Scheduling Conflicts

Let’s face it – conflicts in an organization are a common part of the routine.

We’ll have been there, when undesired, over-expected, or tedious tasks have burdened our shoulders.

Think of, when task clarity is missing, multiple commitments are clashing with each other, or the disrupted workflow is knocking frequently, they just create a ripple effect to worsen the impact – not only on employees but also on customers.

It makes employees think about quitting the job quietly due to increased stress, reduced productivity, compromised quality of the work, missed deadlines, and ruptured teamwork.

On the other hand, this internal conflict ends up in customers’ dissatisfaction when their requirements are not met promptly.

In one way or another, the ultimate loss has to be swallowed by an organization.

However, if you want to ditch this scenario with smart work schedule management and keep harmony within your organization with satisfied employees as well as customers, then this blog is for you.

So, let’s discover where the scheduling problem lies and how you can strategically resolve it!

7 Common Scheduling Conflicts that Can Kill Your Employees’ Time & Morale

Conflicts in schedule management can be incurred in many forms but let’s disclose those that are more common in every other organization (Especially in the context of field scheduling conflicts):

1. Double booking

Double booking is when you simultaneously assign your employees or resources for two or more shifts, jobs, locations, or functions at the same time.

While double booking can be caused by poor coordination and unawareness or less visibility of one’s existing work schedule, it compromises service over quality.

For instance, assigning the task to field electricians to attend two different clients’ locations or two field electricians to the same client and at the same shift can force them to make a hard choice about who will take the lead. 

2. Overlapping events

Overlapping events are none other than those work schedule conflicts when the timing of the second task starts before the first one is ended. 

It occurs when one expert’s involvement becomes crucial for both settings, which means your employees’ responsibilities forcibly coincide, often partially, sometimes entirely.

For instance, Imagine a sales rep presenting your product’s benefits to a potential client when they’re suddenly pulled away for an urgent meeting with a loyal customer considering switching brands. 

Forced to prioritize, the rep attends to the loyal customer, leaving the prospect mid-pitch. The outcome? Both clients are left dissatisfied, and neither task is completed effectively.

3. Unbalanced scheduling

Unbalanced work scheduling can imply both or either of the settings – understaffing during peak hours and overstaffing during slow periods, caused due to uneven work distribution.

For example, assigning all emergency customer calls to one technician while others handle less demanding tasks can lead to resentment among employees.

While unbalanced scheduling doesn’t only stimulate discontent, it reflects managers’ favoritism, poor planning efforts, and lack of considering one’s preference – all of which end up in higher employee attrition rates.

4. Unofficial rescheduling

Miscommunication often takes managers and employees apart, leading them away from being on the same page and embracing chaotic shift trading.

When employees are asked to be switched between shifts without checking who’s available when and where, they mess up the work more than usually how it’s running.

For example, rescheduling a delivery without informing the assigned driver might result in missed delivery slots, and chaos in the field would almost cause customer frustration and that’s guaranteed.

It happens only when top hierarchies make decisions independently and throw them on employees without discussion and proper documentation.

5. Ad-hoc tasks with tight deadlines

The fire is added to the fuel of conflicts when ad-hoc works are placed in the middle of other priority tasks. Though it’s not uncommon, an attempt to meet the urgent timeline of an ad-hoc task can disrupt the arranged schedule.

Think of an MR who’s about to finish his meeting with the hospital coordinators and takes a breath as his medical device selling target is met. But a sudden bombshell on him, “We just landed a new client and you need to meet him immediately as he’s currently in your location”, can induce pain.

When these ad-hoc tasks come with sudden changes in capacity and availability of resources, missing smart thinking and effective prioritization can throw teamwork miles away.

6. Last-minute employee call outs or no-shows

Scheduling conflicts aren’t always the fault of managers or stakeholders but employees too.

Their last-minute callouts or no-shows often arise from personal commitments, unexpected emergencies, or health-related problems for themselves or their family members. These situations, while unfortunate, are generally understandable.

