BUYER S GUIDE EMPLOYEE SCHEDULING SOFTWARE

Transcription

1 BUYER S GUIDE EMPLOYEE SCHEDULING SOFTWARE

2 ABOUT THIS GUIDE This buyer s guide is intended as an A-Z look at employee scheduling software. Regardless of what position you hold or what level of interest you have, we hope that this guide will be helpful for your decision-making. We broke this guide into four different sections based on the stages of a typical purchasing cycle: Part One is for readers who know very little about employee scheduling software and are looking for a brief overview of the basics. It answers questions like Who is it for? What is it? and Why would I need it? If you are interested but not ready to delve into the specifics yet, you can start here. Part Two builds upon the knowledge from Part One and offers more in-depth information about what buyers should be looking for in terms of features and benefits. If you re starting to research a solution for your business, read this section to get a solid foundation of knowledge. Part Three is for when you re ready to compare vendors and decide on the right product for your organization. First, do a short self-assessment to understand your requirements. Then, refer to our list of questions when attending demos or webinars with vendors. We ve also included a project timeline guide that can help you get buy-in from core members in your organization and get the initiative going. Part Four is the final stage of the cycle, where you are ready to implement and want to ensure the success of your project. This is a helpful section to read for buyers at all stages, as it helps you understand what kind of timeline to expect and what metrics you should put in place to measure your return on investment (ROI). Regardless of where you are in the cycle, the information is designed to provide a comprehensive and impartial look at employee scheduling software. Our hope is that it helps you make informed decisions about what product is the best fit for your business. 2

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part One: Context Who Needs Employee Scheduling? Say No to Manual Scheduling Part Two: Learning What Is SaaS? What Is Scheduling Automation? What Are the Core Benefits? Part Three: Evaluation Getting the Project Going Self-Assessment Questions to Ask Vendors Scheduling Employee Self-Management Compliance Optimization Integrations Part Four: Purchase Getting Started Ensuring and Measuring Success

4 PART ONE: CONTEXT WHO NEEDS EMPLOYEE SCHEDULING? Employee scheduling software is designed for organizations that employ shift/hourly workers. The software can be used in just about every industry. Even for businesses that operate around normal business hours (8am to 5pm), there may be hourly employees who need to be scheduled for shifts. Depending on which industry you re in and the size of your business, the type of scheduling solution you need will be different. Industries When night shifts are involved, scheduling becomes a lot more complex. This is because the risk of fatigue and human error increases when employees are working through the night. This may require additional rules to ensure that workers are getting enough rest between shifts. Daytime Retail Restaurants and cafes Salons Theme parks 24/7 Industries Energy (oil and gas, nuclear, power plants, etc.) Manufacturing Healthcare Correctional facilities Emergency medical services (EMS) There are other industries such as transportation (aviation, trucking) and construction, where employee scheduling may happen in conjunction with other enterprise resource planning. Size The strict definition of size can vary according by industry and by country. The categories below are based on the number of employees and is intended to give a basic understanding of how employee scheduling software can work for businesses of each size. It is possible for a smaller organization with high complexity to require an enterpriselevel solution. If you have less than 10 employees, a free web-based tool like Google Docs may be the most convenient method for creating schedules and keeping everyone in sync. Small (Less than 50 employees) Once you have more than 10 employees, scheduling manually becomes more difficult. The ideal scheduling solution for this size would be simple and easy to use scheduling. An easy-to-use system that requires minimal customization will be the best fit. Medium (51 to 300 employees) If you have a workforce of more than 50 employees, you may need a system built for more complex operations. Look for advanced or complex scheduling that can offer a more robust set of features for scheduling, analytics, and third party integrations. If you have labor rules to comply with, you may fit the description for Large. Large (More than 300 employees) For large organizations, the requirements will be very different. Most likely, new software solutions will need to integrate with existing IT infrastructure. As well, there may be multiple organizationspecific processes to follow in addition to labor regulations and union agreements. The best (and maybe only) option is to choose a configurable or customizable scheduling solution that can understand and deliver on your unique needs. 4

