5 Methods That Innovative Companies Use Employee Scheduling Software
An employee scheduling software is a solution that assists managers in overseeing the work hours of their labour force.
It has various features that allow the automated creation of schedules as well as notifications for schedule changes. The more powerful ones even include time in/time out capabilities and payroll integration.
Innovative companies throughout the globe use these tools not just to make sure there are people to cover every business hour but also to reap other benefits.
What could these benefits be?
Among those is timely project completion, better employee time management, reduced absences, and more.
Excited to learn more about those advantages? You can read about them below.
- Task assignment and tracking
Did you know that 70% of organizations have at least one project fail in the past 12 months?
Hive also shares in an article that for every $1 billion of investment, $122 million of that goes to waste.
This is due to lacklustre project management, which involves task assignment and progress tracking.
While task management software or a Gantt chart are the usual solutions for such a problem, an employee scheduling app can actually help.
How so?
When the manager has such an app within their reach, they can see who is available at a certain period.
This lets them assign tasks to the right people when they are present in the workplace. This way, when an employee is working on a task, it gets done properly and more efficiently.
And in case there is a need to follow up on the progress of tasks, team leaders can call for meetings that are within everyone’s schedule.
2. Time management
According to statistics cited by Dovico, employees spend time at work 8.5 hours on weekdays and 5.4 hours on weekends on average.
Not all hours are spent on productive things though, as they are inundated with distractions, with email and instant messages being chief among them. Around 2 hours per day are lost.
An employee scheduling tool may be used primarily to decide who works on which shift but it does have its uses when it comes to helping the workforce manage their time at work.
Managers can divide the day and assign employees to work on certain tasks during particular hours. They can even use the solution together with a goal tracker to encourage everyone in their time to work toward those objectives. As such, they can lessen time wastage and boost their productivity.
3. Harmonious work
By harmonious work, we mean that when people with skills that complement each other work together, they can achieve more. This is something that an employee schedule maker can help you create.
You can list down the skills and qualities of each member of your staff and take a look at them before you assign them to shifts with other workers.
For example, if you are running a restaurant and you need workers who can work well under the pressure of peak periods. You would need employees who have demonstrated good performance in the past during those times. With your scheduling software open, you can begin creating the best team possible to assist you in catering to your customers efficiently and effectively.
And if you are happy with the setup, you can repeat it for future weeks or months. You would not have to do it again by hand as well since you can rely on an automated employee scheduling software to help you configure the next schedules.
4. Collaborative scheduling
A manager spends over 3 hours each week building an employee schedule, according to Connecteam.
If they are in a rush, or processing this manually using spreadsheets, it is likely they will make scheduling errors.
Those blunders could be costly for a team or a company as a whole, which could result in the halting of business until issues are ironed out.
Such a scenario is avoidable, though. With the right work schedule app for employers, business owners, managers, and employees can collaborate on employee scheduling. This means that workers can choose the times favourable to them to prevent absences due to conflicts with personal businesses.
5. Remote schedule access
The Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index shows that in the U.S, 77% of workers have chronic illnesses that lead them to be absent often.
To businesses, this translates to an $84-billion loss in productivity.
Investopedia also shares that unscheduled absences can cost up to $3,600 per year for wage earners while the amount is up to $2,650 annually for salary workers.
This is one of the things that make an employee scheduling solution essential.
For one, it allows employees to access their schedules remotely. And since they are also able to see the schedules of their workers, they can arrange for other people to cover for a shift or two.
More than that, this visibility of the calendar helps managers field calls regarding schedule updates. This also promotes accountability and ensures that employees cannot say again that they were unable to show up for work because they were unaware of the schedule.
Time is gold
It is no secret that time is of the essence, especially when it comes to business.
As we mentioned above, improper handling of time and shift scheduling can result in great ramifications financially.
To avoid those pitfalls and solve common HR problems, a manager or a small business owner has to create schedules that work for everybody and which can maximize their capabilities.
