The Benefits of Using Shift Planning Software

Introduction

In the past, managers spent a lot of time and energy on building employee schedules. Shift planning software not only saves your business time but also decreases human error when creating work schedules.

Why Shift Planning Software is Important

Shift planning software simplifies a wide range of functions ranging from employee scheduling to time tracking in order to keep your business well-staffed and as productive as possible.

Only a couple of decades ago, employers only had the option to use pen and paper to schedule employee shifts and track employee hours.

Shift planning without technological assistance is a time-consuming process that can be very unpleasant to execute. The technology that shift planning software offers saves businesses a lot of time and money as well as decreases human error.

Employee scheduling software can decrease the workload for your human resources department and managers on staff. Managers can spend more time on important tasks when their time is freed up from drafting, distributing, and revising schedules.

Additionally, when your human resources department spends less time on workforce management they can focus on other areas ranging from customer service to team communication improvements.

Various valuable functions of shift planning software include-

• Instant notifications of open shifts
• Employee time requests
• Time tracking software
• An easy use time clock
• Organized shift scheduling
• Cloud based mobile app compatibility
• Labor cost and overtime consideration
• Employee schedule accessibility
• Team communication platform

The Benefits of Shift Planning Software

Shift planning software has a wide variety of benefits, including-

1. Consistency- Being understaffed can severely affect employee morale and customer support capabilities. Planning software can learn from your business's patterns and create a work schedule that incorporates customer traffic with employee availability.

Consistency is key to offering a great customer service experience. The number of customer success stories your business will have increases when your storefront is always well staffed and readily available to help.

Employees thrive off consistency and knowing their set schedules as early as possible. Scheduling software can increase employee retention as employees who do not feel that their time requests are being considered are much less likely to stay at a business long term.

2. Communication- Team communication is also strengthened through planning software that allows employees to swap shifts in real time and cover for one another when an open shift is available.

Mobile app compatibility allows your employees to contact one another from virtually anywhere with internet access instead of only having access to important scheduling information while they are physically at your storefront location.

A cloud based platform provides a reliable and central communication channel for all employees. This lessens the need for your employees to be responsible for gathering each other's contact information or bothering each other on a free day or in the hours surrounding a shift.

3. Decreased error- Shift scheduling can be tedious when factoring in various employee time requests and attempting to fill open shifts last minute. Planning software tackles this issue by codifying time requests so that everyone's shift is at the right time and easily referenceable.

A scheduling app factors in the human factor of employee scheduling and makes considerations for last-minute call-outs or employee shortages. This decreases the amount of guesswork that your human resources department and managers must perform to find a balance between understaffing and overstaffing.

The software considers labor costs and overtime, providing the right time on the clock for each employee to avoid your business incurring unnecessary expenses. A time clockmobile app can further decrease human error and the need to track time manually.

Employees who forget to clock in or out of the time clock app can even verify their work attendance through the software's time tracking capabilities.

4. Time-saving- Shift planning software saves massive amounts of time and energy for a business. When your human resources department and managers no longer need to balance schedules last minute and deal with disgruntled employees who do not feel their time is being respected, they can spend more time on improving your employee and customer experience.

A particularly time-consuming part of manually scheduling time is factoring in unforeseen circumstances like employee terminations or departmental restructuring.

Instead of spending hours redoing a schedule and alerting all employees of changes, planning software can make instant updates that reflect changes in real time to your staff.

If your business is hesitant about investing in a particular shift planning software, you can try free demo programs. If a software program that you are interested in does not have a demo listed on their website, call their help center to request a demo from them personally.

Remember, you want to invest in a software company that values customer service as much as your company does. Make sure that the company provides real time support and ask them to share customer success stories with you about their software. Although finding the right shift planning software takes some time, it is well worth the time your business will save in the long run.