Lubbock, Texas – February 9, 2007 – Most restaurants and hotels manage employee scheduling with printed schedules posted on a bulletin board. When the schedule is posted, employees race to the board to check their schedule, then squabble with one another and management to swap shifts. When employees forget when they work, management is responsible for routing phone calls from employees with inquiries about the schedule, time-off requests, employees who are late showing up, and other scheduling situations, all while customers are neglected and ignored.
Innovations in technology have created an easier and faster way to manage employee schedules: web applications running over the Internet. Through the use of a protected Internet web site, management can create schedules and employees can check for updates from any location, at any time. There are a variety of websites offering electronic scheduling services.
When shopping for a scheduling application, it is important that it has features that make scheduling easier. For instance, the ability to automatically email employees with the latest schedule is an important capability in any scheduling software package. Service is also an important characteristic, and some companies will ease the transition from paper to online scheduling by transferring your existing schedules into electronic format. A few scheduling applications have features that set them above the competition. For instance, TimeForge.com, a premier online employee scheduling tool, has an option that automatically optimizes the schedule to be the most cost-efficient for your business, while considering employee and manager preferences.
Electronic scheduling services usually require a monthly or yearly subscription and pricing is based on either the number of employees at the establishment or a flat-rate monthly fee.
If you manage employees, electronic scheduling software is a worthwhile investment. Aside from the instant time saving features that online scheduling applications offer, they can also reduce your employee turnover rate. Poor employee satisfaction is an important determination for employees to look for other jobs, which increases your employee turnover rate and causes you to re-invest money into training a new employee. Online scheduling software can improve the employee satisfaction at your business by creating schedules that are based on employee and manager preferences. Scheduling based on employee and manager preferences ensures that employees are always kept in the “loop”, and management does not need to worry about schedule-related disputes.
Print scheduling is a thing of the past; to be competitive in today’s hospitality industry, electronic scheduling is a necessity.
