How to schedule crews across several jobs without double-booking
One schedule read two ways, next week booked on Friday, and the short weeks seen while there’s still time to fix them.
With one job running, scheduling is easy: everyone goes to the same place. With four running at once, it gets hard fast.
A carpenter is promised to two jobs on the same Tuesday. A crew waits half a day for an inspector. And a short week in December arrives with no plan for it.
Good scheduling comes down to a few habits: one schedule, a set time to book the week, and a look further ahead than next Monday.
Keep one schedule, and read it two ways
Most scheduling messes start with two schedules: a whiteboard in the shop and another in the owner’s head, or a spreadsheet and a group chat. Pick one and make it the only one.
Then read it two ways, because each answers a different question:
- By job: who is on Birchwood next week? Read this way, a job with nobody on it stands out.
- By person: where is each carpenter on Thursday? Read this way, one person on two jobs at once, or a day with no work, stands out.
Book people from the person view. A double-booking is easy to spot along one person’s week and easy to miss anywhere else.
Book next week on Friday
Pick a set time to book the coming week and keep to it. Friday morning works for most companies: there’s still time to fix a gap before everyone leaves.
- Start with what can’t move. Inspections, deliveries, crane days and anything the client or another trade has booked. Put people around those.
- Put a lead on every site. Each job running next week gets the person who knows it best.
- Fill in the crews. Match the person to the work: your finish carpenter on trim, not on footings.
- Check along each person’s week. Nobody on two jobs at once, and no empty day you didn’t mean to leave.
- Send it. Everyone knows Monday’s job before they leave on Friday.
Leave a little slack. A week booked to the last person is a week that one sick day can break.
Plan around lead times and inspections
What a crew can do next week depends on things you don’t control: materials, inspections and the client’s decisions. Put each of them on the schedule too.
- Materials. Windows, cabinets and custom steel can take weeks. Book the install for when they’re on site, not for the day they were promised.
- Inspections. Learn how much notice your building department needs, and book as soon as you know when the work will be ready. Line up other work for the wait.
- Client decisions. A vanity nobody has picked holds up the plumber’s rough-in. Put the date you need each decision by on the schedule, and remind the client a week before.
When a delivery or an inspection moves, move the work that depends on it that day, not on the morning the crew shows up.
Put your subs on the schedule
Subcontractors aren’t your crew, but they take up room on site. Put each one on the schedule by name, on the days they’re coming.
That keeps your crew out of the room the electrician needs that day, and it shows the days a job needs fewer of your own people.
Confirm their dates in writing a week ahead, and again two days before. A sub who’s been booked on someone else’s job that week costs you a day on yours.
Count them apart from your crew. Your numbers are the people you have to find work for each day. A sub’s crew is theirs to staff.
Tell every person where to be
A schedule only works if each person knows their part. Every day, everyone should know the job, the start time and who they’re working with.
Add a note when it matters: bring the lift, park on the street, the client’s dog is out in the yard.
Send it the same way every time, so nobody has to ask. When the plan changes after Friday, tell the people it changes for, directly, that day.
Then make sure the hours land on the right job. Time clocked to the wrong job throws off your job costing on both of them.
Look three months ahead
Next week is too late to find out you’re short. Once a month, look about three months out: what each job will need, week by week, against the people you’ll have.
Count each week by its busiest day, not its average. If Monday needs 21 people and Friday needs 12, the week needs 21. Then count your own people that week, less anyone who’ll be away.
| Hillcrest, drywall | 7 |
|---|---|
| Cedar Hollow, framing | 8 |
| Main Street, millwork | 6 |
| Needed on the busiest day | 21 |
| Your crew of 20, less 4 off for the holidays | 16 |
| Short | 5 |
Found in October, five short is a sub or temps booked early, or a start moved to January. Found the Friday before, it can mean a job that stops for the week.
A short week has three usual fixes: bring in people (a sub, a temp or overtime), move a start that can move, or run a job longer with fewer people. Choose while all three are still open.
Check the rules on hours
Rules on hours of work and overtime differ by province and state, and some trades and agreements have their own. Check what applies before you plan a short week around overtime.
When the schedule slips
It will: rain, a late delivery, a failed inspection. What matters is how fast the people it touches find out.
- See what moves with it. The trades that follow, the deliveries, the next inspection and the finish date.
- Move the people the same day. Send the crew to other work, so a lost day on one job isn’t a lost day of wages.
- Tell everyone it touches: the crew, the subs, the supplier and the client.
- Write down why. A line in the daily log saying what held the job up is the record you’ll want if the finish date is ever argued about.
Keep a short list of work that can fill a day anywhere: punch-list items, cleanup, prep for the next phase. Then a rained-out day still has somewhere to go.
Check your contract
Many contracts say you must give written notice of a delay, within a set time, to get more time or money for it. Find that clause before you need it.
How CrewLog does it
CrewLog’s Schedule is a desk calendar: Month, Week and Day, with the week by day or by person.
By person, it’s a board: people down the side, days across. Drag a job onto someone’s day to book them, and a block to move it. Jobs on site that week with nobody booked are listed first.
Each person sees their own week: where they’re working, who’s with them and any note you leave. When they clock in, the job you booked them on is already picked.
The crew forecast looks twelve weeks ahead, counting what your jobs need on each week’s busiest day against the people you have, which you can change for holidays, hires or subs.
The forecast · , Week of Dec 14
The forecast names the short weeks and offers fixes. A job’s phases can carry their own crews, and a phase you mark as a subcontractor’s is named but never counted as your people.
The Schedule, the crew forecast and the time clock are on Crew at $89 a month and Pro at $179. Phases and subs on the forecast are on Pro at $179 a month. Compare the plans.
More on the Schedule and the time clock on the features page.