Managing staff schedules: optimizing teams

Did you know that a production manager can spend up to 35% of their time managing schedules and reorganizing teams in response to unforeseen events? This telling statistic is one that many industrial sites can relate to.

In workshops and factories, shift scheduling isn’t just a matter of organization—it’s a key factor in performance. Every scheduling error can lead to production delays, quality defects, or even a safety incident. Every hour spent juggling Excel spreadsheets is an hour lost that could be spent improving processes.

The reality on the ground speaks for itself: when an operator is absent, when an urgent order comes in, when an authorization expires… the entire organization has to be reorganized, often on short notice and with incomplete information.

While industrial production has undergone significant modernization in recent decades, methods for scheduling work shifts have remained surprisingly traditional in many companies. Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas, paper-based schedules that are difficult to update, and information scattered across multiple departments—all of these hinder responsiveness and agility.

To gauge the extent of these obstacles, we analyzed 12 months of usage data from the Mercateam platform: 3.65 million assignments across more than 200 French industrial sites.

Mercateam usage data: 3,651,583 assignments, more than 200 industrial sites in France, August 2025 through August 2026.

1. What is workforce scheduling in an industrial setting?

Definition and issues specific to the industrial sector

Coordinating the work of production operators requires a clear understanding of their skills, needs, and day-to-day constraints. When a team leader assigns staff to work stations, they’re not just assigning schedules—they’re balancing technical qualifications, levels of expertise, and production uncertainties. This task, which is often time-consuming for managers, directly impacts the plant’s ability to meet deadlines and maintain quality, even when absences or urgent orders arise.

In industry, this type of planning has specific characteristics:

• Specific technical skills that are often non-interchangeable
• Production requirements linked to strict customer commitments
• Safety constraints and regulatory compliance (authorizations, certifications)
• A shift schedule (2×8, 3×8, 5×8)
• Fluctuations in business activity that are sometimes seasonal or order-driven

Site and production managers know that poor planning can lead to line stoppages, delivery delays, and even quality and safety problems.

The first point can be quantified. We counted, position by position, the skills and qualifications required: an average of 3.7 in the pharmaceutical industry, 4.6 in the cosmetics industry, 5.1 in the agri-food industry, 5.8 in the aerospace industry, and 7.2 in the automotive industry.

Assigning an operator therefore involves checking four to seven conditions at once, whereas a shift schedule only requires checking availability.

The Different Components of an Effective Schedule

Truly effective planning in an industrial environment integrates several dimensions:

• The human dimension availability of operators, skills mastered, medical restrictions, personal wishes, work/life balance
• The technical dimension available equipment, preventive maintenance, skills required for each position
• The regulatory dimension : legal working hours, compulsory breaks, up-to-date authorizations
• The economic dimension optimize resources, limit non-essential overtime, anticipate temporary staffing needs

Taking all these factors into account makes the task complex, especially when the tools used are not suited to the realities of the industrial environment.

Our data provide an order of magnitude for each of these dimensions:

A production schedule is not a calendar. It is a series of scheduling decisions, each of which has implications for quality, safety, and labor laws.

Impact on productivity and team satisfaction

Scheduling optimization directly influences two fundamental aspects of industrial performance:

On productivity A well-designed schedule allows you to :

• Reduce production downtime
• Ensuring the right skills at the right time
• Limiting overcapacity and undercapacity
• Anticipating training and recruitment needs

The experience of industrial sites that have optimized their scheduling shows substantial gains. For example, LVMH Fragrance Brands was able to minimize scheduling errors by setting constraints during the configuration of its tool, thereby avoiding production line stoppages caused by unexpected absences (See LVMH Fragrance Brands Use Case)

On employee satisfaction Clear and fair planning helps to :

• Making the most of everyone's skills
• Provide greater transparency regarding staffing decisions
• Reduce the stress of last-minute changes
• Promoting a healthy work-life balance

According to feedback from sites such as those of Berry Global or Trigano, the clarification of planning processes had a direct impact on the work environment and team engagement.

2. The daily challenges of production planning

Managing Absenteeism and Unforeseen Events

Absenteeism is one of the biggest headaches for any production manager. Whether it’s sick leave, tardiness, or last-minute absences, you need to be able to respond quickly without compromising production.

