Setting shifts, managing leave and tracking attendance can be very labor intensive and headache inducing. With changes occurring on short notice, both employees and managers can be caught off guard. How can you prevent a personal emergency or sudden turnover from creating shortages in the working staff?
Some companies still use an old excel sheet. Posted weeks in advance, these lack true flexibility and accessibility. Modern, digital solutions can mitigate these flaws.
In areas where short-term staff shortages can create severe business disruptions, a scheduling app can help connect with employees to fill the gap faster. However, with app overload in today’s workplace, use your existing employee app to bear the burden.
Scheduling features can be a great addition to your employee app.
Usability and Flexibility
Manually curating a series of coordinated workshifts can be tricky. On the other hand, dedicated software is usually easy to use and understand. Additionally, they allow employees to set their own availability from anywhere. This includes both short term and long term.
Giving employees access to view and set their availability whenever and wherever gives managers an easy and convenient framework. Workers are able to set their availability upon learning of a personal commitment. It becomes easier to avoid short notice complications.
Different employees may prefer different shifts. Some may want to start their day early in the morning. Others may need a little longer to get into their groove or have family commitments to take care of, like driving their kids to school. Whatever the case may be, an interactive scheduling app allows everyone to set their own preferences. This leads to less stress and increased productivity. It also drives better employee engagement.
Maintain Staffing Levels
Manning variance is a big problem in many industries. Sometimes, it’s hard to see who works what shift. This leads to problems with the amount of people showing up for work.
A scheduling app also makes it easy to anticipate potential over and understaffing. This also allows managers to avoid overworking staff. Overworked employees are more likely to make mistakes and experience costly injuries. Providing enough rest between shifts once again not only improves the quality of their work but also their happiness.
Leverage Internal Communication
As wonderfully convenient as scheduling apps may sound with their flexible UI and communication channels, they also have one significant downside. Separate apps are usually not integrated and simply present another tool in your internal communications toolbox. As such, they create a disconnect between the employee and the company.
Shift setting should be integrated with your company’s internal communication platform. Thankfully, there is a solution that enables you to do just that.
The best employee communication app can also also be used as a scheduling tool. Push notifications can remind staff to set their availability and when they have updates to the schedule. Instant messaging facilitates communication between managers and employees. Finally, a total rewards strategy draws a clear line from compensation to shifts worked.
