Maria Aceves is the Human Resources chief – and default scheduling manager – for a mid-size corporate catering firm in Daly City, California. The firm pays the bills with a stable of steady clients, providing box and buffet lunches, Monday through Friday. It’s a first rate food preparation, delivery and drop off service, with set up and linens and only the occasional interruption.
Icing on the cake though, and a nightmare for Maria, is the company’s thriving dinner, special events and banquet service.

Monday through Friday. Maria is scheduling

• 2-3 chefs
• 2-3 cooks
• 2 prep cooks
• a kitchen crew of 5 people
• plus 2 cleaning people
• 2 drivers,
• and 2 phone receptionists.

Day to day, 9 to 5, and 6Am to 2PM schedules are the norm. But from there, things start to get more complicated.

“Some of these people will stay on and work special events, when time allows, or when they need the money, or when the company is stretched and we really need the people. It happens all the time.”

Though parties for up 200 people are welcome, they’re usually planned for months in advance.

Every special event will see personnel requirements double, triple or even quadruple. “Weekends and evenings are your call, but every day there is one. We’ll have up to four or five events, sometimes, on Thursdays and Fridays.”

A relatively big, unexpected business lunch, mid-week, pays everyone a premium, but used to put an incredible strain on Maria. Getting the right workers, and keeping them informed, and coming back for more, used to require dozens of phone calls, maybe 3 hours in the middle of the day and a serious headache.

Today, Maria is using NimbleSchedule, and coordinating everything with the party people. The fact is, the Party People, drive Maria crazy anyway.

But the task of scheduling and bringing in this whole variety of workers has gotten a lot easier.

Define Departments and Job Positions and Fire Away

With every event requiring different departments and positions, and the numbers and faces changing constantly, doing it all would be impossible without on-the-fly, coordinated online scheduling.

Maria consults with the number of guests needed for each event and checks any special requirements. She then punches the information into NimbleSchedule’s calendaring interface. Appropriate workers from every department and for every necessary position are notified automatically. They confirm whether or not they will attend and get information on time and hours for each shift. It all happens via email and smartphone, and business is booming.

“NimbleSchedule has allowed us to really professionalize the level of skills and presentation that we have representing us, and the system is easier and faster than anything else I’ve dealt with. It’s also made my life and my job a lot easier to deal with.

“As far as I know, all the people on my staff like the NimbleSchedule system as much as I do.”

Companies change. So does your workforce and your workforce requirements.

Businesses that used to rely on a staff of 30 or 40 full-time in-house employees today do better with remote and telecommuting staff. Often they grow to twice their former size, but the basic relationship with staff is vastly different.

Performance based and judged by every job well done, today’s employees also depend on the freedom to come and go, to work at their own pace and to be judge solely by the work they can deliver.

No matter how your business is modeled, your employees will thank you for allowing them greater freedom and flexibility. Clocking in on the shop floor used to require a physical presence, but today, your employees, no matter if they’re engineers or call-center representatives, can clock on and off based on the needs of the business, not the location of the clock.

Shift supervisors and managers are not chained to traditional clocking in and out, but, with NimbleSchedule, can enjoy a fully scalable system to grow with the company and employees on and off site. And you can schedule more, better workers for remote or distance locations, keep better track of their hours and retain full control over schedules, time-shifts and staffing allocations.

Sensitive information is kept secure on a central database and it’s accessible whenever and where ever you need it, and reporting is advanced, accurate and always in real time.

The Internet Based Employee Time Clock That Keeps Your Best Workers, and Keeps Them Happy!

Business owners, working with NimbleSchedule actually find that with the flexibility and freedom they can offer, they’re able to keep better workers working, and let the less efficient one go. In some cases, you’re saving money just by optimizing your team.

With full, flexible payroll software integration,  painless set-up, and access from everywhere, there’s really no better employee time clock solution.