National figures confirm the scale of the issue. The’Social Performance Observatory 2026, conducted by Ipsos bva for Oasys Diot-Siaci, estimates absenteeism at 4.98 % in 2025, compared with 4.84 % in 2024.

37 % of employees were absent at least once during the year, for an average of 21.1 days. At a site with 200 employees, this means that on any given day, about ten people are absent.

The challenge is twofold:

• Quickly identify potential replacements with the required skills
• Reorganize teams without overloading certain operators or creating imbalances

As the experience of many production sites shows, the ability to respond quickly to these unforeseen events depends directly on visibility into available skills. Without a suitable system, the time spent searching for emergency solutions increases significantly.

How many times is the schedule changed each week?

We measured this volume at 104 sites. On a median basis, a schedule is modified 467 times per week at sites with between 100 and 300 employees, 212 times at sites with fewer than 100 employees, and 1,277 times at sites with more than 300 employees.

On a large site, this amounts to one change every two minutes during an eight-hour workday. Only weeks of actual activity are included in the calculation.

Weekly schedule changes, depending on the size of the site

Light bar: P25 to P75 range across sites. Purple line: median.

Dispersion tells us more than the median. Among sites with 100 to 300 employees, a site in the third quartile processes 851 changes per week—nearly four times the volume of a site in the first quartile (221).

At what point in the week does the schedule change?

The distribution over seven days contradicts the notion that the schedule for the following week is finalized by Friday. Wednesday and Thursday account for 45 % of the changes, while Friday accounts for only 14.7 %.

Weekly Breakdown of Schedule Changes

Percentage of total change volume, in %, over 12 months.

On business days, the volume is concentrated at the start of production:

• 48 % changes between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m.; ;
• 35 % between 12:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.; ;
• 17 % between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.

The absolute peak occurs on Wednesday at 8 a.m., with 19,083 changes during that period. This is the start of the workday, when actual absences become apparent and decisions must be made within the hour.

The balance between production needs and available skills

Versatility is not always a given in industrial teams, which makes it difficult to align production needs with available resources. Several factors come into play:

• Specific skills that are sometimes possessed by only a limited number of operators
• Positions requiring special clearance (working at heights, electrical work, etc.)
• A transfer of expertise that is not always formalized

How many operators can actually handle two positions?

Depending on the sector, between 10.1 % and 20.1 % of operators are truly proficient in two or more positions: 8 to 9 out of 10 operators, therefore, handle only one position at best.

Our criterion is that of an auditor: an operator is considered to have mastered a position only if they meet 100 % of the requirements, including skills and authorizations.

Percentage of operators proficient in two or more positions, by sector

Light bar: P25 to P75 range between sites. Purple dot: median for the sector.

The variation among sites within the same sector is greater than the variation across sectors. In the automotive industry, the rate ranges from 0.8 % in the first quartile to 67.4 % in the third: how work is organized has a greater impact than the specific line of work.

How many positions are staffed by fewer than three people?

This trend holds true without exception across all five sectors. In the automotive sector, 647 of the 1,156 positions analyzed have no incumbent who meets all the requirements; in the aerospace sector, the figure is 533 out of 2,112.

Yet these workstations operate every day, staffed by partially qualified operators.

Skills possessed by a single person

Depending on the sector, between 93 % and 100 % of the sites have at least one skill or certification held by a single employee.

In the aerospace industry, one in seven positions is held by a single person. The median of 52 “monopolies” in this sector also reflects the depth of the skills base: the more skills a site requires, the more rare skills there are.

Visit Exxelia case This speaks volumes: the company had to implement a rigorous skills tracking system to identify critical expertise and anticipate retirements that could deprive the company of essential skills.

Nearly one in two validated skills is never used

However, part of the talent pool exists without being visible. When we cross-reference the skills validated at the operational level with actual assignments over a 12-month period, a large portion turns out to be dormant.

Skills validated without any job assignments over a 12-month period, by sector

Percentage of skills validated at the operational level that were not used for any scheduling assignment.

The calculation includes only employees who were assigned at least once during the year: neither a long-term absence nor a departure accounts for these rates.

