Recommended Actions

To spark ideas about how your agency could promote stable and fair scheduling, get to know what’s happening around the country. Check out leading practices.

Understand specific steps businesses can take to create more stable and predictive schedules. For tips on everything from questions employers should ask when designing their scheduling approach to when and how to engage employees on their needs, see Pacific Community Ventures’ Scheduling: How to Get Started guide.

Learn about the scheduling laws or ordinances that impact workers and businesses in your jurisdiction, if any. The State and City Scheduling Laws Fact Sheet from BetterBalance.org provides a helpful overview.

Determine the number of jobs in your community that are in sectors with endemic schedule instability. 

Sectors with scheduling challenges typically include service and hospitality, though there may be others within your local area to consider.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics as well as subscription-based tools such as Lightcast offer a wealth of labor market information (LMI) data at both the state and local levels. Dig into trends by gender, race and other demographic indicators by reviewing your Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program data to understand how diverse populations are affected.

If you need more research capacity, you may also want to consider partnering with your local university to conduct a study on the service sector leveraging rapid response/layoff aversion funds. 

Elevate the voice of local workers through focus groups and/or surveys about the impact of schedule instability. Identify two to three jobseekers/workers willing to speak publicly about the impact of schedule instability on their lives. Use this worker input both to support policy advocacy for scheduling and to design your own sector strategies and work-based learning opportunities. For an example of how to elevate workers' voices, see this study on the health outcomes of stable scheduling experiments.

Engage businesses about their current practices and perspectives related to stable and fair scheduling. Identify two to three business leaders willing to speak positively about the impact stable scheduling has had on their business. 

For an example of how to elevate business leaders’ voices, see this study.

Create a theory of change detailing the specific problem to be addressed, as well as the initiative’s activities, desired outputs and outcomes (short-, medium- and long-term).

Incorporate this theory into your agency’s service sector strategy. 

Program logic models can be helpful for developing a theory of change. This guide takes you step by step through the process.

Building on the actions above, create a local issue brief or position paper outlining the challenge and what steps can be taken to decrease schedule instability in your jurisdiction. 

For an example, see “The Need for Stable Scheduling in San Diego’s Service Sectors” by the San Diego Workforce Partnership.

Workforce and economic development agencies can increase the number of workers in their jurisdictions with stable, fair schedules in a variety of ways, including:

• Internal Schedules
• Procurement Incentives
• Program Delivery
• Employer Practices & Supports
• Community Advocacy
• Understanding the universe of possibilities

Internal Schedules

Starting internally demonstrates your agency’s commitment to job quality. It allows you to lead by example. Here are some specific actions you can take:

Ensure that your agency’s employees (including interns) are given stable, fair and predictable schedules. Update policies to explicitly state the time frame for making schedules available and the agency’s approach to on-call shifts and overtime. As you develop policy updates, you can ensure that workers’ needs are represented through focus groups, interviews and even employee surveys. These ordinances from the Seattle, Washington, and Oregon are great examples of how other locations tackled scheduling. 

Here are potential key performance indicators to get you started:

• Number of employees with stable and fair schedules as a result of agency activities (as defined above)
• Increase in employee satisfaction
• Number of respondents/vendors/subrecipients the agency has educated about stable scheduling impacts and solutions for workers and businesses

If you need more evidence around why scheduling matters for your agency, check out this report on Seattle’s Secure Scheduling Ordinance. The ordinance improved health and economic security by reducing work schedule uncertainty. Enacted in 2017, it mandated greater schedule predictability, providing an opportunity to examine the causal relationship between work scheduling and worker health and economic security. The 2021 study (PDF here) draws on pre- and post-intervention survey data from workers in Seattle and comparison cities to estimate the ordinance’s impacts. It had positive impacts on workers’ schedule predictability and stability leading to increases in workers’ subjective well-being, sleep quality, and economic security. 

Procurement Incentives

Funding is a powerful way to drive behavior. Your subsidized programs provide an excellent place to prove the value of stable scheduling policies and procedures. Here’s how to get started. 

Include stable scheduling requirements or incentives for subsidized wage programs, including Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) On-the-Job Training Contracts (OJTs), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) subsidized wage and work experience programs, and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)-funded programs that provide wage and on-the-job-training subsidies. 

Provide educational materials to grantees (or potential grantees) such as this sample San Diego Workforce Partnership Research Brief and Policy Position paper to help them understand why stable schedules matter to your community. These ordinances from the City of Seattle and the State of Oregon are great examples of how other locations tackled scheduling. 

Here are potential key performance indicators:

• Percent of jobseeker placements in jobs with stable/fair scheduling practices
• Number of employers supported to create stable and fair scheduling practices beyond legal requirements
• Number of jobseekers educated about the negative health, wellness, and economic impacts of schedule instability 
• Number of workers with stable and fair schedules as a result of agency activities
• Percent of OJT (or related program) funds allocated to employers with stable schedules

If you need more information about why stable scheduling matters for your participants, check out this piece on Job Quality and Economic Opportunity in Retail. This 2017 report highlights findings from a national survey of retail workers. The survey assessed challenges faced by the frontline retail workforce for achieving economic security and advancement in the sector. When asked what is required to get a retail job with higher pay and more responsibility, 51% of respondents said open availability and the ability to work a variable schedule were necessary to advance. 

