Last Updated on May 22, 2021 by Guest
Starting a company isn’t an easy feat, but hiring the right people for the right positions can increase your chances of success. You’ll need to hire qualified individuals to manage several departments of your company, such as its operations, finances, human resources, and marketing, among others.
However, plotting your employees’ schedules can become challenging. You’ll have to consider several factors to ensure that the right employee reports on a particular schedule that’s aligned with their skills. Placing an employee in the wrong schedule can result in profit and customer losses. A shift scheduling or shifters app can prevent this problem from happening. This automated process is responsible for creating and maintaining employees’ schedules.
To paint a clearer picture of how a shift scheduling app works and why it’s vital for startup companies like yours, consider the points below:
Provides Convenience For All Employees
Regardless of how small your company is today, you’ll need to hire managers who oversee employees. Usually, one or two managers are assigned to each of the company’s departments. As your company grows, you’ll likely have to add more managers and employees to your workforce.
A shift scheduling app is convenient because it allows all of your employees to check their schedules through their smartphones. This means that employees won’t have to call their managers to ask about their schedule for the day. This information can be accessed 24/7, as long as the employees have a suitable device.
Creates A Paperless Company
Traditionally, schedules are created by using pen and paper. Employees will be required to join a meeting as their schedules for the week or month will be discussed. Schedules that have been agreed upon will be written on paper. Some employees will reproduce copies of their schedules to help them stay on track.
With a shift scheduling app, recording and generating paper schedules will become a thing of the past. Through this app, tasks that involve scheduling can be done digitally. All of your employees can plot and view their schedules through their smartphones. They won’t have to print several paper pages just to be reminded of their schedules for the entire week or month.
The use of a shift scheduling app can help your business save on paper costs. Once your company becomes paperless, your bank account and the environment will thank you for all of your efforts.
Gives Power To Employees
Employees love to work in a company where they feel empowered. Sure, business owners might intervene with major company decisions. Still, when it comes to smaller matters, such as their schedules, employees would prefer that they are trusted to accomplish the task. Put yourself in their shoes: how would you feel if the company’s owner doesn’t let you decide or plot your own schedule?
A shift scheduling app can become a platform for your employees to feel empowered. Through this app, they can plot their schedules on their own. They can even mark their preferred rest days or requested time-offs through the app.
Letting your employees take full control of their schedules will surely make them feel empowered. It shows that, as a business owner, you trust them enough to make this decision on their own.
Mitigates Availability Conflicts
As your company grows, expect that you will need to hire more people. It would be best if you increased your staffing to ensure that the demands of the customers and the industry are met promptly.
Having a lot of employees is a sign that your company is thriving, but on the other hand, more employees can also mean more people with different personalities. These differences can usually lead to conflict.
If you don’t want your employees to create friction or argue because of their schedules, you should use a shift scheduling app. This app can reduce availability conflicts through the following:
- Choose Preferred Schedule: A shift scheduling app can give your employees the benefit of plotting their preferred schedule without heavily relying on their managers. This privilege will reduce conflicts between the employee and their managers since they aren’t forced to accept a supervisor’s schedule immediately.
- Offers Transparency: Regardless of their position or department, all of your employees will be expected to use the same shift scheduling app. As they are using the same app, transparency is observed as all of your employees can see the schedules set by other employees.
This information can reduce conflict between your employees as they don’t have to argue about who will work or take the day off during a specific day or week. If employee A sees that employee B has already plotted their days off during Mondays and Tuesdays, employee A can no longer request to take the same days for the same purpose.
Saves A Lot Of Time
Time is a valuable resource in business. As they say, “time is money.” As a business owner, you need to maximize time as it’s an avenue for you to earn. Tasks should be done fast to increase your company’s earning opportunity—and using a shift scheduling app can help you achieve all of these things.
As mentioned, a shift scheduling app allows all of your employees to plot and track schedules through a smartphone. This will save your employees time as they won’t have to hold any meetings or disturb other employees to inquire about their schedules.
Because of its accessibility and convenience, a shift scheduling app ensures that all of your employees use their time wisely and not spend it by merely discussing their schedules. It’ll be easy for your employees to be productive if they are given the time to do so.
Offers Real-Time Tracking
It goes without saying that all of the employees you’ll hire will, of course, be paid regularly. You’ll invest in their skills and experience with the expectation that they can help your company earn profit and thrive in the long run. However, if your employees are reporting to work late, your company will only lose money. This is especially true if these employees deny or conceal their tardiness.
You can prevent this problem from happening if your startup company invests in a shift scheduling app. Aside from making it easy for all of your employees to track their schedules, this app also contains features that allow managers and business owners to monitor the working hours of their employees.
Having real-time access to your employees’ work hours will make it easy for you to determine which employees are performing well and those who aren’t. With the information generated from the app, you’ll know if a particular employee needs to be sanctioned or dismissed from work because of constant tardiness.
Reduces Employee Turnover
The entire process of hiring and retaining employees is time-consuming and costly. You’ll have to spend resources on advertising your job vacancy and interviewing potential applicants. Once you hire employees, you have to implement strategies to keep employees motivated to work as business owners.
Employees who will resign or immediately leave can adversely affect the company’s productivity and, in worse cases, the company’s image as well. Once an employee leaves, you’ll be forced to start from scratch and look for another one again.
A shift scheduling app can improve your company’s employee retention efforts and reduce employee turnover rates. Here’s how:
- Schedule Availability: Calling a manager to ask for your schedule can be inconvenient. This is especially true if the company runs on a 24/7 schedule and the manager doesn’t answer calls during the weekend.
Your employees won’t be frustrated through a shift scheduling app as they can always check their schedules through their smartphones. Their schedules will be readily available through the app 24/7.
- Work And Life Balance: All of your employees want to earn, but keep in mind that they are still human beings. They need to spend time with their friends and family to relieve themselves of stress.
Letting your employees swap shifts or book time off through an app can become their reason to stay with your company. Because of this feature, your employees will feel appreciated as their boss is encouraging a balance between their work and personal life.
Reduces No Shows
As a business owner, you’re willing to spend money on employees’ salaries and other benefits because you expect that your employees can help the business earn and grow. Business owners usually have this mindset, so it’s no wonder why you would feel frustrated or angry when an employee doesn’t show up for work. Instead of earning, you’ll end up losing money.
And while you can always call other employees to cover for the absence, doing this doesn’t warrant positive results. Your employees will also have other responsibilities on their plates, so don’t expect that they will immediately report to work once you call them to cover for someone who’s not around.
A shift scheduling app can reduce incidents of no-shows. Aside from letting your employees check their schedules through their smartphones, this app will also send reminders to your employees to ensure they can get to work on time. An employee who has a temporary schedule for the week will also be reminded of the changes.
Make Careful Investments
Because of the demand, except that you’ll come across several shift scheduling apps today. Some of these apps solely focus on creating employees’ schedules, while others are equipped with additional features.
As a new business owner, it’s best if you assess all of your available options first. Since your financial resources can still be limited, you need to spend it on an investment that will contribute to your company’s long-term growth.