Best Employee Scheduling Software

Inefficiently used employee time can lead to a loss for both the business and the employee. Any gap in scheduling employees’ work can affect the business and reputation. Effective scheduling on the other hand, guarantees increased productivity, synergy, and a balance.

The legacy system for employee scheduling can be applicable for an organization having few employees but is not effective when the employee’s number increases. The system is also rigid in a way that it does not allow employees to take control over their shift timing, and generally, it is time-consuming. The legacy system for employee scheduling is prone to errors and lacks transparency. The system proves to be not useful especially in the asynchronous work schedule during the remote working or work-from-home conditions.

In addition to that, continuously changing government compliances pose another challenge for the firms operating in various geographic locations. To mitigate all these issues and manage employee scheduling efficiently, employee scheduling software can be an ideal solution. It makes the employee scheduling efficient and takes care of the necessary compliance that the organization should take into consideration. However, selecting the right employee scheduling software could be a tricky job and requires thorough research to align software with the business requirements. 

This buyer guide on employee scheduling software is intended to help business owners to understand various aspects of the software such as future trends, benefits, cost, features, etc. These insights could be helpful for customers in making the decision on selecting the best employee scheduling software.

Employees are valuable assets to an organization; to accomplish any project or work, they must work as a unit.  It is only possible if an organization has implemented a robust employee management system.  The basic objective of an employee schedule management system is to increase worker motivation, performance, and productivity. With an employee schedule management system, organizations can gain complete visibility of employees' availability, shift assignments, tasks, and roles, removing all the pressure and stress of managing them.

• Costly, inaccurate, and time-consuming: In a manual employee scheduling system organization generally uses a paper sheet or punching card to track employee attendance and shifts. But this system is arbitrary and time-consuming. If any change has to be made in the employee schedule, it could become difficult to record. The administrator must go through all the sheets and make the necessary changes. Also, when the administrator has to process the payroll, they have to manually record the employee’s attendance data into the payroll sheet. It is inaccurate and time-consuming.
• Non-compliance risks: Enforcing compliance in a manual scheduling system is difficult. Organizations failing to meet compliance rules have to bear financial loss in the form of penalties and fees.
• High error rates: The manual system for employee scheduling does not give full visibility of employee shift timing. Employees often rely on verbal communication about their change in shift timing; any communication error can disturb the entire work order. 
• Reduce productivity: Organizations can achieve higher productivity by placing the right person on the job at the right time. For instance, if the employee is allocated two shifts continuously, he cannot perform the tasks with the same energy, which affects his overall productivity.

Employee scheduling software is a tool that helps business organizations efficiently manage employee schedules based on work priorities and business needs. It streamlines the work orders and ensures that the allocated work gets accomplished at a given time. It also helps employees to make changes to their shift timing and swap their shifts with other workers. Besides that, business owners or managers can track employees’ work hours, which helps them to identify the uneven distribution of work and organize them to reduce the workload on employees.

A wide range of industries, including retail, manufacturing, service sector, health industry, restaurants, IT industry, etc can use employee scheduling software.

New-generation technology is quite effective in making businesses more accountable to their investors. But besides financial benefits, it has made complex business processes simple and lean. Workforce management, a critical component of any organization, usually consumes more time and resources. Technology such as employee scheduling software can aid in overcoming these challenges and delivering employee satisfaction. Employee scheduling software can fast pace business operations by quickly scheduling and adjusting employees' work to business requirements.  

Besides that, the centralized data storage system saves all previously scheduled tasks, which can be used as a template for organizing future tasks. It takes away all the hassle of notifying employees personally about their work schedule and allows employees to see their schedule timing in real-time. The employee scheduling software gives employees a sense of control over their shift timing and encourages them to contribute more to their work. 

A business enterprise can also use online employee scheduling software to manage remote workers. Employees can access online scheduling software through mobiles or tablets and inform managers about the progress and challenges they are facing in the field. The most significant advantage of online scheduling software is that employees can access and view their schedules at any time and from anywhere.

The best staff scheduling software enhances the organization’s efficiency by working with other departments or processes. For instance, managers can sync their employees’ work hours data with payroll systems to automatically process their wages. It reduces the error rate and time in processing the employees’ salaries.

Modern workforce management demands technological innovation, and employee scheduling software can play a significant role in fine-tuning workforce management. Business enterprises have to delve into employee scheduling software benefits to know how it can be done.