But if employees neglect to inform their supervisors about absences, whether due to forgetfulness or intentional disregard, it causes significant disruption.

This forces managers to scramble for replacements, leading to hastily redistributed workloads. While it not only strains the remaining team members but also negatively impacts their mental well-being, as they are left to pick up others’ responsibilities under pressure.

7. Booking an unavailable team member/time slot

Assigning tasks without first verifying the availability of employees is a common oversight that often occurs when picking those employees who are either on vacation or already handling other tasks, leading to operational delays and unnecessary confusion.

Imagine this: a repair task is urgently assigned to a technician who’s already scheduled to work at a different site across town. The customer waiting for the repair might feel neglected, while the technician, burdened by conflicting assignments, may struggle to keep up with the workload.

The result?  Over time, such mismanagement can cause backlog works to pile up and erode trust between the company, its employees, and its clients.

The Fix? Top 3 Hacks that You Can Apply with A Single Scheduling Software & Avoid Conflicts

Conflicts are meant to be resolved, not to discourage others. Rather be occupied with them and compounding losses due to them, take control over it. Yes, you heard it right, it’s possible but with Lystloc. How?

1. Tap on a centralized time and task scheduler 

Instead, centralized time and task management software, like Lystloc, can be your go-to solution. With Lystloc, you can streamline location and lead-based task scheduling to promptly address customers’ needs and adjust dynamic schedules that urge immediate attention. 

The team timeline provides you overview visibility over each member’s availability along with their workload, reducing missed opportunities and clashing schedules unnecessarily.

Also, your team can access this transparent information by using filters and be timely notified when their job schedule for the first time, repeats the same, or, is changed on a priority basis, ensuring no one freaks out by running out of time.

2. Track resource capacity & availability

Conflicts in work schedules more often start when the stakeholders or hierarchies are unaware of one’s presence, cooking the recipe for more confusion. But thankfully, if you’re having Lystloc, you can avoid being one of them.

Lystloc comes with geo-fence attendance that ensures providing you with the visibility of who’s log-in/out when. By using this application, you can keep track of one’s partial or entire leaves in a day and even automate their log out to prevent one’s burnout.

Most importantly, the multiple check-in/out sessions and their notifications priorly from clients’ locations let you know who’s available where. And, using this information, you can smartly locate your field experts to nearby locations when there’s a shortage of on-field resources.

It would be a win-win situation for both your employees and customers. While your employees won’t feel exhausted to bear extra responsibility, your customers won’t be dissatisfied or neglected as they enjoy the commitment.

3. Communicate proactively with each member

You may hear Jim’s statement, “If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.”

And, Lystloc is one that pushes you to reach that. Whatever assistance you need to communicate with your team from calls to emails to chat, Lystloc has everything in a single stack.

Along with this, Lystloc’s detailed meeting notes enable you to coordinate with your employees to discuss priorities, clients’ feedback, latest assignments, task progress, and growth opportunities.

While this open interaction helps you go beyond overlapping tasks, one’s preference, and timely availability, it pushes you to make an informed decision about giving buffer time to your employees.

By checking everyone’s individual reports from the field or remotely, you just get a better idea of which tasks need to be accomplished and when. Therefore, you can allocate extra time to your employees to allow flexibility or expand the duration of deadlines and avoid unforeseen delays or conflicts.

Take the Path Forward without Conflicts!

Till now, you’ve seen, scheduling conflicts arise when smart management, considering employees’ preferences, and open though friendly communication are missed in an organization. 

Though it’s not an easy task to create work schedules without conflicts, the process is definitely easier with Lystloc.

When I don’t want to re-explain why, I’ll definitely reiterate that Lystloc can unblock the way where you may often get stuck.

If you want to keep your eyes on profits by smoothly running your organization while aligning customer and employee satisfaction, just sign up for a free trial with Lystloc.

Now, it’s over to you whether you make a confident choice!