Dear Employers, You Should Not Change Your Employees' Schedules The Week-Of

Depending on the job environment, you may or may not relate to having your schedule consistently change. Full-time jobs don't vary as much as part-time jobs do when it comes to scheduling so people with "9 to 5's" don't see this affect them as often, but at least in my own experience, I've had this happen to me quite often.

Don't get me wrong, I actually don't mind getting more hours as long as I'm asked, but there's something to be said when a day in your schedule is changed two days before it occurs. For example, one day I was expected to come into my job at 1 p.m. (I had double checked the night before), but when I arrived, I saw that my time of arrival was put for 11 a.m. instead.

Upon inquiring with my supervisor about this, she said that my manager needed more coverage and that same day at 9 in the morning, he changed my schedule hoping I would see this change and come in at the new time. Of course they did not blame me for not coming in at the time, but still, what if I had seen it? Should I still have come in at that new hour? No. No, I should not.

Changing someone's schedule like that without so much as asking me or thinking of the inconvenience of doing it is not only disrespectful but unprofessional as well.

Here's my peeve with all this: why create schedules so far in advance if you are not going to follow them? I understand that people call out and circumstances do arrive when schedule changes are needed. In the scenario of simply changing a schedule just because you feel a little bit more coverage is better, doing it a week in advance is already pushing it, but at least the person will still have a week to rearrange possible plans already made.

When you edit an agenda with a day, two days, or even less than a week of time in advance, it can seriously inconvenience people who schedule around what has already been established. Let's look at college students who have class, work, and extracurricular activities — they thrive on knowing what free time is available to book in their friends and free time. Sometimes that additional time isn't even used for free time, but rather to pencil in when to work on other necessary tasks.

If jobs are beginning to eliminate "on-call" days of work, then doing last-minute schedule changes should also be stopped. On call refers to when workers (normally in retail jobs) are not automatically scheduled to work and are not getting paid to work unless the job deems the workday busy and requires that person labeled as on-call on their schedule to come in.

The problem with this is that half of the time, that worker won't be needed and so they spent the entire day inconvenienced, unpaid, staying at home waiting for a call that may or may not come and not being able to schedule any errands or plans for fear of getting called in. This system is slowly being eliminated because it has been deemed as unfair to the workers.

Similarly, I argue that these changes to schedules without a decent amount of time in advance to prepare should also be eliminated and punished if attempted. Workers are not slaves. We are not at the beck and call of our employers simply because they see it that way. We require notice and the respect of being treated as an equal.

It's time employers begin to realize the worth of one's time, because it IS valuable.