Schedules provide work days and hours for employees and give structure to employers and input for budgets. Schedules must ensure adequate work coverage, comply with federal and local laws, be easy to understand, and be equitable. A driving work schedule for weekly drivers can be successfully created and maintained, if you're methodical about it.

Things You Will Need

  • Pen and paper

  • Calculator

  • Federal, state, local, organizational guidelines

Determine the hours and schedule coverage for each shift that drivers are needed. Some businesses only require daytime work on weekdays; other driving schedules, such as those for taxi drivers and ambulance drivers require multiple shifts involving each day of the week. No matter what the situation, determine the total number of hours that drivers need to be on the road for each shift.

Divide the number of hours vehicles need to be on each scheduled shift by the total number of vehicles available. For instance, if the schedule is for pizza delivery drivers and a Monday day shift requires 20 hours of delivery for four available vehicles, each driver will be required to have a five-hour shift.

Comply with federal, local and union rules. Some vehicle drivers, most notably long-haul drivers, have work hours that are limited by the United States Department of Transportation. Other drivers have schedule limits imposed by local or union rules. Managers must also comply with the relevant guidelines for the minimum amount of pay and possible overtime pay. Lunch breaks and work breaks must also be considered.

Develop a weekly shell schedule. The shell schedule should show start and stop times for each vehicle driven on each shift and any other information important to a driver, such as lunch or break times or specific routing. The schedule is called a shell schedule because it is the schedule complete with everything except the driver.

Determine driver availability and fill the shell schedule. Some organizations will have full-time drivers who are available for any shift. Other organizations will have a mixture of part-time and full-time drivers only available for certain shifts.Vacations and sick time also must be considered when determining employee availability. Assign drivers to the shell schedule depending on availability for the shift.

Post the schedule according to organizational guidelines. Some schedules are posted weekly, with the drivers having several days' notice of a new schedule. Other organizations have stricter guidelines, and schedules are posted for drivers well in advance of the schedule, giving them longer notice of new schedules.

Tip

All organizations need the ability to call drivers in to cover a daily schedule that is not met by a driver who is ill or injured.

Warning

Managers scheduling vehicle drivers must take into consideration driver fatigue when building a schedule. Managers have been held partially responsible for traffic accidents caused by drivers who were scheduled to drive extraordinarily long hours.