It’s a professional standard to give two weeks’ notice when leaving a job. But no law requires any particular time frame. As newer generations change the business world, ditching the two weeks’ notice is becoming more common.
This creates many problems for businesses. The average hiring process time is 36 days. Of course, hiring for shift work could take even longer due to factors like industry-wide high turnover rates and non-standard working hours.
Is two weeks' notice enough for a shift-based business? No, it may not be enough. Losing workers can disrupt operations, stress out employees, impact service for customers, and result in a loss of profit.
Shift-based businesses can take steps to anticipate these gaps in staffing and hire faster, two weeks' notice or not. Keep reading to learn how.
Why is two weeks’ notice a professional standard?
The idea of a two-week notice came from a time (loosely the post-war era of the 1940s and ‘50s) when people stayed with companies for decades. The only time they would quit was for extreme reasons, such as moving or getting a promotion at another company.
As two weeks’ notice became a business standard for that generation, they passed it down to later generations. Many workplaces have even written this accepted standard into their employee handbooks. Failing to give notice is seen as unprofessional and a surefire way to burn bridges. There’s also the concern of leaving coworkers in the lurch by giving them extra work due to your leaving.
For decades, that’s how the cycle went — at least until newer generations like Gen Z started to challenge workplace norms. The working world is always changing, and as more young professionals join, they’re pushing back against these standard social contracts. Some have no objections to just quitting or abandoning a job when leaving a company.
Regardless of how you feel about workers leaving a job with less than two weeks’ notice, businesses should be prepared for when it happens at their workplace.
The snowball effect of late hiring in shift work
How long does the hiring process take for your business? If you can’t find the right replacement for a shift worker in time, you’ll experience one or more of the effects below.
Burned out workers
Any form of understaffing leads to burnout. The longer it takes to find a replacement and train them, the more pressure the rest of your team will feel — especially in customer-facing businesses.
Turnover
Burnout doesn’t occur in isolation. It breeds lower morale and potentially higher turnover if hiring takes too long. If people continue to leave, burnout worsens, and staffing will get harder.
The situation becomes critical if you lose top talent. Trying to replace top talent will take even longer and widen the chance of turnover.
Workplace accidents
Depending on the business, delays in hiring new shift workers could lead to workplace accidents. As the rest of your team tries to make up for the missing coworker, they can stretch themselves too thin.
Whether due to stress, tiredness, or simply rushing, one wrong decision can cause physical harm to themselves and others.
Overtime costs
You’ll spend more money on your current team while looking for a replacement. Many workers will work overtime to ensure your business is running as usual — which means higher expenses for your business.
Decreased efficiency
All the reasons above culminate in decreased efficiency throughout your business operations. While you focus on hiring a replacement, other tasks that can help your business are left to the wayside.
Meanwhile, your team is running around to fill in gaps left by the former employee. They can struggle to maintain productivity. Then they’ll start to feel run down from the stress and extra work — slowing them down even further.
Unhappy customers
Decreased efficiency and burnout equate to unhappy customers. Whether it’s a delay in service or tired employees, customers are quick to notice a dip in quality or efficiency. Customers have expectations based on previous experience, and if you don’t meet them, they’ll find someone who does.
This can also include potential partnerships. If your business partner notices you’re struggling, they’ll be less likely to enter into a deal with you.
Strategies for anticipating workforce changes
Obviously, you can’t foretell the future. How are you supposed to know when your workforce is going to change? Here are some strategies to anticipate and prepare for workforce shifts.
Use labor forecasting tools
First, you should use labor forecasting tools. These programs analyze past data to predict future trends. This will let you know what to expect in the future.
For example, in healthcare, labor forecasting can predict when your clinic might require more staff due to flu season. The same can be done for retail as the holidays come up.
It can also tell you when you need fewer employees so you don’t have to worry about overhiring.
Check-in with current employees
Prevent understaffing by understanding your current employees. Whether through meetings or anonymous surveys, find out how your team feels about the current state of the business. Based on the responses, you can learn whether they are disengaged and possibly about to leave.
This can give you time to change things so you don’t have to worry about finding replacements. Deputy’s Shift Pulse feedback feature makes creating and sending surveys easy and noninvasive for your employees.
Tracking time off requests
If you’ve noticed several employees asking for more time off, that could be a sign of disengagement, which can lead to employees leaving. Having a leave management program that can easily track each employee’s time off and incoming requests can give you a full picture of what your employees are up to.
Cross-train
Many times, employees leave due to a lack of career advancement opportunities. Change that and cover the various positions within your company by cross-training and developing top performers.
Not only do you not have to worry about the open position, but by offering these opportunities you’re improving morale and employee engagement.
Always be looking for new talent
If understaffing is a consistent problem, you should always be looking for new employees. Since hiring is time-consuming, you can cut down by always looking for new potential hires.
Maintain relationships with potential employees so that when you need a replacement, you’re more likely to hire someone quickly.
How technology can help speed up shift-based hiring
Technology is crucial to prevent understaffing and speed up the hiring process. Here’s how to use technology to your advantage when looking for new employees.
Labor forecasting
As we’ve already discussed, labor forecasting should be a cornerstone of your hiring strategy. Knowing when to hire more people gives you time to go through the process without stressing out your current team.
It allows you to be proactive instead of reactive.
Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics is similar to labor forecasting but delves deeper into people data than business trend data. Instead of focusing on generalities, it can be used to create the perfect person for your open position.
During the hiring process, you can use predictive analytics to narrow down the candidate pool and find people more likely to accept the job.
Automation
Automation can speed up the manual tasks of the hiring process, like responding to candidates with a generic email. (You can also use AI to write that email.) That way, you can focus on the more complicated tasks that require a human touch.
Automation and AI can help create job postings, screen resumes, and notify candidates, saving you time.
Create schedules easier
Instead of spending hours adjusting schedules as your workforce changes, upgrade your scheduling system. Deputy’s scheduling software uses a mixture of AI, past trends, and current data to create the most efficient schedule for your business and employees.
Collect feedback easier
We’ve already talked about the importance of feedback, so we’ll keep this short. To prevent turnover, use Deputy’s pulse feedback tool to create and send surveys regularly so you know what your employees are thinking.
Use integration to your advantage
It’s common now for software to work alongside other programs. For example, Deputy’s scheduling program can integrate with various HR programs, making it easy to create payroll based on hours worked.
See what your current programs’ integrations are and whether they can streamline the various business processes.
Examples of how technology enhances hiring
Here’s how these businesses use technology to their advantage.
Truffle Burger: streamlining the hiring process
This restaurant was growing fast, and with multiple locations, it needed to hire people faster. Using Deputy, Truffle Burger saved an hour per employee during onboarding. Deputy’s HR program streamlined the process along with document and compliance management.
They also used the labor forecasting tool to improve their shift planning, saving money on labor and giving employees more time to do what they like doing.
Mercy Urgent Care: combating turnover
Healthcare is stressful enough, but add consistent scheduling issues, and you have a high turnover rate. This is what Mercy Urgent was facing — including losing a valuable supervisor.
Using Deputy software's scheduling and mass communication features, Mercy cut its turnover rate in half in just one quarter.
Make Two Weeks Count with Deputy
Two weeks can make all the difference between a smooth transition and a staffing crisis. If you’re lucky enough to receive a two-week notice, ensure you make the most of your time with Deputy. Our various programs, from scheduling to labor forecasting to HR, will make finding a new employee a breeze.
Make better data-informed decisions with Deputy. Try it for free!