Allow more and better workers to clock in and off with NimbleSchedule’s efficient anywhere, online employee time clock, and who knows where your company can go. With all the other time and money saving features, you might just find you have enough to time to rethink your entire business model.

If providing a time clock was an extra expense, imagine what you’ll save on central servers, work stations and office overhead.

NimbleSchedule allows today’s business to clock on and off, and you get the very best scheduling software on the market.

The result of course was punched cards, time-sheet coordination and ultimately, lots more paperwork.

NimbleSchedule’s automated times, and remote clocking in and out process has eliminated all of the need for physical check-ins and outs, and we’ve made the whole process a lot more efficient!

With NimbleSchedule, employees can simply click on “My Timesheet” and clock in. When the shift is over, they can do the same thing, from the internet or from a smart phone. You can even set up far more flexible schedules that allow employees to clock in only when they’re working and only when it’s convenient for employees and the company!

That’s all whether the employee is on site, or working at a remote location. And clocking out, you always get a summary of the time you’ve put in, or that your team member put in, and the entire shift is summarized on the Time Sheets page!

Of course, manually approving online time-sheets doesn’t have to take up all of your time. Bulk time-sheet approval is easy because you establish the rules up front and the system will reject requests that don’t meet your standards. You still get happier team members because they don’t need to waste time traveling any more than you need to waste time scheduling.

And your payroll people get much less paper and can even select what they want or need to print out, from simple time reports to more complex analytics for review or analysis.

No matter how many employees your in charge of, and no matter how many locations, NimbleSchedule lets you approve and process multiple schedules and time sheets for entire teams or for individual workers as easily as sending an email. Employees and staff are notified when changes are made, approved or rejected.

In our business that can simply mean employee absences. Excused, in-excused or inexplicable, absences often come down to simple communication failures and those very often concern the where, when and what-time exactly of any job posting.
Schedules that can involve dozens or even hundreds of employees are often the least understood and the schedules that involve the smallest number of people who really need to be involved in their own creation.

That’s always been the case, particularly when a work schedule is drawn up on a single sheet of paper, perhaps copied and posted physically in the hopes that every employee will verify and accept it. That was the top down world of employee scheduling.
Disgruntled or unhappy workers, even when they’re the otherwise best on the team, are told “tough luck” and the schedule stands until it sometimes painfully or pain-stakingly done all over again.

Today, it may be still impossible to keep everyone “happy” all the time. But prioritizing employee communications before, during and after the scheduling process makes a lot more of them a lot more “happy” than ever before in the past. If you’re in a competitive industry having trouble holding onto your best employees, or your spending too much time on scheduling, it should make you happy too.
Simple effective staff communication today requires a robust tool and an internet connection. It really is that simple. And managers are constantly surprised by how effective instant messaging by email or text SMS can be, especially when it is two way communication.
There’s simply no question that employee input and interaction radically increases employee morale and the level of respect they feel for an employer. And the number of excuses for misunderstandings, missed shifts or absences has been known to drop dramatically.
It really is as easy as deploying an internet based solution that automates communications and calendar schedules so that employees get a front row seat in the decision making process and scheduling managers simply institute some basic rules. Rules can be as complicated or as simple as they need to be.

Setting minimum or maximum hours are simple ones, but difficult special events or heavy demand hours can be covered and scheduled while under or overstaffing situations are easily avoided. Conflict free schedules can be easily established, reviewed and approved by every employee or just by a shift manager. In every case, miscommunication is minimized and everyone who needs to know gets a notification by email, by SMS text, or by both.
If you haven’t considered a simple scheduling tool to improve your own employee communications plan then consider NimbleSchedule. There is simply no more Nimble Scheduler on the market.