5 PART ONE: CONTEXT SAY NO TO MANUAL SCHEDULING Sometimes, we come across true horror stories in the world of employee scheduling. Imagine a 24/7 refinery with more than 200 employees where managers are still scheduling in Excel spreadsheets, or worse, on a white board! Employee scheduling is a pain point for too many businesses, when in fact there are numerous solutions out there that can make it as easy as clicking a single button while saving you a lot of money. The following lists five ways that manual scheduling is failing your business: 1. Manual scheduling is costly. When managers are trying to schedule employees on paper or Excel spreadsheets, they quickly become tied up in administrative tasks such as making changes, updating everyone on those changes, and filling in overtime shifts by going down a list of employees. Not only is the overtime selection a time-consuming process, it often happens in an arbitrary manner instead of a systematic way that finds the lowest-cost employee. There may also be union grievances filed from failing to comply with overtime equalization rules. 2. Productivity is slumping. Having managers preoccupied with managing the mundane details of scheduling is a significant drain on resources and an obstacle for the workflow. Especially where compliance with labor rules is concerned, managers may spend many headache-inducing hours trying to find the right combinations of employees. As well, lack of insight into where under-staffing and overstaffing are occurring means that employees are not working their most optimal shifts. 3. Key data is being ignored. Creating schedules on an ad-hoc basis means that you are missing out on opportunities to track patterns and trends over time. As a business, some critical questions to ask include What are the total overtime hours for an employee or for a group?, What is the most common reason for overtime scheduling? and What is our compliance record for the past 6 months? Without access to these analytics, you are planning your business in the dark and losing out on your competitive edge. 4. Employees are dissatisfied. Employee dissatisfaction is more difficult to measure, but tensions and frustrations can result for several reasons. The absence of a centralized method of communicating may mean that important messages are not transferred timely or successfully. As well, manual scheduling leaves room for accusations around favoritism, where other employees suspect bias in how overtime shifts are distributed. 5. Manual scheduling is a risk. This is the most important reason to ditch manual scheduling. The risks associated with employee fatigue are too great to overlook. There have been several incidents in the oil and gas industry where employee fatigue was a contributing factor. Manual scheduling greatly increases the chances of compliance failures and potentially puts lives in danger. Beyond these five, there are other pain points, many of which relate to manual scheduling being an inefficient and expensive process. To read a more detailed description of these five ways, refer to our PDF or blog post. 5

6 PART TWO: LEARNING WHAT IS SAAS? SaaS stands for software-as-aservice, which is a centralized storage of data that is accessible via the web. It is becoming an increasingly popular method of delivering technology solutions for businesses, whether it be for accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), or of course, employee scheduling. Also referred to as web-based or cloudbased, SaaS provides a better alternative to the traditional way of hosting software on company servers. Traditional vs. SaaS While many businesses are still using on-premise software, there are significant limitations in the modern business context. In a nutshell, on-premise means that the software is installed on individual computers that are connected to the company s unique servers, which places restrictions on when, where, and on what device information can be accessed. Below are some common pains of using on-premise software: Updates have to be installed manually. Users are unable to access the software from home. Licensing requires a large lump sum payment in the beginning. Customizations are very difficult or nearly impossible. Customer support may take a long time or require someone to do a site visit. SaaS, on the other hand, gives you some key capabilities: Users can access the service from anywhere, anytime with Internet access. No licensing fees set-up costs are lower since the service is subscription-based. More equitable pricing monthly onthly fees based on the number of employees doesn t discriminate against small organizations, and is scalable Updates are automatic, frequent, and seamless. No IT support required vendors handle all the bug fixes from their back-end. Trials are often offered to help your decision-making. SaaS solutions can be scaled as your business grows and many allow for integrations with existing systems. In short, SaaS is the most costeffective, scalable, and adaptable way to deploy tech solutions. Enterprises have begun to make the switch and the demand for SaaS is expected to grow. The Gartner Group estimates that revenues in the SaaS industry will more than double between 2010 and While the trend seems obvious, some customers may have reservations about making the switch. If you have concerns over security, integrations, or any other aspect of SaaS, we recommend speaking to a vendor about your needs. Our verdict? Go SaaS before your competitive edge takes a hit! 6