Program Delivery

Build stable scheduling into the way your organization operates by empowering both job center staff and participants. Here are specific actions you can take. 

Incorporate stable and fair scheduling considerations as an element in the WIOA Title I American Job Center jobseeker service delivery infrastructure. 

Ensure questions about schedule stability needs and considerations are included in intake, assessment, and the development of the Individualized Employment Plan (IEP) for WIOA intensive services. 

Invest in case manager training to support advocacy for stable schedules and educate jobseekers on the negative impact of schedule instability on key quality of life outcomes. Include a job readiness workshop curriculum for universal service customers to equip jobseekers to consider and advocate for stable schedules in their job searches. This piece, San Diego Workforce Partnership Research Brief and Policy Position, provides an example of the kind of advocacy a workforce board can do. 

Here are potential key performance indicators:

• Number of staff training in stable scheduling benefits
• Number of jobseekers coached/trained on the negative health, wellness, and economic impact of schedule instability 
• Percent of jobseeker placements in jobs with stable/fair scheduling practices (look at pre- and post-training metrics to identify any shifts)

Employer Practices & Supports

Employers are key to stable and fair schedules, but many need help evolving. Your agency can develop a set of stable scheduling services to help employers test new ways of operating  This expertise would fit best within a business services unit focused on a retail/service sector strategy. Examples of these teams are WIOA business services representatives and SBA-funded Small Business Development Centers. 

These services can support a range of beneficial outcomes:

• employer awareness of the benefits of stable scheduling
• technical assistance
• mini-grants for organizations seeking to pilot stable scheduling
• subsidized technology solutions
• other support to help businesses design and implement stable scheduling practices that go beyond legal requirements 

Your employer partners may find examples from other jurisdictions helpful as they think about stable scheduling. Check out these ordinances from the City of Seattle and the State of Oregon and this fact sheet.

Here are potential key performance indicators for your work with employers:

• Number of new employers supported to create stable and fair scheduling practices beyond what is required by law 
• Number of workers with stable and fair schedules as a result of agency activities
• Number of stakeholders/partners reached and educated on stable scheduling impacts and solutions for workers and businesses

If you need some evidence of why scheduling matters for your employer outreach, check out Scheduling Stability: The Landscape of Work Schedules and Potential Gains From Fairer Workweeks in Illinois and Chicago. This study from 2018 surveyed workers throughout the state of Illinois, including full-time, part-time, and contractor/temp workers. It found that over 40% of hourly workers have at least occasional on-call work and over one-third of all workers have less than one week’s advance notice of their schedule. In response to these findings, a list of public policy recommendations are offered to address erratic work schedules and prevent problems stemming from them.

If you want to go deeper, you can also refer to the The Stable Scheduling Study. The researchers behind this 2018 study worked with 28 Gap Inc. stores to make scheduling practices more stable and predictable. It found that labor productivity, sales, profitability, and employee morale all increased after different practices were implemented.

Community Advocacy

Advocacy can be a powerful tool for advancing scheduling policy changes in your area. Here’s what it can look like.

Serve in a convening role or support an existing effort to gather allies to discuss challenges and potential solutions to schedule instability. Local workers, business champions, philanthropies, organized labor, and policymakers can be involved. Workforce and economic development agencies can contribute to discussions by elevating the voices of local workers and businesses, presenting labor market research, and conducting worker surveys to track trends. 

Here are potential key performance indicators to capture your advocacy work:

• Number of stakeholders/partners reached and educated on stable scheduling impact and solutions
• Change in behavior of partners over time (e.g. inclusion of scheduling in policy proposals, strategies, programs)

If you need materials to energize your advocacy efforts, check out the below:

• Fair Workweek initiative: This highlights diverse voices driving momentum to restore a workweek that enables working families to thrive.
• Schedule Stability: A Win for Retail Businesses and Their Workers: This piece from the Aspen Institute offers straightforward talking points about what stable scheduling means and how it helps businesses and workers.
• Still Unstable: The Persistence of Schedule Uncertainty During the Pandemic: Scheduling practices in the service sector have not improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite low unemployment rates and firms’ stated commitments to improve conditions for frontline workers. Drawing on data from about 110,000 workers who completed surveys between Spring 2017 and Fall 2021, this study found little evidence of change. Unstable and unpredictable work schedules continue to be the norm for service-sector workers – especially for people of color and women in particular.

Secure necessary executive sponsorship, staff and budget resources and technical assistance support (if needed) to develop and execute a stable scheduling initiative work plan.

The activities described above are well aligned to allowable activities of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Title I adult, dislocated worker and youth programs. Schedule instability disproportionately impacts low-wage and unemployed workers eligible for WIOA. Other funding such as that provided by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, community development block grants, SNAP employment and training, and the Economic Development Administration can also advance one or more of the above activities.