Running a business often entails juggling a lot of different people’s interests at once—your customers, investors, employees, and, of course, your own. As important as it is to think “big picture,” you also have to think about what’s best for the everyday lives of the people who work for you. And yet, this can be difficult to remember when you’re scrambling to fill a shift at the last minute or struggling to make a schedule when you’re short on staff members.
Are you looking for an easy way to make your scheduling practices as fair and efficient as possible? Luckily, technology has got your back. Scheduling software is quickly emerging as one of the best ways to create and manage employee schedules in modern business, making the scheduling process more convenient for employers and employees alike.
A Closer Look at Scheduling Abuse
Scheduling abuse occurs when an employer—whether intentionally or not—engages in unfair or inconsiderate scheduling practices that make employees’ work lives more stressful and difficult. This can include:
- On-call scheduling that is not disclosed to employees upfront as being part of the job
- Releasing schedules at the last minute
- Canceling shifts without enough notice
- Requiring employees to stay late without asking them ahead of time
- Trying to coerce employees into taking on more shifts or making them feel bad for requesting time off
While scheduling abuse can happen in any type of business, it’s notoriously prominent in the retail and customer service industries. Image courtesy of Pexels.
Companies that are guilty of scheduling abuse are more likely to have higher turnover rates, not to mention less enthusiastic employees. This isn’t just bad for workplace morale—it’s also bad for business and can cost you a lot of money.
How Scheduling Software Can Help
Scheduling software is a smart investment for a number of reasons, which is why it’s becoming the norm at companies with hourly employees. One of its top selling points? The fact that it can benefit both employers and employees.
What Is Scheduling Software?
Before we delve into the specifics of scheduling software, here’s a short introduction for those of you wondering what, exactly, scheduling software is. In simplest terms, scheduling software is an online tool that helps you to build, publish, and edit schedules on the web. Because most providers use cloud technology, you and your employees will be able to access your schedules from any Internet-connected device.
More good news—by using the cloud, scheduling software doesn’t require you to buy and install any additional equipment. Image courtesy of Pexels.
Streamlining Scheduling
Scheduling software does a lot more than just digitalizing the process of making your weekly schedules. In fact, it makes scheduling as a whole much more intuitive, organized, and less time-consuming. With features like copy and paste, drag-and-drop functionality, and color coding, not only will your schedules be easier to make, but they’ll also be easier to read.
Integration with other online tools is another huge benefit of scheduling software. You can coordinate employee schedules into payroll, tracking time, billing clients, and more. This will help your business run more smoothly and make other administrative tasks less of a headache.
Employee-Friendly Scheduling
Cloud technology will make your schedules more accessible than ever—employees will be able to view the schedule on their own devices, and you can even use your scheduling platform to send out notifications when a new schedule has been published or an existing one has been changed.
Make sure to look for a service provider that has a mobile app! Your employees will love being able to check the schedule from their smartphone with the tap of a finger. Image courtesy of Pexels.
You’ll also be to process and manage requests for time off using scheduling software. This makes requesting time off more convenient for employees and less of a nuisance for you. Additionally, employees will be able to set and change their availability in the system—which, again, is quicker and easier for everyone involved. Moreover, these two components will limit mistakes on the schedule and save you from scheduling someone when they’re not available.
An Opportunity You Can’t Afford to Miss
It’s no secret that scheduling can be tedious and downright frustrating. And with so much else on your mind as an employer, you might find yourself slipping into some not-so-great scheduling practices. Scheduling software can help your business in more ways than one, and better yet, you won’t be the only one who’s benefiting from it.
If you’re not using scheduling software, you’re probably spending way more time on making schedules than you should be. In addition to eating away at your hours, this method of scheduling is also wasting human resources that could be put toward more substantial tasks to move your business forward.
You might not be able to get rid of scheduling, but you can simplify the process and save a lot of time (and money) when you do. Scheduling software is a business innovation that’s rapidly increasing in popularity and evolving to be more “the rule” and less “the exception.”
Still not sure? Take your employees into account! Odds are, they’d prefer the new way of scheduling over anything else. It’s more convenient for them, and they’ll never have to worry about whether or not they have the most updated version of the schedule. Make the switch to scheduling software today, and find out for yourself why this is one business trend that’s worth following.