7 PART TWO: LEARNING WHAT IS SCHEDULING AUTOMATION? Automation is one of the most powerful capabilities in employee scheduling software. This is an important topic to delve into because not all scheduling automation is made equal. The word can refer to the automatic sending of or SMS alerts, while in other contexts, it can point to a powerful tool that can generate optimized and compliance-checked schedules in seconds. Considering all the variety available, we ll discuss what to look for when comparing automation features. Who Needs It? The ability to generate schedules with a single click of a button is what sets apart the more advanced tools from simpler options. For smaller businesses, this feature may not be necessary. In software targeted to retail or restaurants, shift scheduling may be done on a weekly basis, once employees submit their availability. A useful feature is the ability to save schedule templates in a library. This means time savings in creating schedules from scratch each time and the flexibility to use different patterns that reflect seasonal changes in demand. For example, a specific pattern for the holiday season may be useful for retail businesses. This method still captures the major benefits of SaaS solutions. However, larger workforces may require a more advanced solution to fully reap the benefits. How Does It Work? Automation refers to the ability to generate schedules without the manager having to assign each shift individually. For this to happen, the system needs to understand the basic requirements of your schedule. The basic components include the shift patterns for each employee (how many hours and how often), the skills required for each shift, the skills of each employee, and labor rule regulations if there are any. Once the building blocks are entered, you can select a date range and the automation tool will be able to compute an optimized schedule that meets all your needs, without requiring you to do manual calculations at any point of the process. Criteria for Evaluation Understandably, automation can be a game-changing tool for large organizations. While most features will allow for huge time and cost savings, there are specific criteria to compare the effectiveness and sophistication of different tools. The top three things you should look for are accuracy, scalability, and optimization. Accuracy refers to the rate of errors from using the tool. If the generated schedule contains compliance failures, the tool falls behind in accuracy. Scalability refers to the ability to handle large numbers of employees. This also relates to the ability to handle complexity, as a larger workforce often correlates with more specified skills and location requirements. This is an important consideration as your business grows. Last but not least, optimization is the most telling measure of a powerful automation tool and can have a significant impact on your ROI. Automation tools that optimize are able to allocate your resources to where they are most needed and generate the lowest cost schedule by minimizing unnecessary overtime. A mechanism built with strong algorithms is not only errorfree and scalable, but go the extra mile to provide maximum value. 7

8 PART TWO: LEARNING WHAT ARE THE CORE BENEFITS? In employee scheduling, there are specific capabilities of the SaaS model and scheduling automation that can ensure maximum ROI and optimal results for clients. The core benefits reflect a solution for the main pain points of manual scheduling identified in Part 1. The following benefits can begin with the first day of deployment. There are many more, but these core improvements are why an employee scheduling software is a no-brainer. Increased Efficiency By eliminating paperwork from the scheduling process, a SaaS solution can give managers time to focus on value-adding tasks and make communication channels with employees faster and more hasslefree. For everyday users of the product, the improvement will be dramatic, thanks to the elimination of distractions like scrambling to fill overtime shifts or calling in to find out when your shift is scheduled. Data-Driven Decision-Making At the corporate level, access to workforce analytics can lead to better decision-making that answers to your true needs. Knowing where persistent overtime is occurring can have a positive effect on hiring plans and ultimately reduce costs of business. As well, analytics on sick days and leaves can serve as an indicator of employee satisfaction, giving management time to deal with the warning signs before situations catch them off guard. Bottom-line Reduction Of course, the primary goal of business is to maximize profit. Employee scheduling software provides significant ROI for organizations. Especially with SaaS deployments, the low set-up cost means that payback can start with the first schedule. Automation also guarantees money and time savings. Employee Satisfaction Bottom-line impact is important, but the human aspect deserves equal attention. For the daily users of the product, a compliancechecked scheduling system will serve to instill a sense of trust and fairness. In place of suspicions over favoritism or grievances over overtime assignment, there will be an automated, consistent, and tracked method. As well, employees will be empowered by having access to self-management portals. Minimized Compliance Risk Minimized compliance risk can have many positive ripple effects for organizations. In addition to decreased risk for fines, it can improve a business s reputation and lower incident rates. By putting labor rule compliance and fatigue management as priorities, management can protect the company s credibility. In addition, you can keep the workforce morale high by having standards in place for occupational health and safety. 8

9 PART THREE: EVALUATION GETTING THE PROJECT GOING Identifying the Key People An important first step of the evaluation phase is getting an understanding of the key stakeholders and influencers within your organization in the context of employee scheduling. For medium and large enterprises, this is an important step to ensuring the efficiency and success of the project. Whether directly or indirectly involved, below are examples of individuals whose support is valuable to the process: Executive sponsorship HR Manager Managers who own the scheduling responsibility (e.g. Operations/Maintenance Managers or Deputies) Health and Safety Manager IT Manager Schedulers Comptroller Union representatives Employees The managerial staff s input will be required during the selection process, when there is likely to be a committee formed to make the final decision. The schedulers and employees can provide valuable insights about the everyday functionality of existing and ideal solutions. As well, their early involvement will be helpful for the adoption phase. Understanding the Process Once the key individuals have been brought into the conversation, the evaluation process can go forward. If a formal task force has been established, setting up key milestones can help you stay on track. 1. Conduct a self-assessment (for key questions, see next page). 2. Identify the potential vendors based on your requirements. 3. Review and compare the vendors using our sample questions. 4. Select 2-3 finalists and do a detailed review, including potential ROI and the company s credibility. 5. Select a vendor and develop an implementation plan. The process may vary from business to business and also depending on your industry. For smaller organizations, the task force may consist of one or very few people and the timeline may be quite short. In larger organizations, a request for proposals (RFP) may be necessary before selecting a vendor and the procedure may happen over several months. Regardless of your size, the exercise of self-assessment and vendor comparison will be a useful and critical step to choosing the right employee scheduling tool for your needs. 9