Compliance with legal and regulatory constraints

Planning in the industry requires a strict legal framework:

• Respect for daily and weekly rest periods
• Managing mandatory breaks
• Maximum working hours
• Compliance with company agreements and collective bargaining agreements
• Validity of necessary authorizations and certifications

Far from being mere administrative formalities, these requirements ensure the safety and well-being of employees. Ignoring them exposes the company not only to legal risks but also to incidents or accidents.

Thresholds to Include in Any Schedule

Every change is also a legal decision. In a 3×8 schedule, an operator who is called back to work the night shift after his day shift no longer has his 11 hours of rest: he is outside the framework even before the issue of voluntary participation comes into play.

How soon after publication can a schedule be modified?

The timeframe depends on the contract and the work schedule:

• Part-time. At least 7 business days before any change to the work schedule. A collective agreement may reduce this notice period to 3 business days, subject to compensatory measures.
• Duration spread over several weeks without an agreement. Schedule changes are announced 7 business days in advance.
• Group schedule. The amendment is posted prior to implementation and submitted in advance to the labor inspectorate, following consultation with the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) in companies with at least 50 employees.

On a site that records hundreds of accesses per week, knowing who made what changes and when the employee was notified becomes the only usable evidence in the event of a dispute.

Failure to submit a copy of the collective work schedule to the labor inspectorate constitutes a 4th-class violation, calculated per affected employee: up to €750 per violation for an individual, and five times that amount for a company.

The limits of traditional methods (Excel, paper tables)

The tools historically used for planning quickly show their limits in the face of industrial complexity:

• Lack of visibility : It's hard to get a complete picture of people's skills and availability
• Update problems information quickly becomes obsolete
• Risk of Errors complex Excel formulas, data entry errors, oversights
• Lost time : Based on feedback, 35 hours per week may be spent managing staff schedules in some companies
• Lack of collaboration files often accessible to only one person at a time
• No alert : No automatic notification in the event of an anomaly (exceeding hours, expired authorization)

As the SEB Group has observed, using Excel for scheduling can result in up to 35 different files for a single site, making it nearly impossible to ensure consistency and keep everything up to date.

A spreadsheet doesn’t know what its cells entail: no alerts when an authorization expires, no restrictions when hours are exceeded. This passivity goes unnoticed with 212 changes per week, but much less so with 1,277.

Visit Limitations of Production Scheduling in Excel are less a matter of software than of architecture: the schedule and skills are stored in two separate files.

3. How to set up an efficient staff scheduling system?

Preliminary Analysis of Needs and Constraints

Before implementing any new planning system, an analysis phase is essential:

• Map current processes : How are schedules managed today? What are the sticking points?
• Identify business cycles Are there predictable periods of high and low intensity?
• Identify specific constraints : night shifts, critical positions, rare skills…
• Assessing available resources How many people currently manage schedules? How much time do they spend on it?

This step helps prevent existing problems from recurring and ensures that the solution is tailored to the specific needs of your site.

To assess your resources, start by keeping track: over a four-week period, how many changes were made, by whom, on what day, and at what time. This will show you how you compare to the medians for your category (212, 467, or 1,277 per week).

There are three possible interpretations:

• a volume close to the median, spread out over the week: the organization manages its fluctuations; ;
• a sharp spike on Wednesday morning: the structure doesn't hold beyond Tuesday—that's what needs to be reviewed; ;
• a volume exceeding the third quartile: there is a lack of information on skills at the time of assignment.

Integration of Skills and Authorizations

The key to effective planning lies in having a clear understanding of the available skills. This involves:

• Creating a skills repository structured by item
• Define mastery levels for each skill (beginner, intermediate, expert)
• Identify regulatory authorizations and their expiration dates
• Identify in-house trainers able to pass on every skill

Valrhona’s experience perfectly illustrates this need: Faced with 15% growth and an employee turnover rate of 20%, the company had to establish a precise system for tracking skills in order to maintain its production capacity without compromising quality.

A reference framework that becomes outdated faster than the schedule

Above all, the reference database must be kept up to date. In our data, an operator’s skills record is updated every 49 days on average, and every 118 days for one-quarter of employees.

The percentage of workers whose pay grades were adjusted during the year ranges from 54.1 Q3 in the automotive sector and 50.0 1 Q3 in the aerospace sector to 24.8 1 Q3 in the cosmetics sector and 11.1 1 Q3 in the pharmaceutical sector.