Employee Retention and Flexible Scheduling

Flexible Scheduling Software Has Revolutionized the Company –Employee Relationship

Accommodating the needs of mobile, highly specialized and high quality workers is more difficult than ever. Employee turnover is expensive, inefficient and, for some companies, totally out of hand. Unhappy employees cost almost any company far more than owners or stockholders would prefer. Yet flexible scheduling, which has proven one of the single most effective employee retention policies has only caught on in limited sectors of the over-all economy. Namely in technically advanced industries that have traditionally relied on more mobile and remote workers.

Still, one of the reasons companies have stuck with the old-school, hard scheduling is simply because it was easier. Week after week of 20 or 40 hours for everyone, and time off and vacations only when applied for a week in advance is just how it was done on paper. And that’s how it stayed.

Allowing employees and local managers greater control over the work place used to require dozens of phone calls and hundreds of hours per year just in scheduling and shift-planning.

But as more and more employees find better opportunities to meet their own needs and still earn a living, the onus is on more employers to hold on to the employees they’ve got by offering more forgiving schedules, and more opportunities to do the work that needs to be done, irrespective of when, if not always of where.

The advantages to flexibly scheduling employees and allowing employees more control over their schedules and over the time they spend on the job can be dramatic.

• Far better balance between work and family issues
• More options, about when to work, what hours and what schedule
• Increased loyalty, commitment and productivity
• Longer term commitments and lower turn-over
• Higher morale
• More and better home-based or otherwise remote employees
• Reduced overall labor costs

The fact is, with more and better managed seasonal and part time employees, many businesses are even able to significantly reduce salary and wage costs while still maintaining high quality, satisfied and enthusiastic employees.

 The Real Revolution in Flexible Employee Scheduling

Flexible scheduling depends simply on up-to-date internet based calendar and messaging systems that put every employee on the same calendar page.

Such a system allows for on-the-fly schedule changes, replacements and updates as easily as changing a calendar program. Automated messaging, consent and confirmation systems mean that every shift can be covered and very few excuses for being un-informed remain.

For example, an open scheduled retail shop might rely on more part time store workers picking up 4 hour shifts convenient to their own schedules. The total number they can schedule is limited by a master schedule, controlled by the manager, but every shift is voluntary and over staffing becomes virtually impossible. The manager simply limits the number of shifts that each employee can volunteer for. When ever the schedule is changed or altered, every employee gets an email or text notification and the entire staff is happier, having selected, swapped and traded shifts until the schedule is finalized or until each shift begins.

All of that just depends on the manager’s preference and the needs of the company. It’s really that easy and we’ve seen expensive staff turn-over nearly eliminated from some companies.  We’ll be writing more detailed case studies in the future of companies using NimbleSchedule, but if you’d like to add your own story, simply leave a comment in the section below.

We have an exciting update. In an effort to make scheduling as easy as possible we have added drag and drop capabilities to the schedule view. While on a “day” view for a schedule, in order assign a shift to another employee you can simply pick up the shift and drag it to another employee. Note that in order for the employee to accept the shit, they have to be in the same position

Ability to add labels to shifts

Another requested feature we recently added is the ability to add label to shifts. When creating and editing shifts, you can now add a label or title such as “AM” or “PM” to the shift which would then show up on the schedule.

Better multi-location support

We recently re-worked the schedule view to now indicate the location in the schedule to make it easier for employees who work in multiple location to see all their shifts on one page with the location clearly marked.

For most staffing managers and shift supervisors of multi-shift, multiple-location businesses however, employee scheduling can be a nightmare. Yup, you read that right – a nightmare. Why? Because you not only have to consider the needs of the business (how many people are needed when, and what skills and skill level should they possess) and how these needs impact on profitability. You also have to deal with issues that concern the employees themselves.

Here are 6 of the most common the scheduling issues a manager has to contend with where employee scheduling software may come in handy:

1. Unusual Shift Rotations

Some businesses operate at odd hours and there are also those that are running round the clock. Making sure that shifts are properly manned takes a lot of effort because work hours per employee may change from day to day. Any misstep in the scheduling and you can be left with a shift that has too many or too few workers. Without employee scheduling software that automates the entire process, scheduling would be a taxing and time consuming task, and even then, the final product could be fraught with errors.