• Tracking labor costs: Employee task scheduling software assists in organizing the workforce and forecasting the demand for current or future projects. Forecasting the workforce demand in advance helps to plan employee shifts and control unplanned overtime costs. It can track and calculate labor costs against the allocated budget.
• Increase efficiency:  The best staff scheduling software eliminates the paperwork from the process and automates the employee scheduling process faster. It takes away all the time-consuming process of calling employees and asking about their shift timing or availability.       
• Data-driven decisions: An organization can have better visibility of the employee’s work with the right data in hand. For instance, they can collect payroll and labor costs data to make decisions on their current or future expenses.
• Reduce conflicts: Clarity on employees’ schedules facilitate smooth communication between the employees. They can coordinate better with each other and can consider different needs. Not only between employees, but it can also enhance the relationship between employees and management.   
• Auto-assign shift: Assigning shifts can take an ample amount of time. The best employee scheduling software solutions are capable of assigning shifts automatically. It matches the employees’ role, and the work shift can be allocated based on their expertise. It speeds up the process of assigning shifts as well as finding the right match for the job.
• Data analytics:  Best staff scheduling software equips business owners with all the data that could be vital for optimizing employee productivity and enhancing the organization’s performance. It gives insight into labor costs, time clocks, financial reports, schedules, etc. Data analytics and reports clearly show resource usage and allow an organization to decide on resource scheduling.
• Easy access to documents:  Some employee task scheduling software provides employees easy access to company information, training material, policies, and knowledge base. Employees can enhance their job-specific knowledge through a task-scheduling software interface.

There are endless benefits of employee scheduling software; to leverage them all, it is essential to explore its important features.

• Time and Attendance
• Payroll exports
• Geolocation clock-in and Clock-out
• API Access
• HCM integration
• Technical support
• Compliance
• Mobile support
• Notifications and alerts
• Data analytics and reporting
• Demand-based scheduling
• Technical support
• Third-party tool integrations

• Pricing: Pricing is an important factor for any software buyer. There are employee scheduling software solutions that are expensive because of their long list of powerful features.  These tools can be a good choice but not necessary that all organizations require these features.  It is essential that business owners analyze their business needs and then choose employee scheduling software.  Other than that, software users should verify if there are any hidden costs for the software, such as customization, training, security, and implementation costs.
• Third-party tool integration: The best employee scheduling software supports third-party tool integration.  However, some employee scheduling software only supports the core functions and requires a third-party tool to leverage extra features. A comprehensive employee scheduling software should allow integration of external software such as accounting, payroll, reporting, etc.
• User-friendly interface: Employee scheduling software involves making frequent changes and updates to the employee schedule. If the employee scheduling software for business is not user-friendly, then scheduling employee shifts could become challenging and confusing.  Such a system could add additional costs to the organization and minimize the software's ROI. The best way to check the software interface is to enroll for a free trial version, or they can also opt for free employee scheduling software with basic features.
• Flexibility: Employee scheduling tools that adapt according to the business requirements can help the organization avoid the costs of boarding new software and training the staff. It is always an ideal approach to choose easily scalable employee scheduling software that aligns with an organization's growing needs.
• Technical support: Employee scheduling software with excellent technical support could be an advantage as a few features, such as auto-assign shift and third-party tool integration, need expert guidance. It can enhance the software's usability and adoption rate.
• Check SLA (Service Level Agreement):  Before purchasing the employee work scheduling software or signing a contract with software vendors, customers should always check the SLA (Service Level Agreement). SLA clearly defines the services that vendors will provide and the risks it covers.

Employee scheduling software for small businesses is equally effective and helpful as it is for large organizations.

Employee work scheduling software can bring a gamut of benefits to small businesses, and it largely depends on the business’s priorities. Generally, large-scale enterprises need to handle more employees, and their software choice could be different from small-scale businesses. Small-scale businesses usually prefer a low-budget tool with limited features; as such, they don’t have to deal with a large number of employees.  It means they can take all the advantages of employee task scheduling software. However, they need high-end employee scheduling software to leverage the benefits of exclusive features such as live customer support, advanced reporting tools, free third-party tool integration, etc...

To get the maximum benefit from employee scheduling software, it is recommended that users perform thorough research on employee scheduling software. Many employee scheduling software offers a range of features at a minimum price, which can be an ideal solution for small businesses.

