Holidays and duty rosters – how HR software helps ease the burden during busy periods

Holidays, skills shortages and duty rosters – how HR software helps ease the burden during bottlenecks

When the holiday season coincides with a shortage of skilled workers and unplanned absences occur, HR software helps to maintain an overview.

Holiday time should be relaxing, but for HR managers and those responsible for planning, it often means stress – especially when there is already a shortage of skilled workers. Employees are entitled to holidays, but at the same time, the business must continue to run despite thin staffing levels. This balancing act leads to a real planning dilemma in many companies: how do you fill duty rosters when key skilled workers are on holiday and no replacements are available? Added to this is fluctuating availability in times of crisis, whether due to illness or spontaneous overtime. Holiday and shift planning quickly becomes a nerve-wracking puzzle.

Staff shortages increase the pressure: when a small number of employees have to shoulder many tasks, every absence leads to additional work for the rest. In a survey, for example, 45 per cent of public sector employees stated that they often had to work overtime due to staff shortages (in hospitals, the figure was as high as 78 per cent). Such figures make it clear that understaffing means more overtime, less rest and increased stress for the remaining team. Especially during holiday periods, this can lead to an unhealthy increase in workload.

Challenges for holiday and shift planning when there is a shortage of staff

Often, several employees in a company want to take time off at the same time (e.g. during school holidays or public holidays). However, when there is a shortage of skilled workers, there are hardly any reserves to cover parallel absences. Those responsible for planning are then faced with the difficult task of distributing holiday requests fairly while still covering every shift. This is rarely possible without compromises; in the worst case, holidays have to be rejected or duty rosters constantly changed.

Spontaneous sick notes or other unplanned absences during the holiday season can throw duty rosters into disarray. If someone in an already understaffed team is absent, this often immediately creates a gap in the duty roster. For HR managers, this means frantic rearranging: Who can fill in? Who might be available to work overtime at short notice? Without digital tools, the search for replacements involves numerous phone calls and emails and costs valuable time in already tense situations.

Many companies still use Excel spreadsheets or paper lists to coordinate holidays and shifts. This may work for small teams, but quickly reaches its limits in more complex scenarios. Changes have to be made manually, which can lead to transcription errors. This can result in someone being accidentally scheduled to work while on holiday, or two employees being scheduled for the same shift. Such planning errors are often noticed late and can only be corrected with great effort. In addition, static tables lack a real-time overview: who constantly checks the holiday calendar to see if the Excel entries are still up to date?

Team coordination suffers when duty rosters are managed manually. Changes are sent out in group emails or posted on the notice board – in the hope that everyone will see them in time.

Managers often have to answer numerous questions, such as how many days of holiday leave an employee has left or who they can swap shifts with. This is not only time-consuming, but also causes dissatisfaction. Employees feel poorly informed, and managers spend hours distributing information instead of focusing on strategic tasks.

The answer lies in the smart use of digital HR software. Modern tools can automate and make transparent a large part of the planning work – to the benefit of both the company and its workforce. Below, we look at how such solutions help in practice.

Digital relief: How HR software helps

Modern HR software can simplify holiday and duty scheduling in many ways. Integrated platforms that combine duty scheduling, absence management and time recording in particular relieve the HR team of a lot of manual work. Some specific ways in which digital tools can ease the workload:

• Automated holiday management: Employees can submit holiday requests digitally and supervisors can approve them with a click. The software automatically records approved absences in the system – including comparison with the duty roster. This makes it immediately apparent if a holiday request could lead to understaffing. Modern tools prevent double bookings and raise the alarm if someone is scheduled to work despite being on holiday or sick leave. The result: fewer conflicts and transparent holiday planning where no one is overlooked.
• Clear digital duty rosters: Specialised duty roster software such as the online duty roster solution from Papershift offers planners a real-time overview of all shifts. At a glance, you can see which shifts are fully staffed and where there are still gaps. Changes, such as a last-minute shift replacement, are communicated to everyone involved in real time. This means that everyone always has the current schedule in front of them. In addition, rules such as maximum weekly working hours or rest periods can be stored in the digital schedule so that the system automatically warns before legal requirements are violated or employees are overworked. Such an overview reduces stress and ensures that even when there is a shortage of staff, the available workforce is optimally distributed.
• Integrated communication & self-service: Digital HR solutions make it much easier to coordinate with employees. Instead of having to call all colleagues individually in an emergency, planners can advertise open shifts via an app. Interested employees apply for them voluntarily. Overall, an integrated platform promotes self-service: every employee can view their work schedule and holiday account balance, submit requests to swap shifts or communicate their availability via the web or a smartphone app. This not only saves time, but also increases satisfaction: the workforce feels involved and informed. This has been proven to improve employee retention, as transparent and fair planning strengthens trust.
• Digital time tracking and absence reconciliation: Another factor that reduces the workload is linking time tracking to duty scheduling, as offered by Papershift. Employees simply clock in and out digitally (via terminal, PC or app), and the times are directly assigned to the planned shifts. This allows you to keep track of overtime and working time accounts without the tedious task of collecting timesheets. Absences such as sick leave are also entered into the system immediately. This real-time data makes it possible to identify bottlenecks at an early stage: for example, managers can see immediately if too many people are absent on a given day and can react in good time. In addition, digital time tracking makes payroll accounting easier because all hours are recorded correctly and can be exported – another noticeable relief during hectic periods.
• HR software as a central platform: In times of crisis, it pays off when HR processes are not spread across different isolated solutions. Holistic platforms such as Papershift Pulse combine staff scheduling, communication and administrative tasks in one system. This greatly reduces the administrative workload: master data is only maintained once, holidays, sick notes and shifts are linked, and employee information is not lost. In addition, a suite such as Papershift Pulse offers additional functions to steer the company more robustly through the crisis – from onboarding new employees to feedback or survey functions (e.g. to gauge the mood within the team). By digitising documents and accelerating processes, modern HR tools give HR departments more time for strategic tasks, such as attracting and retaining talent. This focus on the people in the company rather than on manual administrative work is worth its weight in gold in times of skilled labour shortages.

Conclusion: better planning, less stress

Companies that rely on digital HR tools can make holiday and shift planning much more relaxed, even under difficult conditions. Automated processes reduce errors and save time, while real-time overviews and integrated communication ensure transparency. This benefits both sides: HR managers are relieved of operational tasks and gain capacity to devote themselves to more important areas such as recruitment. And employees experience fair, reliable planning, which promotes motivation and loyalty – crucial factors in competing for scarce skilled workers.

Digital support takes pressure off the system, so that in the end, everyone involved can breathe a sigh of relief. Because one thing is clear: well-rested employees and well-thought-out duty rosters are not a luxury, but the basis for long-term stable work, even (and especially) in challenging times.