2. Last Minute Changes

Even the most well-planned and organized employee schedule can be thrown into shambles if there are unexpected absences that crop up. But people falling ill or running into emergencies are a reality and hence, should be dealt with in the best manner possible. First and foremost, a replacement has to be found. Then, you also need be certain that the person picking up the shift isn’t already doing overtime and/or isn’t scheduled for work himself right before or after the “extra” duty hours. Staff scheduling software can be trusted to take care of these details based on employee data and availability, and with some input from you.

3. Employee Turnover

It happens. Just when you’ve already gotten a workable schedule in place, one of your employees ups and quits, bringing you back to the drawing board with your scheduling efforts. Such a situation is not uncommon in many fast-paced businesses. The larger the workforce, the higher the turnover rate. This makes it virtually impossible to manually schedule employees without the right organizational tools.

4. Split Schedules

A split schedule is one where the employee doesn’t fulfill his 8 hours of work in one sitting. For instance, he may be required to do the first half of his shift from 8 am to 12 noon, and then do the rest from 6 to 10 pm. As with uncommon shift rotations, split schedules can be a pain to organize because there are more details to consider and because the employees themselves may not be amenable to such arrangement. It’s difficult to plan activities when they work such hours and they would need to commute more. However, with the aid of an employee scheduling software, it’s easier to keep track of split schedules. Further, you can also ensure that such shifts are fairly distributed among the employees.

5. Varying Employee Rates

The labor cost per shift is a crucial factor that needs to be included in the planning of staff schedules. Some personnel may have higher rates than others due to experience and ranking, and there are also staff supervisors to include in the calculations. An automated employee scheduler does the costing for you – promptly and accurately at that – so you can make the necessary adjustments and keep expenses within budget.

6. Seniority

While most organizations don’t have an official policy regarding seniority, staff members who have been around the longest, often feel some entitlement to getting the most ideal work hours. If the scheduling were done manually, it would be difficult to say no to the more senior employees every time they request for certain shifts. But by using a work scheduling tool, you can better balance the “rights” of your senior staff while also giving heed to the needs of the newer employees of the company.

Streamlining your organization’s workforce does not have to be overly burdensome. Just find the right employee scheduling software for your business and you’ll be well on your way to an stress-free, problem-free staff scheduling.

●Saves time and money.

One of the most significant savings that can be had with a scheduling software is time, and as they all say – time is gold. It is not uncommon to find shift managers spending hours dealing with excel spreadsheets, or worse, even manually plotting charts and tables just to properly match employees, work schedules, and tasks. If the process were automated though, a job that previously took an hour or two to complete, can now be done in mere minutes.

Think about the hundreds of hours that can be saved annually and the corresponding increase in productivity and savings in financial resources. Labor costs are also within control because no one can log in hours exceeding his allocation for the week unless duly approved by management. For an astute businessman, these benefits alone would be enough reason to invest in an employee scheduling software.

●Prevents loss of opportunity.

Poorly organized employee scheduling can also bring about loss of opportunity. In any fast-growing business, every person counts. Being under-staffed could result to inferior product quality, poor customer service, or orders being turned down. With online work scheduling software, you are guaranteed that no shifts or locations are left undermanned because you always have access who works when.

In case a worker begs for some time off due to illness of personal concerns, it’s easy to find a replacement because you can immediately check who is available to serve as alternate. Further, with most scheduling programs, SMS alerts or email notifications can be sent to the substitute employees so they will be informed straight away of the additional work or change in schedule.

●Helps you find the right person for the job.

Having to manually browse through the files of various employee just to find the suitable person for a particular job can be frustrating, not to mention time-consuming. Employee scheduling software can also help with this because it’s not only a computerized scheduler, it can also serve as a quick database for your employees. With just a few clicks, you will be able to access information on staff members including contact data, skills and the corresponding level of these skills, and previous work experience. This should give you a good gauge of the capability of a person to perform a specific task or added duties.