10 PART THREE: EVALUATION SELF-ASSESSMENT At this stage you know about employee scheduling and the benefits of implementing a solution that is the right fit for your organization. In the evaluation phase, you are ready to determine what features you need and which vendor to choose. How many employees need to be scheduled at your organization? Do you have multiple locations to manage? What kind of customizations do you need (labor rules, union agreements, etc.)? What are the long-term goals of this project? The questions below are a good place to start. By asking yourself these key questions, you will gain a better understanding of what your needs are before you begin speaking with and comparing different vendors. It can even help you narrow your pool of choices from the outset, saving you time. What does your employee scheduling process look like now? What are the key pains you want to solve? What kind of reporting features do you need? What kind of integrations do you need? What is your budget for this project? What is your timeline for implementing new software? Who are the key decision-makers for approving this project? What kind of ROI do you expect? 10

11 PART THREE: EVALUATION QUESTIONS TO ASK VENDORS We recommend comparing various vendors before reaching a decision. The questions you answered in the self-assessment will be useful for this stage because it will make the process of narrowing down your choices much easier and faster. Depending on the vendor, your initial interactions will vary. Some vendors allow users to sign up for a trial account straight from the website. This is usually the case with software targeted towards small businesses. For medium to enterprise solutions, a trial does not happen until some contact has been made. Most often, you will first attend a webinar or schedule a live demo to gain more in-depth knowledge of the platform. We have prepared example questions to ask vendors when attending a one-on-one demo. We have organized this section into five main components of employee scheduling software: Scheduling Employee Self-Management Compliance Optimization Integrations Each section has its own page. Beside each set of questions, we left some empty space for taking notes as you talk with different vendors. End-to-end Solutions The vendor evaluation may be different for end-to-end HR suites that encompass scheduling, time and attendance, payroll, talent management, among others. This buyer s guide is written primarily for those who are interested in a specialized tool for employee scheduling, but the viability of an end-to-end solution may be a useful discussion for your task force. Whichever solution you choose, articulating and understanding the key features of employee scheduling software will help you maximize your ROI. 11

12 PART THREE: EVALUATION SCHEDULING Questions to Ask: NOTES Is your platform web-based? Can your platform automatically generate schedules for selected date ranges, in a way that complies with all requirements and labor rules (leaving shifts unassigned if necessary)? Does your platform allow multiple filters for viewing the schedule (e.g. date range, view by employees/shifts, etc.)? Can your platform allow for scheduling across multiple locations? Can your platform handle multiple time zones? Is it possible to save multiple shift patterns in a library? Can multiple users edit a schedule simultaneously? Is it possible to set different levels of user access? 12

13 PART THREE: EVALUATION EMPLOYEE SELF-MANAGEMENT Questions to Ask: NOTES Can employees access their schedule data from their personal devices? Can employees receive or SMS alerts about updates to the schedule? Can employees request leaves and vacations on your platform? Can employees request shift trades with other employees? Can employees volunteer for open shifts? Can employees bid for open shifts? Is the interface easy to use? 13

14 PART THREE: EVALUATION COMPLIANCE Questions to Ask: NOTES Is your solution able to comply with labor regulations on hours-of-work limits? Does your solution alert the scheduler when they attempt to schedule an employee who is ineligible to work according to work rules? Can I produce audit reports for compliance data on selected date ranges? Is it possible to track changes made to the schedule (time, location, user) for audit purposes? Is your solution able to comply with union agreements (e.g. UAW, USW)? Is there a way to validate and review the skills proficiency of employees? 14