An authorization that was renewed in the system but entered six weeks later triggers the same alert as an expired authorization. A Tracking of authorizations prepared for audits Close this window.

Anticipating Peaks in Activity

Proactive planning is a key success factor:

• Analyze historical data to identify load patterns
• Prepare scenarios for busy periods
• Anticipating staffing needs additional (tempsCDD)
• Schedule training courses during off-peak periods

This proactive approach significantly reduces stress for teams and optimizes costs associated with overtime or emergency temporary staffing.

Versatility, too, requires preparation well in advance:

The increase is concentrated between the first and third years, then levels off at around 32 % for permanent employees. A seasonal peak is therefore expected as a result of the previous year’s hiring.

Temporary workers with 3 to 10 years of cumulative seniority account for 43.4 %: assigned to wherever there is a shortage of staff, they rotate among different positions. For the interim management, Retaining repeat customers pays off.

On a weekly basis, the same principle applies: a workload review on Tuesday afternoon helps alleviate some of the backlog before the Wednesday morning peak at 8 a.m.

Three Metrics for Managing the Schedule

Three benchmarks are sufficient to track the impact of these actions. Our medians serve as a point of comparison:

Taken separately, they are misleading: a factory that reduces its changes without improving its coverage has put its schedule on hold. The other industrial performance indicators come next.

4. The Benefits of a Digital Solution for Your Schedules

Time-saving for managers

Digitizing schedules frees up a considerable amount of time for management teams. Let’s take the specific example of a workshop manager who used to spend nearly 10 hours a week juggling different Excel files and communicating changes. With a suitable tool, this same task can be completed in less than 2 hours, freeing up time to support teams and improve processes.

Automation features play a key role here: duplicating typical workweeks, assignment suggestions based on skills, and automatic alerts when rest rules aren’t followed—all of which make life easier for managers.

These orders of magnitude are reflected in the results achieved at our clients’ sites: 25 % in time saved on assignments at LVMH Fragrance Brands, and 30 % less planning time at SEW Usocome.

Better visibility for all employees

«When am I working next week?» Digital tools provide an immediate answer to this frequently asked question. Operators can check their schedules on their smartphones or on screens in the workshops, and receive notifications in case of changes.

This transparency not only improves their personal organization but also fosters engagement. An operator who can view their schedule several weeks in advance will be better able to organize their personal life and will be less likely to have unplanned absences.

One important point to note: the collective work schedule must be dated, signed, and posted at each workplace (Art. D3171-2). Viewing the schedule on a smartphone supplements this posting but does not replace it.

Reducing Allocation Errors

Mismanagement of personnel assignments can have serious consequences in the industry: safety risks if an operator lacks the required authorizations, quality issues if skills are insufficient, or even failure to comply with legal rest periods.

Digital solutions include automated controls that immediately issue alerts in the event of an anomaly: expired authorization, exceeding authorized working hours, or a lack of qualifications for a position. These safeguards help prevent errors that could be costly, both in human and financial terms.

How many assignments are issued with a missing requirement?

Of the 3,651,583 assignments analyzed, 523,745 involve an employee who lacks at least one required skill or authorization. This represents 14.3 %, or approximately 1,435 assignments per day.

Percentage of non-compliant assignments and variation across sites

On the left, the overall rate for the fleet. On the right, the breakdown of the rates calculated on a site-by-site basis.

The median per site is 14.2 %, with a wide range: one-quarter of sites fall below 3.6 %, while another quarter exceed 31.2 %—that is, nearly one in three assignments.

The indicator counts assignments, not hours: a two-hour replacement counts for just as much as a full-time position working three eight-hour shifts. It measures the frequency of risk.

12-Month Trend in the Rate of Non-Compliant Assignments

The rate rose from 11.25 % in August 2025 to 16.4 % in July 2026, with a sharp increase beginning in January: a five-point increase over one year on a compliance indicator.

Ability to adapt to the unexpected

When faced with a last-minute absence or an urgent request, digital tools offer unmatched responsiveness. With just a few clicks, they let you identify potential replacements based on their skills and availability, simulate different organizational scenarios, and immediately notify those involved of the changes.