●Allows a more hands-on management.

Everything may be automated; but it doesn’t mean that you pay less attention to the goings-on around you. On the contrary, work scheduling software has made it very convenient to monitor employee availability or non-availability, ensure that all shifts and all locations are adequately staffed, and keep track of payroll costs.
Relevant statistics, graphs, and tables may even be generated by the software for higher management appraisal, and to further assist you in tracking scheduling trends and minimizing labor expenses.

●Provides employee convenience.

Occasionally, employees may need to take some time off for various reasons, and such absence may cause disruption in the business. Utilizing staff scheduling software however ensures that operations continue to run smoothly despite the no-show of some personnel. Equally important, employees don’t have to jump through hoops to get some hours or days free, even if such leave is unexpected. A much-needed visit to the dentist for instance, will not have to be indefinitely postponed, and a sick family member can be given priority without having to worry about what’s happening at work.

This is because the concerned employees can simply swap shifts with others who are available on those days. Or, the shift manager can leave such days as “open” for others to “pick up” for some extra work. These changes can all be made via the scheduling software.
Whether you have 50 or 500 employees, employee scheduling software can make organizing your schedules simple and fuss-free. If you want to realize savings in time and payroll costs, promote productivity, and maximize your employees’ skill and availability, then it’s high time you give it a try. Sign up for a free trial today

One of the keys to having a cost-efficient workforce is of course, to use an employee scheduling software. However, if you can’t use one right away, there are still a number of ways where you can effectively supervise your staff and pinpoint the areas where you can make improvements in managing people and in keeping within payroll budget.

The first step is to take a step back and evaluate the way you and your employees are doing things. Could there be a better way of planning the schedule? Or are there perhaps better procedures than the one you’re currently using that could help employees get tasks done faster and then move on to the next? Check out these employee management tips and see how you can apply them in your own organization.

Check time sheets from time to time and see if they really coincide with the employee’s actual arrival and off time. After all, it never hurts for your staff to know that the boss is watching. For employees, there are so many ways of riding the clock, and an hour’s worth of work shaved off by even just a couple of employees can amount to precious labor dollars in actual expense.

Make a regular review of your payroll costs. If it’s not peak season for instance and there’s a significant (or even a not-so-significant) rise in labor expense look into that immediately. In addition, review the pay rates of your staff members of varying levels. While you can never lower the rates that have been given to them already, you can at least ensure that employee scheduling has been properly done, with the higher-paid employees evenly spread out among the various shifts. This way you can maximize the leadership and learning potential of both the senior staff and the beginners respectively.

Collect sufficient data and determine your employee to sales and employee to customer ratio. If you have too many employees and not enough sales or customers, then you’re spending on labor unnecessarily. Conversely, if you don’t have enough workers for a high time or season, you may be saving on payroll but lagging on the customer service end. Make sure all the factors balance out properly.

If you’re going to incorporate technology into your system, make sure you do so wisely. One such effective tool to ensure that employees are getting to work at the times when they are supposed to is a biometric clocking system. It requires the worker to have his finger or entire hand scanned as proof his presence. But while this type of equipment is effective for simple clock in and out purposes, it is not a very wise idea to use them for inserting PINs into a Point of Sale System particularly if you are running a business where workers may have greasy or dirty hands at any point. This can easily damage your equipment.

Ensure that only one supervisor or manager is taking charge of approving leaves and time-offs at any given time. This will prevent overlapping of approved time-off and leave requests. You will be able to properly accommodate employee’s requests, without your business suffering from having insufficient personnel.