• AI driven employee scheduling: AI technology is crafting the next-generation workplace and fuels the business processes to perform better. One of the processes that AI has bolstered is employee scheduling. It facilitates organizations to schedule employees more efficiently and reduce the time in managing them. There is more anticipation about AI in employee scheduling, and in collaboration with other technology, such as predictive analytics, employee scheduling can become more autonomous and intelligent in decision-making. Most employee scheduling software will be laced with advanced AI capabilities in the future.
• Self-servicing employee scheduling app: Self-servicing scheduling apps can give employees more power in scheduling their shifts, especially for hourly employees. Instead of bothering the management for shift adjustment, the employee can use the self-servicing scheduling app to view the empty slot and adjust shifts by themselves. Self-servicing employee scheduling apps can enhance employee experience and help the organization retain employees. It can even send employees alerts if changes are available to their preferences. In the coming days, the self-servicing employee scheduling app can take charge of the employee's scheduling process and give employees more freedom to select their shifts.  
• Chatbots: Chatbots are no more limited to mere customer service. Their role has become more diverse and promises a more personalized experience. Chatbots application in employee scheduling can perform multiple activities, such as filling open shifts, answering employee FAQs, processing leave requests, etc. Some organizations have already implemented chatbots for workforce management, and more are keen to incorporate chatbots in enhancing the employees' experience.  

The costs of employee scheduling software vary from business to business and the size of the business. Small-scale businesses do not need advanced scheduling software features, whereas large-scale businesses need employee scheduling tools loaded with features. The number of software users and features can significantly affect the pricing of employee scheduling tools. However, the average cost of employee scheduling software could be anywhere from $1 to $95/month or more.  The software can be billed either on a monthly basis or annually.  Some software vendors also allow upfront one-time payments.  Employee scheduling software can be either deployed on-premise or as a SaaS solution.

• Employee scheduling software for startups and small businesses:  For startups and small businesses, their main challenge is to conduct their business with limited resources and budget. However, software such as employee scheduling software is inevitable for the organization’s performance and increases employee productivity. Startups and small businesses can use low-budget employee scheduling software to overcome their budget constraint. eTotalplan, at a price of $1/month, is the best employee scheduling software for small businesses and startups.  It has a simple user interface with all necessary features, such as work schedule planning, HR management, predictive scheduling, time and attendance, etc. Another software that reduces the financial load on the organization and stands out as the best employee scheduling software for small businesses is Agendrix at a starting price of $1.5/month. It also offers basic employee scheduling features; on top of that, it provides its clients with free training and robust customer support. Both these tools offer a free trial.  There are a few more tools that users can consider the best employee scheduling software for small businesses and startups, it includes TrackerPal, COAST, Staffjoy, When I Work, etc.

• Employee scheduling software for mid-size and large-scale businesses: Business organizations with a huge employee force can opt for employee scheduling software with high-end features. Connectteam at a starting price of $47/month is an outstanding employee scheduling software for mid-size and large-scale businesses.  Besides regular employee scheduling software features, some notifying features of the software are GPS geolocation stamps, push notifications, claim open shifts, etc. The other employee scheduling tool that can be a good alternative to connectteam is Time Clock Wizard at a price of $19.95/month. The software is well-versed in security features such as multi-server backup and high-grade encryption.  The software also provides a free trial and a free basic version of employee scheduling software. The other software solutions that fall in the same slab include Homebase, Schedulefly, and 7Shifts. Organizations that operate on multiple locations and handle various types of businesses require holistic employee scheduling software that also covers other areas such as customer management, project management, inventory management, marketing automation, etc.  A high-end employee work scheduling software such as Helmbot at a price of $95/month provides all these features. The software offers a free trial. The other premium employee scheduling software that users can count on includes Tanda and Kronos Workforce.    

• Free and open source employee scheduling software:  Free and open source employee scheduling software gives the flexibility to modify and distribute software for free or at a low price. This makes free and open source employee scheduling software an ideal solution for startups and small businesses. They can take advantage of new features, yet they don’t incur any costs of software development or software licenses.

GoodFirms is the top review and rating platform for IT solutions. It has been listing software for various industries and sectors. GoodFirms' expert team has followed a transparent process to ensure customers get the best and the most reliable product for their business. Customers can select the best employee scheduling software tool by comparing them on various parameters like;  features, service, pricing, deployment options, etc.

An employee scheduling system enables the optimization of workflow and increases the employee’s productivity. It also reduces the time and error rates while scheduling employee tasks. If your organization cannot manage the employee scheduling process, it is time to switch to the best employee scheduling software. Do not fail to check the list of best employee scheduling software the GoodFirms expert team prepared.