Why should you pick WhatTimeDoIWork.com Online Employee Scheduling Software? Part 2: Benefits for Management

12 Feb, 2014 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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In this edition of the three-part series, we will review the features and benefits for managers and schedulers. There are many different features that are only available through online scheduling software, which will help save you and your employees countless hours. What Time Do I Work.com has taken these benefits and expanded upon them with their unique offerings for posting, reporting, and communicating schedules by allowing you to customize the program to fit your business needs with the following features:

  • Shifts
  • Standard Hours vs Overtime Hours
  • Pay Scale
  • Access to employee information
  • Individual Employee availability
  • Preferred methods of communication

With all of this customized information built into the program, our software goes from a simple scheduling calendar template, to an advanced strategic business planning program. First, you can access What Time Do I Work.com from anywhere with any computer through a secure login, to allow you to create schedules when and where it is convenient for you. When a scheduler starts creating an upcoming schedule they have many advantages; the What Time Do I Work.com system automatically populates the schedule with employee time off requests in the applicable shifts, and will automatically alert you of any conflicts and overtime hours accrued. In fact, our system allows your employees to enter their own time-off requests, so that they are available for review all in one place for all employees. There is also the added benefit that the program records the time a request is entered so that the scheduler can fairly grant time off requests.

We also have reporting and communication features that help improve your business, reason enough to validate the affordable price of our program! Our reporting offering includes calculating labor costs as you create the schedule, requirements for adequate shift coverage and employee performance reporting.

Once the perfect conflict free schedule has been completed and posted online, with a single click of a button you can send out communications to your entire staff, whether there are 5 or 500 employees, as well as remind them of their upcoming shifts. If you have an employee call out of a shift, the program also allows you to simultaneously contact all employees that are not working to assist you in finding coverage immediately.

With What Time Do I Work.com online employee scheduling you can kiss late nights and weekends spent at your computer trying to create or recreate schedules goodbye, the endless scheduling calls will decrease dramatically, and wasted money on overtime hours and upset employees when they are scheduled for the wrong shift will be a thing of the past.

Join us for the finale of this series where we will review the benefits to your employees that will improve your turnover rate and help to create a happier work environment.

Why should you pick WhatTimeDoIWork.com Online Employee Scheduling Software?

10 Feb, 2014 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The first step to success is to stop working in your business and start working on your business. You have probably spent far too many hours creating and updating your weekly schedules, and yet, do you have a full grasp on the amount of overtime wages you have needlessly paid? This is the ideal time to start looking for scheduling support. There are many different options available today and you should put some serious thought and consideration into what exactly you are looking for. In this 3 part series we will extensively review the scheduling software options available.

The simplest solution would be using an Excel spreadsheet instead of pen and paper. This will make a clean scheduling template, but it really doesn’t save you a lot of time. What you really need is a program developed by expert schedulers that has been designed to save you both time and money. While it may sound counterintuitive to pay for scheduling software to make money, the money and time you will save will far outweigh the cost of the software.

The first decision to make regards the the type of program you would like to use. Traditional software that you purchase once and is housed on a single computer, or an online software that does not require downloading, and you receive automatic updates without having to download any additional information. Not to mention that you can pay as you go, and you will have all of your information saved in the cloud so it can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, not just from your office. Online scheduling software offers the additional ability for your employees to have access to their schedules from home.

With online software your employees can enter time off requests, view the schedule, fill open shifts, and even swap shifts with other employees. You can also communicate a new schedule, an updated schedule or an open shift to your full staff (or select employees) with just one click of the button. Just think of all the extra time you will have to devote to other aspects of your business.

In our next edition, we will be examining some of the features you should be looking for in online scheduling software. If scheduling, employee requests, and time management have become a problem for you and your business, try What Time Do I Work.com online staff scheduling, and store all of your employees’ scheduling and contact information on the cloud for your access from anywhere at any time. Try it risk free for 30 days!

