In 5 Steps to Deployment Planning - with a Free Template for Excel

1. What are duty schedules and deployment schedules?
2. We're providing you with a free deployment schedule template for Excel
3. In 5 steps to optimal duty scheduling
4. The advantages of deployment scheduling in Excel
5. The disadvantages of deployment scheduling in Excel
6. The alternative: personnel planning tools
7. Conclusion

It's half past 9 in Germany, somewhere a Human Resources officer is working on the schedule for the next two weeks. Often they're using an Excel spreadsheet that the company has used and trusted for many years. However, with the rising software solutions, HR software, promising improvements in efficiency and automation, have entered the market. Yet, they haven't always been able to replace the use of Excel for scheduling. The Excel plans are often too specific and have years of company use backing them.

For those who want to take a look at scheduling tools, are in a start-up and need their first work schedules, or are generally focused on workforce planning: we've compiled a small guide for you. In addition, an Excel template for your deployment schedule is waiting for you.

What are duty schedules and deployment schedules?

Firstly: duty schedules and deployment schedules are the same thing – they are used synonymously. Depending on the company and department, one term or the other may be used. In the end, we're talking about a plan that coordinates the shifts of individual employees, especially in logistics, manufacturing or the catering industry. This is essential to ensure 24-hour operations or operations for most of the day.

Even though the term 'planning' implies that it's a forward-thinking action, checking and documenting are also part of duty scheduling. For example: Did the scheduled duty actually happen? How much overtime was done? What were the actual working hours like? Was somebody sick? The answers to these questions will influence future duty schedules.

From a certain scale, duty planning can get complex. A well-structured plan, with equally structured management by HR personnel, is therefore worth its weight in gold.

We're providing you with a free deployment schedule template for Excel

Setting up duty schedules with Excel has been common in Germany for many decades. Many HR departments still rely on it. But, excuse me?! It's 2022. There surely must be more advanced solutions than an Excel spreadsheet. Even given all our digital progress, this is a given but does not exclude the possibility that deployment schedules via Excel can still be timely. After all, Microsoft has also evolved.

For many scenarios, an Excel plan is absolutely sufficient. For users who want it smarter or companies that have grown so much that Excel planning eat up unnecessary time, they should take a closer look at personnel planning tools – more about this later in the article.

Those who need a free deployment schedule template can get one here:

For the free deployment schedule template

Our free Excel template performs all calculations automatically. You just have to feed the template with names and shift schedules. So remember to activate macros. You'll learn which abbreviations you have to work with in the planning in individual legends on the sheets.

In 5 steps to optimal duty scheduling

To ensure you can use the duty schedule template efficiently and correctly, we're providing you with instructions. In a few steps, you will learn what to pay attention to in which order when you want or need to write a duty schedule with forecast.

Step 1: List employees

Firstly, it's important to assign specific employees from the HR Department for deployment planning. This avoids chaos and cross work. Afterwards, the first step is to list all employees who should be scheduled. These names should be complemented with their respective deployment areas, experiences and additional qualifications in their profiles. You also specify who is part-time, full-time, or working as an intern or student. You enter the names in groups into the planning sheet. In our free deployment schedule template, the names from the profiles are automatically included in the duty schedule.

Step 2: Check vacation, medical leave, and statutory holidays

Understandably, employees can't be scheduled 24/7. Aside from labor law regulations, employers need to work around holidays (dependent on the federal state), vacation, and other times of absenteeism. Holidays aren't automatically off in all companies. In this case, employees must get another day off.

Therefore, ideally at the beginning of a year, enter approved holidays for all employees and statutory holidays. For this, you can utilise a separate sheet in the Excel planning or enter everything on a single sheet. This might be more transparent to ensure no days off and legal requirements are overlooked.

Step 3: Operational needs

In an upper field of the general duty scheduling, enter the needs of the operation. Meaning, how much staff is needed in the different areas per day?

Step 4: The scheduling

Once employees and their times of absence are entered, you get an overview of who you could schedule when, while considering the needs of the operations. We recommend doing a first draft, letting another HR employee take a look, and then adjusting the duty schedule. All according to the proven four-eyes principle!

It will rarely occur that a mistake becomes noticeable when it's too late. In this case, you should always have a plan B. Meaning, always schedule generously per day!

In the face of a cross-sector shortage of staff, this isn't an easy task. Yet, if possible, always plan in more staff than operationally necessary.

Step 5: Checking

Daily checking of the duty scheduling in the morning is necessary. Record whether employees who called in sick arrived, construct a plan B, and inform affected areas. Nobody said being a HR officer was easy!

The advantages of deployment scheduling in Excel

As you can see in the screenshots and our free Excel template, you're getting a great overview of all relevant parameters for successful personnel planning. Without much fuss. In addition, the following advantages come with it:

• Costs nothing (unless you're using a paid variant of Microsoft 365)
• Excel is very adaptable (cells, colors, contents)
• No deep knowledge needed to work with Excel scheduling

The disadvantages of deployment scheduling in Excel

Everything has disadvantages. For duty scheduling with Excel, they would be the following:

• Not suitable for real-time collaboration (danger of duplicates)
• More difficult to take into account all employment law regulations
• Prone to errors due to manual data entry (human factor)
• Less suitable for larger companies

The alternative: personnel planning tools

There are many HR tools available now. They differ in their main functions. So HR tool is not always just an HR tool. Therefore, there are Onboarding software, Personnel management programs, Digital personnel files, personnel planning tools, and many other types of functions. Based on the complex model of a physical HR department, you may find many such features in one tool, depending on the provider.

Examples of tools suitable for digital deployment planning include Factorial, Papershift, Wrike, Staffomatic or Planday. Furthermore, there is a number of other HR software solutions that are wonderfully equipped. Simply browse OMR Reviews in the Employee deployment planning section.

Personnel planning tools include functions that can replace or supplement the use of an Excel file. You'll have to review what's relevant for you. You can expect at least the following functions in personnel planning software:

• Plan shifts with simple data entry
• Automated overview of available employees per day
• Digital notifications for employees about changed working times
• Daily checking of the scheduling
• Real-time collaboration
• Individual grouping by teams, departments, shifts and other criteria.
• Conflicts in the planning are immediately recognized

Conclusion

Every Excel duty schedule is individual. Our free template serves as a foundation, but can also be adjusted to internal needs. That's the advantage of Excel. On the other hand, personnel planning tools like Papershift or Staffomatic help with automated processes, monitoring functions and employee notifications to work more efficiently and securely. This is particularly worthwhile when there are many employees.

Whether Excel or software planning depends on the need. Small companies use the free Excel planning, SMEs, and large companies should use a personnel planning tool.