This agility results in a reduction in unplanned downtime and improved service continuity, both of which are critical to industrial performance.

Centralized information

One of the major advantages of digital solutions is the centralization of data: no more files scattered across HR, production, and quality departments. Up-to-date information is accessible to all authorized users, ensuring consistency and reliability.

This centralization also facilitates interactions between departments, as an electronics manufacturing facility discovered after digitizing its staff scheduling process: «Before, when maintenance scheduled a job, production wasn’t always notified in time. Now, everyone works on the same platform.»

5. Concrete examples of successful transformation

Customer Case Studies and Testimonials

There is no shortage of successful transformations in the industry. Let’s look at a few notable examples:

LVMH Fragrance Brands has completely revamped its staff scheduling process at its Beauvais site. Previously, schedules were managed in Excel using physical maps to assign operators to their workstations. Today, the company uses a system that automates staff assignments based on skills. The results are striking: 25% in time saved on shift scheduling thanks to automation. (Use case LVMH Fragrance Brands x Mercateam)

Groupe SEB eliminated 35 different Excel files used for managing staff schedules by switching to a digital solution. Beyond the obvious simplification, this transformation made it possible to standardize processes across sites and fully digitize five previously manual processes. (Use case Groupe SEB x Mercateam)

Triganoa manufacturer of leisure vehicles, has succeeded in helping its operators become more versatile thanks to digitalization. The site can now clearly visualize available and missing skills, and organize targeted training to develop versatility in critical positions.

These examples show that the digitization of schedules is not merely a change in tools—it profoundly transforms the way we work and unlocks considerable potential for improvement. (Trigano x Mercateam use case)

Quantifiable results

The benefits of these transformations can be measured in concrete terms:

• Time saving Shiseido: Shiseido has seen a saving of 4 hours a week for department managers after digitizing their schedules.
• Increased versatility : Valrhona was able to increase its team versatility rate by 34% by precisely identifying training needs.
• Reduce planning time SEW Usocome has reduced the time spent managing staff schedules by 30%.
• Deleting paper documents Berry Global has eliminated over 450 paper training books by going digital.

These quantifiable gains are often accompanied by equally significant qualitative improvements: a better work environment, reduced stress related to last-minute changes, and greater recognition of employees’ skills.

6. How do you choose the right solution for your needs?

Essential criteria to consider

Several criteria should guide your choice of a staff scheduling solution:

Ease of use : choose an intuitive interface (Discover the Mercateam platform), which is accessible to non-technical users. Managers and team leaders need to be able to quickly get the hang of the tool to reap its full benefits.

Flexibility : Your site has its own unique characteristics (team structure, work schedules, specific skills). The solution must adapt to your processes—not the other way around.

Accessibility : Depending on your needs, evaluate the various access options (desktop computers, monitors, tablets in the workshops, and a mobile app for employees).

Interoperability The solution must be able to communicate with your existing systems (HRIS, ERP, time management tools).

Regulatory compliance : Make sure the tool incorporates the rules specific to your collective bargaining agreement and your company-wide agreement.

One metric can be measured even before the demo: your rate of non-compliant assignments. It indicates how well your scheduling and skills align, and guides decision-making more reliably than a feature matrix.

Questions to ask before choosing

To narrow down your choice, ask yourself these essential questions:

1. What are our main current sticking points when it comes to managing staff schedules?
2. Which departments and users need access to the solution?
3. Do we need detailed management of skills and authorizations?
4. What is our internal capacity to manage the transition to digital?
5. What are our specific constraints (shift work, multi-site teams, etc.)?
6. How do we want employees to interact with the tool?

The answers will naturally point to the solutions best suited to your context.

As an example, check these criteria against your own rules and permissions:

Conclusion

Managing staff schedules remains a daily challenge for any industrial company. Between production demands, specific skill requirements, and unforeseen events, team leaders must juggle numerous constraints—often using tools that are ill-suited to the complexity of their environment.

The digitization of this key process is not merely a change in tools, but a true transformation that affects the organization of work, the recognition of skills, and the quality of life of the teams.

Our data boils this challenge down to one question, asked hundreds of times a week on every site:

So, are you ready to transform your staff scheduling into a real performance driver?