How cloud-based employee scheduling benefits your small or medium-sized business

How cloud-based employee scheduling benefits your small or medium-sized business

Small and medium-sized businesses have so much to juggle: from marketing and growth, to sourcing the best talent, to boosting employee retention. Fortunately, cloud-based employee scheduling technology now makes this balancing act much simpler.  

Highly popular with HR departments and owners of small and medium businesses, cloud-based employee scheduling solutions take care of scheduling, allowing you to focus on other demanding areas of your business. 

Read on to learn how cloud-based scheduling solutions work and get access to one of the top employee scheduling software platforms for free. 

Common business challenges with employee scheduling  

No business can afford to fail at employee scheduling. It's an essential factor in employee satisfaction and retention. 

Research from Wiley Edge shows that companies with a high employee turnover receive more employee complaints about poor company culture. No surprises there, but perhaps it is surprising to learn that one of the major causes of people leaving their jobs is poor scheduling, including a lack of control over the shifts they work. 

Let’s uncover common issues that occur due to inadequate employee scheduling:  

Lack of organisation 

Shift swapping is a great way to give your team more control over their work patterns, but it can also be chaotic for managers. Without a robust and transparent system in place, poor communication can cause problems. 

Some businesses also run into issues with over-scheduling because it's hard to track when a particular employee has worked their maximum legal hours. This can lead to poor employee morale and might even get the business in trouble for violating labour laws. 

Disengaged employees 

Unfortunately, some employees won’t meet the standards expected of them. Workforce management is about identifying which employees aren't performing and what impact that has on the company. 

Some employees might not show up for their shift or give managers inadequate notice, which means finding cover, or even running understaffed shifts. 

Managing absences 

Employees calling in sick or needing time off work for personal reasons is an unavoidable part of running a business. Unprepared businesses may need to hire expensive agency workers to fill the gap. It's the same story with holiday leave, especially when team members request the same days off. 

A backup plan for absences saves time and money. 

Balancing overtime 

Overtime is often necessary for businesses. That’s okay, and some employees like it because they can earn extra money. However, it's essential to monitor the amount of overtime each employee works to stay within their legal hours. 

Some employees might feel upset if the same people keep getting overtime, or if they’re continually selected for overtime work, so it's important to strike the right balance and reduce the need for overtime by careful shift planning. 

The benefits of employee scheduling software 

These problems are all solvable with one simple solution: employee scheduling software. Here are some of the many benefits employee scheduling tools offer small and medium sized businesses.  

Accessibility and flexibility 

The traditional workday has undergone massive changes. According to HR News, nearly a third of UK workers now work mainly from home. 

As more employees choose to work from home, effective, flexible communication should be at the top of every business's priority list. 

Everything from collaboration to shift scheduling is complicated by remote working, but a cloud-based employee scheduling solution makes handling complex operations smoother.  

Employee scheduling should be accessible from mobile devices, so you can always communicate with your team and make real-time scheduling adjustments. It also gives employees more control over their work patterns without involving management. 

Cost and time savings 

Small and medium sized businesses know that keeping costs down is central to success. A disorganised business wastes resources and money. 

Employee scheduling solutions help you monitor your spending. Use them to evaluate your team's productivity and identify prolonged absences costing you money. 

Opting for a cloud-based scheduling software means you won't need to worry about extra paperwork. As the software performs multiple functions, it reduces your need for administrative support and frees up employee time to focus on other tasks, driving down your labour costs.  

Facilitate effective communication 

Employee scheduling software gives both employees and managers real-time updates about shift changes and absences. These updates enable business owners to streamline attendance management and update employee shifts as they happen.  

Improve collaboration 

From external and internal stakeholders to management teams and employees, the best ideas come when people work together. 

A cloud-based employee scheduling system allows managers and employees to collaborate more efficiently – and in real-time. Managers have more time on their hands when the software takes over time-consuming scheduling tasks, such as shift planning and absence reporting, so they can spend more time on collaborative tasks.  

Make smarter decisions 

Business owners regularly have to make hard decisions to protect their company's future growth. Using a scheduling platform can help inform those decisions using data. 

For example, if an employee’s attendance is low or they’re failing to thrive, you might need to let that employee go and hire a more productive replacement. You may also harness the power of the solution’s data to restructure your team to make it more efficient.  

Keep your team happy 

It’s a fact that high employee satisfaction contributes to higher productivity and lower turnover. Yet, businesses sometimes forget to prioritise their employees. 

According to a study from Warwick University, happy people work harder. Using shift scheduling software ensures you always keep your employees in the loop – and happy. 

Another thing that keeps employees happy? More autonomy. The employee self-service functions of a scheduling solution enable them to take control of shift changes and holiday leave, while saving managers time responding to request emails and sitting in meetings.  

Compliance with regulations  

Compliance protects employees and businesses.  

Time tracking and attendance management are essential because there are strict laws in place regarding how much an employee can work.  

Fortunately, employee scheduling software comes with an online time clock. All your employees need to do is sign in, and the app will automatically track their hours. If someone is close to surpassing the legal limit, the time-tracking software will send an immediate alert. 

Enhanced data security 

Employees trust their employers with lots of personal information, from their contact details to their bank account. In turn, they want to know sensitive data is kept safe at work, which means businesses need to prioritise data security.   

As your scheduling system will contain sensitive information, it's essential to make sure you choose a provider that offers the highest level of data security. 

Helpfully, you can tailor some employee scheduling solutions to show specific information to approved employees only.  

The bottom line? 

When used correctly, scheduling tools can attract top talent, boost retention rates and future-proof your business. Better still, they give every small or medium-sized business owner the opportunity to have concrete systems in place that would otherwise require more investment and staffing resources. 

How to choose the best employee scheduling software for your needs 

So, now you know how a cloud-based employee scheduling software benefits your small or medium sized business, how do you choose the best tool for your needs? 

As promised earlier in this post, there's a software solution you can access for free and gauge how it meets your business needs. 

Planday is a leading cloud-based employee scheduling platform that enables business owners to streamline their operations and give employees more autonomy. 

Planday’s most useful features for small and medium sized businesses include: 

• Automated scheduling: Planday's automatic employee scheduling system makes stressful and time-consuming shift planning a thing of the past. 
• Dynamic integrations: Simplify your workplace operations by integrating your employee scheduling and payroll software. 
• GPS time clock: With Planday's automatic time clock, employees can punch in using a mobile device, wherever they’re working from. 
• On-demand reporting: Gain valuable data through payroll reports, attendance tracking and everything else you need to understand what's holding your business back and detect areas for growth.  
• Real-time updates: Receive real-time alerts for time-sensitive issues, like schedule changes, absence or regulation compliance. 

Get free access to Planday today 

If you'd like to see how Planday can help your small or medium sized business with its employee scheduling issues, take advantage of our 30-day free trial. There's no obligation to buy before you try, meaning you can try out all our features.  

Get your 30-day free trial today.