In the Hospitality Sector, it’s quite common to have multiple shifts, often with overlapping coverage. Due to these different shifts, scheduling can quickly become a complex issue. Staff Rostering Software offers a way to simplify this process. It helps ensure that everything runs smoothly. Easily deal with scheduling challenges and last minute call-offs or late shifts. But, what is staff rostering software?
It’s essentially a complete system for handling all your scheduling needs. You can use it to build your rosters, assign shifts, and allow staff to edit their availability – among dozens of other tasks.
What are the Drawbacks to Using a Manual System?
If you work in the hospitality sector, then you’re already aware of some of the drawbacks of using a manual system. It’s inefficient and errors can occur. In some situations, employees can’t clock out until their replacements arrive for the next shift. When someone calls off, employees may be forced to work overtime. This can easily eat into your payroll budget. With a manual system, managers need to make the best decision based on the data that they have available. This could result in overtime for an employee, adding up the payroll costs.
If a replacement is needed at the last minute, then a manager will need to begin going through a list of available employees. Along with not knowing about overtime, they will need to consider employee availability. This is a time-consuming process.
That only covers a couple of the issues related to call offs and unexpected problems. You also need to consider the difficulties related to creating the schedule in the first place. Building a schedule from scratch can take hours upon hours. Whether each department has a manager in charge of the schedule or if your HR team handles the work, you’re wasting resources. Managers, supervisors, and HR personnel generally have a higher pay rate than your average employee. And, these manual systems use up a portion of their work day.
In any business or organisation, time can be measured in cost. So, does it make sense to waste these expensive hours on scheduling? Not when there’s a better solution available. These problems become more common with additional shifts, more departments, and more employees. The larger the business, the more crucial efficient scheduling becomes. To meet the needs of your staff, customers, or clients, you need the right schedule. A manual system simply doesn’t offer the flexibility and efficiency that the hospitality sector demands.
Why Should You Switch to an Automated Rostering System?
As mentioned, it can take hours to create a schedule – even for a small department for a dozen employees. Imagine the amount of time that it takes to schedule hundreds or thousands of employees. Staff rostering software makes life easier for anyone that regularly handles scheduling.
That is the primary purpose of most technologies, especially enterprise solutions. The goal is to simplify the way that you handle normal tasks and operations. In this case, you’re using software to improve the way you create schedules.
Employees Can Set Their Own Availability
Give your employees the ability to set their own availability. Employees can enter their preferences into the system. They can set their preferred hours per week, the days they’d like to have off, and other details. When a supervisor begins building a schedule, they can assign jobs or schedule shifts based on this availability – along with other factors.
By giving employees control over their availability, they are more accountable for their attendance. This generally results in fewer absences and late shifts. At the same time, this tends to improve morale. There are several reasons for this. When employees show up for shifts on time and don’t call off, fewer employees are needed to cover shifts at the last minute. This makes everyone happy and prevents the main issue with a manual system – a lack of coverage for open shifts.
Use Open Shift Notifications to Cover Shifts
In the hospitality sector, open shifts are a frequent problem. Even when you meet the availability needs of your staff, you’ll still have occasional call offs and no shows. These open shifts need to be covered as soon as possible.
Staff rostering software can make it easy for employees to volunteer for these shifts. Workers will receive notifications of these open shifts. The system sends out a notification when there’s a planned or unplanned absence. Open shift notifications can also be set to filter out employees that have already reached the limit for overtime. This is just one more example of how this software can keep you from going over budget.
Managers can also easily find the right people to cover each shift based on the skill sets of each employee. The pay rate, experience, and skill sets can be factored into the scheduling process.
Automate Your Roster Building and Create Complex Schedules
In the end, the main advantage of using staff rostering software is to automate the process of creating complex schedules. When you think of all the factors that go into a schedule, it only makes sense to automate the process. Your supervisors don’t have the time available to create the most efficient schedule possible.
If you want things to run smoothly, you need to deal with scheduling issues quickly. Staff rostering software offers the best solution to this. Supervisors can instantly create complex rosters or find the perfect choice to cover a shift.
Now is the time to consider updating your scheduling. Learn more about rostering software for your business.
