyard’s GPS-powered workforce management app doesn’t just keep track of your employee’s schedules—it also keeps track of mileage, breaks, and payroll.

In Workyard, you can:

• View your employee schedules from wherever you are
• Change employee schedules as needed
• Track employees via GPS to make sure they’re on time
• Keep current on construction site progress

The more you know about what’s going on at your site, the better.

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