While the above tips can go a long way in helping you achieve efficiency in managing your people, you will have an easier time if you have an automated staff scheduling service do all the work for you. Like NimbleSchedule. You’ll be assured of efficient schedules, managed costs, and a lot of extra time to focus on other important matters. We offer a 30-day free trial so you really have nothing to lose with giving NimbleSchedule a try.

Who are the Millennials?

Born between the years 1980 and 2000 (or thereabouts), a lot has been said about the Generation Y. The Millennialss, as they are also called, are said to be products of doting parents who think they are special simply because they exist, individuals who will only take “yes” for an answer, and an incredibly self-reliant group who would rather Google the solutions to tech concerns than call IT for support. Millennials also have a simplified approach to setting priorities: they come first.

As you can see, a lot of the preconceived notions about this generation that has been rehashed over the past few years aren’t exactly positive. But on the other hand, the Generation Y’ers also bring with them their own set of desirable work traits that will no doubt prove to be useful as they start climbing up the corporate ladder. Because they were brought up believing that any goal is within their reach, they have adopted a “can-do” attitude. Further, Millennials are known for being tech-savvy and experts at multi-tasking. They also work well in teams within a structured and creative work environment.

The Millennials at Work

Now as to how any of these said characteristics will manifest themselves as they slowly assimilate into the workforce still remains to be seen. One fact remains, though: with over 76 million individuals born during the years 1981 to 1999, it will only be a matter of time before the Millennials take over the workplace as the baby boomers take their leave. In fact, by 2014, there will be more Millennials driving than there are baby boomers alive.

For many managers and companies, this new breed of workers are more than welcome. After all, who wouldn’t want confident and goal-oriented individuals on their team? Give this worker a variety of tasks and you can be sure that he’ll get these accomplished and then some. But then again, you also have to be prepared for their high expectations as to how an ideal work environment should be.

For instance, a Gen Y employee thrives on diversity and challenge. Give them the same routine day in and day out, and pretty soon, they will experience boredom and feel that their skills are not being maximized. While Millennials understand that they have to “pay their dues” and start with entry-level jobs, they do so with the intent of accomplishing valuable and meaningful work so as to move on to greater responsibilities. Feedback therefore, has to be constant and immediate.

This new breed of American workers also prefer a healthy balance between professional responsibilities and personal obligations. While this is nothing new to most people in the working class, this is a particular concern for the Y Generation. A recent survey conducted shows that 73% of employed Millennials believe that working time should be no more than the time they spend with their families and friends, and pursuing personal interests.

Managing Gen Y Employees

So what do companies need to do to keep these new breed of workers happy? Simple – give them what they want. Or at least, what they need for them to realize their full potential. These include a proper work structure with clearly defined assignments and corresponding success factors, challenging tasks that leave no room for boredom, group projects, as Millennials perform better and accomplish more in teams, feedback when they ask for it (or even if they don’t), and a balanced life-work environment.

In addition, Millennials want flexible work arrangements for them to be able to find that right balance between career and personal pursuits. This requires some reinventing of the conventional work schedules that most businesses are using. The good news is Gen Y employees are also social media geniuses and are highly adept at all types of electronic and communication devices out there today. This means that they can easily deal with any non-traditional means of work scheduling that businesses may adopt.

Using Employee Scheduling Software

With the aid of an efficient employee scheduling software like NimbleSchedule, you can make the most of your Millennial employee’s flexibility and electronic literacy. For one, it helps you manage part-time employees who are juggling work and school, and allow you to easily swap shifts if you need to accommodate worker requests. Employees are also welcome to do self-service scheduling for as long as they don’t violate any of the rules previously set.

As soon as the work schedules are finalized and approved, notices are immediately sent out to the concerned employees via SMS or email. For Millennials who are always connected, these methods of communication work out perfectly, so they don’t miss out on important events both in the workplace and outside of it.

For any organization looking to get and keep Millennials in their ranks, NimbleSchedule is a must-have tool that will help you provide them with the flexible and balanced work environment that is best for this generation of workers.