If you’ve ever run or managed a business that requires employees working shifts, you have likely had to make a schedule at some point. And by some point, I mean countless times. I’m also willing to bet that it’s the last thing you look forward to.

Creating an employee schedule is one of the hardest tasks that you have to undertake on a regular basis. It takes forever, nobody is ever fully happy with it, and it’s easy to mess up, especially if you are trying to save labor and schedule added coverage for predicted busy times during the day.

So yes, employees and employers both agree that making a schedule is pretty awful. If you’re doing it by hand, and making it from scratch each time, you aren’t doing yourself or anyone else any favors.

Fortunately, there is such a thing called scheduling software. If you think this is something that only large businesses and corporations use, you’re wrong. Any size or type of business can benefit from scheduling software, whether your team is 5 or 50 strong.

Here are 3 ways that scheduling software can save you both time and money, and why you should be using it.

 

No More Staring at Spreadsheets and Notebooks for Hours
This is the biggest complaint if you are the one that makes the schedule. It can take hours and hours to plug in, swap out, and move around employees for certain shifts. And then you have to think about the requests off for certain days, employee availability, holidays, peak business hours, and more.

You can be close to having the schedule complete, only to realize that Suzy Smith needed the weekend of the 5th and 6th off so she can go to some awful music festival 12 hours away. Oh, and she needs the morning of the 7th off too -- because the music festival is 12 hours away. Now you have to spend another hour figuring out how you can cover those days without giving someone else overtime.

With scheduling software, you can simply plug in all the requests off, hours limits, and availability, and sit back and watch as a feasible sample schedule is generated, taking everything into account. Hours and hours saved every month in the process.

 

Proper Coverage for Peak Times and Slow Times
If you are scheduling for retail or foodservice, one of the hardest things to do is predict when to have the most coverage at the right times. If you understaff, your customers are going to have a terrible experience, and your employees are going to feel like you hung them out to dry.

On the other hand, if you overstaff all the time, you are going to be throwing your money down the drain. Proper staffing is obviously the goal, but if you have an overstaffed business on slow times on a consistent basis, you are wasting a lot of money on unneeded labor.

Quality scheduling software programs can analyze different variables and determine the most economical schedule.

It Can Be Interactive for You and Employees
Putting in requests off, hours limits, availability, and getting shifts covered at the last minute used to involved binders, spreadsheets, and lots of calls and texts back and forth. If you have a scheduling software that is compatible with smartphones and made available to all employees, you have a much better way for everyone to input their information, special requests, view schedules as they are released, and even cover shifts in a more streamlined way.

Looking for Customized Scheduling Software?
At MKE Software, we have over a decade of experience in developing customized software that aids businesses on a day to day basis -- which certainly involves creating scheduling programs. We would love to help your business be more efficient, while saving you time and money as a result of smart scheduling software that is fine-tuned for your needs. Contact us today for your free custom tailored software consultation!