15 PART THREE: EVALUATION OPTIMIZATION Questions to Ask: NOTES Beyond schedule creation, what optimizing features do you offer that are unique to your product? When scheduling shifts (including overtime), is it possible to view a list of all employees who are available to work? When assigning overtime shifts, is your platform able to provide a ranked list of candidate based on who would be the lowest-cost employee? (OR does your platform have a way to assign overtime shifts to the lowest-cost employee?) What are all the reporting features you offer? Is there a way to track the total overtime hours for individuals or groups? What kind of statistics around overtime can I access (e.g. reason for overtime shifts)? 15

16 PART THREE: EVALUATION INTEGRATION Questions to Ask: NOTES What are all the integrated services and platforms for your product? Does your solution include a time and attendance function? Does your solution include payroll or integrate with major payroll providers? Can your platform sync schedules to calendars (Google, Outlook, etc.)? 16

17 PART FOUR: PURCHASE GETTING STARTED Congratulations! Once you ve reached this stage, it means you have decided on an employee scheduling solution. You re now ready to move forward with the implementation. For smaller businesses, it is common to begin with a free trial account and simply continue with the product by paying for a monthly subscription. For businesses with more complex requirements, the trial will likely not happen until near the end of the decision-making stage. Each vendor will have a different process for working with new clients, although the project life cycle will be similar for most medium to large organizations. Timeline Customizations The customizations required can include labor regulations that are not yet built for any other client, union agreements, and any sitespecific rules for scheduling. Also, you may require specific reporting features for data analytics or auditing purposes. For organizations with a high degree of complexity, we recommend choosing a vendor with proven experience in building customizations instead of providing black box solutions. More so than having the most features on a checklist, it s important to invest in a company that will evolve as your business evolves. Implementation Step Project scope definition Requirement analysis Design and development Configuration Description Having a well-defined scope of the project is critical to proper execution. Without knowing the boundaries, it is easy to get off-course. At the outset vendors should meet with the executive sponsors, project manager, and functional analyst to get a clear list of objectives. Requirements analysis involves gathering all the key requirements and needs of staff scheduling and overtime allocation within your organization. This step will be the input used to define the system enhancements to meet your needs. It is also at this stage that some vendors may be able to provide workflow optimization suggestions to improve your scheduling process. Development teams will design, code and test the enhancements according to the document from the detailed requirements analysis step to close the gap. In many cases little to no customization of the software is needed to meet the customers requirements. The software is configured for your specific scheduling requirements. The timeline will depend on the amount of customization for each client, as determined at the requirement analysis stage. If a standard edition fits your needs, the implementation stages of configuration, training, and deployment can be accomplished in as little as 1 week for a 500-employee facility. Training Testing Deployment Vendors train users on the new software. Users test the system to ensure that it has been configured correctly and functioning according the requirements. A roll-out procedure is carried out to deploy the system to end users. 17

18 PART FOUR: PURCHASE ENSURING AND MEASURING SUCCESS With any major project, establishing success metrics is a key step. Did the vendor deliver on your main goals and deploy according to the timeline? Answering this question should happen in a systematic manner over an extended time period. This way, warning signs can be caught early on and necessary troubleshooting can happen to ensure success over the long term. Especially in the deployment stage, transitioning to new software can meet with resistance from users, so it is important to have impartial criteria for evaluation. Key Questions Goals were your main goals at the corporate, budget, and IT levels met? Timeline was the vendor able to meet key deliverables by a preestablished timeline? Support has there been ongoing support from the vendor? Measuring Return-on- Investment (ROI) ROI on employee scheduling software can come from several sources, such as: Eliminated unnecessary overtime hours Reduced manager time spent on scheduling Reduced union grievances related to scheduling Reduced compliance error Better shift planning based on data There are also indirect measures, such as streamlined workflows and employee satisfaction that can lead to higher productivity. The ROI margin can vary depending on what kind of solution you chose. For comprehensive HR solutions that include time and attendance, payroll, and talent management, the payback period may be different. For those who chose a specialized employee scheduling software, the direct impact to the bottom line will be more evident and perhaps more immediate. 18

19 About Us SchedulePro is an automated and web-based solution for employee scheduling in medium to large organizations. It has a unique pluggable technology that can customize to any combination of compliance needs and deliver optimal results. EDP Software is a leading provider of web-based and custom workforce management software. Our main product is SchedulePro, which delivers tailored and cutting-edge employee scheduling solutions for enterprises like Ford and Shell. We also offer unique analytics and reporting features, in addition to time and attendance and payroll integration. We are located in the beautiful Gastown district of Vancouver, with offices in Ontario and New Brunswick. Contact 55 Water Street Suite 315, 3rd floor Vancouver, BC V6B 1A1 Phone: spro@edpsoftware.com Website: