Management and HR staff can dedicate up to eight hours a week or more crafting schedules for the following week – especially with complex shifts or a large workforce. When scheduling conflicts arise, quality of work can be significantly impacted, and an even larger number of hours may be wasted working out the kinks.
By implementing scheduling software, you can help prevent these kinds of issues and reap the benefits that come with an advanced scheduling solution.
Every type of scheduling solution provides different benefits. This article will outline the benefits that may be obtained by investing in various kinds of software. When selecting a scheduling solution, it is crucial to make sure that the software meets your business needs. Ensure that your requirements are clear to your chosen vendor so that they can help you enjoy scheduling benefits immediately after implementation.
Should You Use Software For Employee Scheduling?
If your business operates on a regular 9 to 5 schedule and is closed on the weekend, you might not benefit from using scheduling software. However, if your company operates all week, contains multiple departments, and has varying complex shifts, a scheduling solution may help.
Using a scheduling tool can be of benefit to businesses in industries such as medical, food service, or hospitality where shifts vary widely.
Collaborative Scheduling
Collaborative scheduling allows employees to set their availability and manage any shift trades. This feature will enable managers and HR staff to ensure that all shifts are covered and approve employee requests. By sharing scheduling responsibilities, management can refocus on more critical business tasks.
Reduce Availability Conflicts
Allowing employees to set their availability and collaborate on schedule creation can significantly reduce scheduling conflicts. Errors with time off requests can be minimized, and employee satisfaction will soar as employees can make a work schedule that meets their needs. By allowing employees to work a shift they prefer, your business will see gains in productivity and employee happiness.
Save On Labor Costs
Many scheduling solutions allow schedules to be carried over from previous weeks, then using a drop-and-drop method for efficient schedule creation. Employee’s names can be dragged onto a shift with just a few clicks of the mouse. Shifts can easily be moved from one day to the next, which will make scheduling as fast and easy as possible. In turn, this will lead to reduced labor hours and costs.
Labor-Management Tools
Labor is perhaps the number one expense for most businesses, so it’s crucial to manage labor in the most efficient way possible. Some scheduling solutions can sync with other productivity applications, which allows you to manage your labor as you schedule. This can help you optimize scheduling and ensure that your company is making the best use of every labor dollar.
Staffing Information
Some scheduling solutions collaborate with other HR and business solutions to provide sophisticated insight into staffing needs. This can help decrease the number of issues that can arise due to understaffing. This can also help your business prevent unnecessary overtime or shifts.
Scheduling software can also let you know when your business is meeting its labor goals or provide details about how close you are to achieving those goals.
Scheduling Templates
Employee scheduling software generally provide templates that make it easy to copy over a schedule from a previous week or month. This can save a significant amount of time. Templates can also help you utilize feedback from past scheduling issues to improve future scheduled shifts.
Quickly Communicate Schedules
It’s no exaggeration to say that employees base their lives around their work schedules. Having scheduling information weeks in advance can quickly and significantly increase employee happiness.
However, having to communicate schedules to each employee as they move through varying shifts can be disruptive and challenging. Quickly communicating schedules through a scheduling solution can help reduce headaches and scheduling issues.
Increase Employee Happiness
In addition to increasing employee happiness due to the ease of checking schedules online, a scheduling solution may also help to increase employee happiness in other ways. Depending on the features offered, employees may be able to submit feedback regarding their scheduling preferences.
Knowing which employees prefer to work weeks, the late shifts, or the early morning shifts and which would be happy to pick up additional shifts makes scheduling more manageable and your employees happier.
An employee scheduling solution can be beneficial in many different ways, but not every solution comes equipped with every requirement you’ll need. Take advantage of free trials so you can test and ensure it will meet the needs of your business and provide a more efficient scheduling process for employees.
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