Nick Hanauer: Schedule workers as you would have them schedule you

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/schedule-workers-as-you-would-have-them-schedule-you/

IMAGINE you own a small restaurant and you just hired a new server. She’s looking forward to starting, she insists, though she won’t tell you exactly when. But don’t worry, she says, she’ll call you every Sunday to give you her schedule for the coming week and will try to stick to that as much as possible.

Meanwhile, your bartender calls in to tell you that due to a drop in business on Tuesdays his service will no longer be needed those nights, while one of your cooks unexpectedly shows up a few hours early demanding an unscheduled double shift.

Now imagine all of your employees demanding this sort of “flexibility” — coming and going as fits their schedules, not yours, while providing little, if any, notice in advance.

You couldn’t possibly run a business like that! Yet this is exactly what many businesses currently expect of their workers.

Existing scheduling laws are frankly appalling. Employers aren’t required to give any notice for changes in schedules, which make it impossible for employees to plan the details of their daily life — whether it’s child care, a dentist appointment or something as basic as the family dinner. Even worse, employees who can’t reliably count on regular hours can’t reliably plan a monthly budget.