One of the hardest tasks for business owners and resource managers is shift scheduling. It can get quite challenging and time-consuming to plan out who should work when and on what, based on their personal preferences and availability. This is especially true if you have a huge team and multiple staff to handle, each with their own different scheduling needs.
What will you get thanks this article:
As the term suggests, team or employee, or project scheduling software is a tool that businesses use to streamline the process of scheduling their employees. With time, they have now become one of the most popular business tools on the market.
They have exploded in recent years as businesses increasingly recognize the need for a more efficient way to schedule employees. It simplifies the process and lets you handle all your scheduling needs in one place.
The benefits of digital transformation are undeniable, but many organizations still haven’t made the full shift to a diskless workforce. For workers in field service or support roles who need intelligent scheduling tools with communication and note-taking capabilities as well as access to organizational knowledge bases without interrupting their day’s work.
There are several reasons why team scheduling software is becoming increasingly popular with modern businesses:
1. Most team scheduling apps allow you to create and distribute schedules in just a few clicks. They also let you track employee availability, send automated follow-ups, and much more.
2. It helps improve visibility when it comes to staffing. Part of what employees find frustrating about the scheduling process is how much it can change from week-to-week, or how shift changes can occur last-minute, sometimes without any notice. Software alleviates this aggravation by making it clear what’s happening, who’s scheduled, and what changes may occur.
3. Most modern team scheduling software makes it easy for both employees and employers to manage scheduling conflicts and employee shifts. For example, managers can often see when team members request time off and approve or reject those requests accordingly. This helps ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to scheduling, which can minimize conflicts and frustration.
4. Traditional methods like Excel are notoriously inefficient. Planning and distributing schedules can be a nightmare with Excel.
5. Team scheduling software is becoming increasingly affordable. As the market grows, so do the options for businesses of all sizes. There are now team scheduling apps that cater to businesses of all shapes and sizes, with a variety of pricing options to suit any budget.
6. Team scheduling software can automatically notify employees when their shift is live or when a change has been made to it. This ensures that employees are always aware of their schedules and can plan accordingly.
7. It also plays a vital role in project management. It helps team members stay organized and on track by providing a visual team board that displays everyone’s workload (read about workload management). This makes it easy to see who is available and who is not, so you can optimize your team’s utilization (read about resource utilization).
8. Team scheduling software helps map your team’s skills and identify areas where they may need improvement. By using team scheduling software, you can say goodbye to guesswork and overworked consultants.
Typical team scheduling software also provides many extra features to help you with team management. It can be anything from multimedia presentations for onboarding new hires to performance metrics for rewarding the best employees at the end of the month.
Overall, team scheduling software plays a vital role in ensuring that businesses run smoothly and efficiently. Improving visibility and communication around the scheduling process reduces frustration and increases productivity. Now that we have realized the importance of team scheduling software, what are the different options that we have in the market?
Below are the 5 best team scheduling software platforms to look out for in 2022. It will help you save time by comparing the top scheduling software so you can select the one that suits your business needs the best.
Homebase is a comprehensive solution for small business owners. It has had numerous updates released since its inception in 2020. Its free plan provides you with everything that you need to start scheduling shifts, whereas paid plans are affordable, yet packed full of features. With the addition of safety screenings to its mobile app, Homebase tops our list for best overall scheduling software.
Some of the features of the free plan are:
Paycor is the oldest and most trusted human resources platform. It offers comprehensive scheduling tools combined with payroll features to make it one of the top choices for team management software, whether you’re a small business or an organization of any size!
A few of the features that it provides are:
Shiftboard’s team scheduling software can help you solve multiple business challenges like improving employee retention, reducing labor costs, and ensuring compliance. This software is best for industries like oil & gas, manufacturing, and healthcare because of their round-the-clock schedules.
Shiftboard can also assist you in creating, publishing, and managing weekly employee work schedules based on availability and shift preferences. On top of that, Shiftboard offers customized pricing upon request!
Since its inception in 2014, 7shifts has been a well-known name in the business, especially in the restaurant industry. It is the most suitable software for restaurants requiring mobile scheduling tools because of its drag-and-drop schedule builder and mobile capabilities.
7shifts offers four plans, including a free program. All versions comprise of robust scheduling features like:
QuickBooks Time is a cloud-based SaaS time-tracking app that is an excellent replacement for paper-based or any other tracking ledger format. It is a completely electronic time data system that assists employees to clock in and out of their workspace anytime, anywhere, and from any device. It also helps to simplify payroll and invoicing, track GPS points, and sync all the data to give a real-time view of geofencing information.
QuickBooks has multiple features helping companies to keep track of where their employees are currently located and what they are currently working on. The scheduling part lets users assign tasks, drag-and-drop shifts, and send necessary alerts to managers if employees have not clocked yet.
In today’s world, team scheduling software is the need of the hour. It will not only help organizations manage their resources better but also lead to improved productivity for the employees.
Opting for team scheduling software is important, but so is choosing the right one for your business. There is no one-size-fits-all. Your right fit will be based on your organization’s needs and requirements.
As a software house, we’ve tested many, maybe the best time management apps. In the IT and software business – that has mostly business clients from USA and UK – we’re used to working with an absolutely...
