Have you seen the recent trend of legislation related to predictable scheduling? Or maybe you’re wondering what constitutes predictable scheduling and how it might affect your organization? Let’s take a look at what this topic is all about and why it’s been in the news (and in ongoing legislative efforts) recently.
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Some Background of Scheduling Concerns
First, let’s take a look at the status quo. Currently, across most of the United States, employers are free to schedule employees as needed for the job demands. In some industries, particularly retail and food service, this means employers often opt for schedules that fluctuate with customer demand. This might mean an employee works differing hours each workday and may even have a widely varying schedule from week-to-week.
This may make sense from a scheduling standpoint, but it can represent a higher-than-normal burden for employees dealing with these fluctuations. For example:
- For anyone needing to make childcare arrangements, an ever-changing schedule may mean it is impossible to utilize the same childcare provider each day, which may make it much more difficult to find suitable childcare arrangements consistently.
- For those who rely on public transportation (or any transportation that is not their personal vehicle), varying schedules can also have a significant impact on their ability to efficiently plan their commute to the workplace.
- Anyone who has other scheduled obligations on their time, such as another job or class that meets at the same time each week, may also have difficulty attending both schedules when one always fluctuates and may overlap. As such, for employees in these types of situations, it may be difficult to maintain attendance for all of their obligations.
What Is Predictive Scheduling?
As the name implies, predictive scheduling involves setting work hours that do not vary considerably from week to week or, minimally, giving more notice of weekly work schedules to allow more time to adapt, thus providing more stability for those individuals working those roles.
Some parts of the country (notably San Francisco in 2015) have implemented laws to make predictive scheduling more of the status quo to alleviate some of the concerns noted above. Other cities, like Seattle, are scheduled to follow suit in 2017.
These types of laws generally make it so that employers are required (at a minimum) to give more advance notice of schedules—such as Seattle’s proposed 14-day advance notice requirement. They typically also provide penalties—in the form of extra pay required to be given to employees—when less notice is given.
New York City is the next city with a predictive scheduling law in the works, though its law is focused specifically on the fast food industry. That said, there are several other states that are eyeing this type of legislation or that have started the process of introducing their own version of the law at the congressional level. Stay tuned.
Arguments Against Predictive Scheduling
While the benefits for employees are clear, there are also detractors of predictive scheduling that point out it’s not all positive outcomes. Some counterarguments include the idea that a more predictive schedule may actually result in less flexibility for employees who need time away, as well as a reduction in total hours worked in many cases. Which negative results come about clearly depends on how the scheduling process is implemented and what flexibility is maintained.
As a small business owner, my priority is my customer base first and foremost. My workforce will be hired based on my company needs, not the needs of the workforce, however concerns for all will be taken into consideration. Why are we implementing laws that dis-empower the business owner? It is a balance, I have a business with needs, the workforce has needs, we find balance that benefits both.