Tangled up with Paper or Excel? Streamline Work Shifts with Scheduling+
As recently as early 2017, Ben Felner was managing the shifts and attendance for drivers across two states on sheets of physical paper. The risk of mistakes ran high while he wasted precious time and energy. But that all changed when he was onboarded to Scheduling+.
“Scheduling+ has saved me a lot of time,” says Mr. Felner, who is Senior Vice President at a regional franchise for PODS, the nation’s largest portable moving and storage company. “It’s now very easy to see if I have the right people in the right place at the right time.”
Mr. Felner is one of many Scheduling+ clients operating franchises of retail chains that turned to the service to manage employee scheduling, time-clock, payroll, and task management. Scheduling+ provides an immediate, cloud-based solution for supervisors that manages all things shift and attendance related in a centralized interface. Meanwhile, employees can use Scheduling+’s Employee App (on iOS or Android) or its TimeClock App installed to a tablet in convenient location such as a breakroom.
“The biggest benefit to me is the scheduling screen,” Mr. Felner says. “It can get very confusing if you have everything on Excel or paper.”
He adds that the platform allows him to communicate directly with drivers about schedule-related issues, helping keep organized. If drivers need, for instance, to ask for personal time off, they can send a request and get approval.
Mr. Felner also takes advantage of Scheduling+’s TimeClock, which ensures that drivers are in a specific location when they start and finish. That feature helps prevent workers from exaggerating the number of hours they are on the job, thereby reducing the risk of “time theft.”
“The security is an important feature,” he says. “There is other employee-scheduling software out there, but security is one of the things that sets Scheduling+ apart."
Scheduling+ automatically keeps a tally of weekly and daily hours as soon as they’re added to the calendar. Hours worked can also be downloaded directly and shared with a bookkeeper to arrange payments, eliminating the need for extra communication such as e-mails. The system provides exports that can be uploaded to payroll providers ADP, Paycom, Paylocity, Paychex, or Ceridian, and others can easily be added.
Mr. Felner added that it would be simple to add more locations if his franchise expanded geographically. That’s a potential benefit for a range of franchisees as they add new locations, allowing them to focus on more critical issues that come with growth.
For Mr. Felner, there is an added challenge of keeping employees at 40 hours per week or less. When employees have worked longer than a normal week without reason, Mr. Felner stood to incur unnecessary overtime payments – which could be very painful.
With Scheduling+, it’s simple to set up overtime alerts to avoid such mistakes. In Mr. Felner’s case, he prefers to set up daily alerts in the event someone has been on the clock with 600 minutes left until overtime.
“Overtime can get very expensive very fast,” he says. “Scheduling+ is a tremendous help.”
Scheduling+ is part of New York-based GetSwift (Australian Securities Exchange ticker: GSW), a last-mile software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that optimizes delivery routes and schedules for everything from pizza to floral arrangements. Earlier this year, GetSwift acquired both Scheduling+ and Delivery BIZ Pro, which provides software to facilitate delivery between farms and providers of fresh produce to homes and businesses.
To learn more about how Scheduling+ can help your business manage shifts and attendance, click here.
“Scheduling+ has saved me a lot of time,” says Mr. Felner, who is Senior Vice President at a regional franchise for PODS, the nation’s largest portable moving and storage company. “It’s now very easy to see if I have the right people in the right place at the right time.”
Mr. Felner is one of many Scheduling+ clients operating franchises of retail chains that turned to the service to manage employee scheduling, time-clock, payroll, and task management. Scheduling+ provides an immediate, cloud-based solution for supervisors that manages all things shift and attendance related in a centralized interface. Meanwhile, employees can use Scheduling+’s Employee App (on iOS or Android) or its TimeClock App installed to a tablet in convenient location such as a breakroom.
“The biggest benefit to me is the scheduling screen,” Mr. Felner says. “It can get very confusing if you have everything on Excel or paper.”
He adds that the platform allows him to communicate directly with drivers about schedule-related issues, helping keep organized. If drivers need, for instance, to ask for personal time off, they can send a request and get approval.
Mr. Felner also takes advantage of Scheduling+’s TimeClock, which ensures that drivers are in a specific location when they start and finish. That feature helps prevent workers from exaggerating the number of hours they are on the job, thereby reducing the risk of “time theft.”
“The security is an important feature,” he says. “There is other employee-scheduling software out there, but security is one of the things that sets Scheduling+ apart."
Scheduling+ automatically keeps a tally of weekly and daily hours as soon as they’re added to the calendar. Hours worked can also be downloaded directly and shared with a bookkeeper to arrange payments, eliminating the need for extra communication such as e-mails. The system provides exports that can be uploaded to payroll providers ADP, Paycom, Paylocity, Paychex, or Ceridian, and others can easily be added.
Mr. Felner added that it would be simple to add more locations if his franchise expanded geographically. That’s a potential benefit for a range of franchisees as they add new locations, allowing them to focus on more critical issues that come with growth.
For Mr. Felner, there is an added challenge of keeping employees at 40 hours per week or less. When employees have worked longer than a normal week without reason, Mr. Felner stood to incur unnecessary overtime payments – which could be very painful.
With Scheduling+, it’s simple to set up overtime alerts to avoid such mistakes. In Mr. Felner’s case, he prefers to set up daily alerts in the event someone has been on the clock with 600 minutes left until overtime.
“Overtime can get very expensive very fast,” he says. “Scheduling+ is a tremendous help.”
Scheduling+ is part of New York-based GetSwift (Australian Securities Exchange ticker: GSW), a last-mile software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that optimizes delivery routes and schedules for everything from pizza to floral arrangements. Earlier this year, GetSwift acquired both Scheduling+ and Delivery BIZ Pro, which provides software to facilitate delivery between farms and providers of fresh produce to homes and businesses.
To learn more about how Scheduling+ can help your business manage shifts and attendance, click here.