Shift Notes: A Tool for Effective Team Communication

When it comes to changing shifts and keeping operations smooth, shift notes are often the unsung heroes for a small business team. They capture all the critical information between shifts, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks, enabling hourly teams to work seamlessly even as employees clock in and out.

Shift notes ensure that the next team can hit the ground running  by documenting updates, issues, and essential details. So how do you use shift notes effectively? Let’s dive in.

What is a shift note?

A shift note is a written record used in businesses, especially in industries with multiple shifts (like healthcare, hospitality, or manufacturing), to communicate important information from one shift to the next. Managing shifts requires ensuring smooth transition from one shift to another. 

That’s why shift notes are typically used by employees at the end of their shift to pass along details to the incoming shift workers. These notes help ensure continuity of operations and smooth transitions, especially when the employees don't overlap. Sometimes shift notes are also known as team notes or shift reports. 

How are shift notes used?

You might be quite familiar with shift notes at the end of a shift, or even seen an end of shift note example online. It’s true that typically an outgoing worker, especially a shift lead or shift manager, writes the initial shift note covering notable information about their shift. This can be especially important if your business runs nearly 24 hrs or has a third shift, which might require night shift progress notes at a time that few employees are present,

But who reads the shift note? For one thing, the incoming shift lead or shift manager for the next shift should review it as soon as they start their shift in order to stay up-to-date on everything that happened previously. However, they may also make real-time updates to the shift note, especially if your business uses a digital shift note system. 

As a business owner or manager, you may also review past shift notes even days later to help understand and oversee operations. Shift notes help monitor team performance, identify recurring problems, and ensure work is progressing smoothly, and they can also serve as a record for performance evaluations.

Shift notes can take the form of digital notes or handwritten notes. Digital shift notes are the modern way to keep everyone on the same page. They live in platforms like Homebase, where you can update them in real-time and access them from anywhere. This can be a real advantage over handwritten shift notes, since paper notes can easily be lost or damaged, hard to update, or suffer from illegible handwriting. 

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What should a shift note include? 

What a shift note includes depends on the industry, but some important points you should make sure get covered are:

• Employee information: This should include administrative information, such as the employee writing the note, what date and shift it covers including start and end times, and the work location if relevant. This can also ensure FLSA standards are followed for time worked and compensation. 
• Tasks completed: A brief summary of everything that was done on shift so that progress of work done is tracked. 
• Pending tasks: Some things don’t get done in a shift, but if a task still needs to be completed, it’s helpful for the next shift to know what it is and why. 
• Issues encountered on shift: Notable incidents, especially any safety incidents that might compromise OSHA requirements or other important information should certainly be noted in a shift note. 
• Customer feedback: Though there should be a dedicated system for customer feedback separate from shift notes, feedback that day could be relevant for the shifts immediately following. 
• Action items and future notes: If specific action items can be identified, putting that information in an outgoing note can help the incoming shift have a jump-start. And if any special instructions such as highlighting a special order or reservation can be foreseen, they can also be included here. 

How to write shift notes.

As a business owner or manager, you can take steps to make sure your team is using shift notes effectively. Make sure you know the objectives of your shift notes, such as whether you want to make sure customer feedback is documented, or that all employees be aware of inventory levels. Then, train your team on your notes system and review it regularly for efficacy and areas of improvement. 

Ultimately, writing shift notes shouldn't be a chore, but they need to be done right to be effective. You can look for online shift notes and shift notes examples online, but here are some general tips for your team.

• Focus on relevant details. A shift note should be succinct and relevant so that it doesn’t take too long to write or read, and important details are communicated. Make sure your team knows what is important to include and what can be left out. 
• Maintain a professional tone. As in any workplace, employee communication should be professional. A shift note should be objective and clear. 
• Use consistent formatting. This is where a shift notes template can really shine. By having a standardized template, your team can easily follow and fill in the relevant areas, such as “inventory” or “customer feedback”. 
• Follow a review and approval process. It’s important that the information communicated by a shift note is accurate, and even the most well-intentioned employees might miss a detail or make a mistake. That’s why a manager’s review or approval should be part of the process to get a second set of eyes and ensure accountability. 
• Distribute notes promptly. A shift note needs to be read to be useful. Make sure everyone who needs to see the notes gets access to them as soon as possible, and ideally, use a system that is quick and easy, such as notifying your team on a team communication app. 

Implement shift notes with ease using Homebase.

In the long run, shift notes are a small investment that pays off big time in efficiency, communication, and overall business success. Team management apps like Homebase have built-in team communication and other features that are specially designed for small businesses, including dedicated space for shift notes.

Now, when you’re building your work schedule, you can add some extra instructions to your team. Whatever you need to let them know, you can be sure they received the message with their schedule by email, text, and the Homebase mobile app. That way, you can have faith that your shifts and operations are running smoothly with strong communication, and focus your energy on growing your business. Sign up now to make work easier for you and your team.