Hi Rose, we've sort of gone the other way. We are extremely flexible. We let our employees block off times and dates in their own Jobber calendar.
They can take as much time as they want off. They can work half days, for all I care.
Now, this goes the other way as well. This summer, we were incredibly busy. My core team did not want any overtime, unfortunately, so I ended up hiring four additional employees, and we were using two to three sub crews throughout the summer. Now it's September, and things are slowing down a little bit, and unfortunately, it looks like there are fewer hours for everyone. This will be our next hurdle, and we're going to have to figure things out as we go here.
What I have tried to realize is that the schedule in construction is never going to be perfect. It does seem like it's almost a full-time role for someone to be dealing with that beast. There were times this summer where I just had to chill out, stare at that calendar, and make magic happen, honestly.
I don't know if that answered your question, but it was just something we've been dealing with this summer that was relating to your question.
Definitely helpful! I used to manage our schedule myself through 2023, but at this point we're double the size we were then. I got off a 10-day vacation and my ops manager was calling me crying before I even got out of the airport. When dissecting the core issue, she was quickly blaming the team's inconsistencies with call-outs, but ultimately I delivered the stance that the current system needs revisiting (what worked 2-3 years ago might not work anymore today)... We've always prided ourselves on empathy and compassion, but when someone is calling out because of monthly lady problems, we figured there needs to be a harder line :)