The secret to getting new patrons is spelled “F-U-N”

03 Feb, 2014 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Your restaurant is unique, with a style all its own. You’ve worked hard to create an atmosphere that welcomes patrons to spend some time eating good food, relaxing at the bar with a martini or glass of wine, and enjoying the company of friends.

But you’re well aware that your restaurant is not the only game in town. You vie for patrons with many other establishments in your general area. And while you have a large number of loyal locals, you need to attract new patrons from other areas of town who want to do more than just eat and run—but to eat, drink, and hang out for the evening. This is the best way to ensure your restaurant’s long-term success.

So what do you do to attract more patrons?  How about turning part of your bar area into a game area? You can place ads in the local newspapers and online, and hang a funky sign in the doorway that proclaims, “Game Room,” with a hand pointing to the new game zone. While the older crowd might have little interest in pool, younger folks will be delighted to spend their money on pool, darts, cocktails and appetizers—and you’ll be happy with your new patrons and profitable venture.

You can expand on the “fun” theme by adding activities like trivia nights, comedians, musicians and other “bar” games such as darts. Trivia nights are sweeping the nation and bringing large crowds to bars. Many patrons will remember happy days in college, when their on-site bar sponsored a weekly darts league. They’ll fondly reminisce about the Thursday nights they spent with dozens of students and friends, vying for the top spot on the leader board. Like many restaurants, pubs, and bars, your games atmosphere has the potential for huge success—not only in terms of bringing in new clientele, but also in significantly boosting bar revenue.

At the end of the day, you’ll benefit not only from excellent earnings, but also dozens of new and frequent patrons looking for good food, good drinks, and a good time. So the moral of the story is, “To get patrons to spend more time—and money—at your establishment, you don’t have to spend a lot of money—just spend it on things that spell F-U-N.”

Don’t forget that What Time Do I Work.com scheduling software can assign duties and tasks to your staff to ensure that all patrons receive excellent customer service and that you bar is adequately staffed at all times. You can try it out free for 30 days!

How do you create a Time-off Policy

17 Dec, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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For many companies, managing vacation and time-off requests is a constant challenge. You need to maintain adequate business coverage and support while understanding that your employees have times when they need to take time off.  The outcome of not having a formal policy in place about when and how to submit requests results in employees asking for time off by:

  • Talking to you in the hallway or your office
  • Calling you on the phone
  • Sending you an email
  • Scribbling the days and dates on a piece of paper and dropping it on your desk
  • Taping a note to your office door

These types of requests are not only hard to deal with on the fly, becasue of the no boundaries on “acceptable ways to request time off,” but you are also tasked with trying to keep track of who requested what time off. And if you have two employees requesting the same days off, who gets first dibs?

There are many different options and ways to create policies, but the most common in the service and health industries is to create a “time-off bank.” Here’s how the bank works. Let’s say each employee is allowed 160 hours off each year, which equates to 20 work days. The bank includes time off for:

  • Holidays
  • Vacation
  • Sick days
  • Personal days

You can’t always give all your employees all of the holidays off, so they can use their banked time to request  vacations or personal/sick days off. Each employee is responsible for scheduling the days he or she wants off from work, using a single prescribed method, within the needs of the business. You can require that requests are submitted for planned time off within 2 weeks of the date, and that they must submit requests on special forms that are filed away for you to refer to when creating upcoming schedules

This plan offers many benefits to employees. They can:

  • Ensure that their time off request will not be forgotten
  • Assume responsibility for their own time off; they make their own choices, and they need to abide by them. For example, some employees might prefer a day off for religious holidays, rather than the Fourth of July.
  • Draw from their time-off bank for emergencies, such as caring for a sick child.  Remember, the bank is for all time off—holidays, vacation, sick days, and personal days.

The plan also offers many benefits to you. You will:

  • Spend significantly less time managing time-off requests; all requests will come to you through the standard form submitted in the “time-off request box”
  • Create more accurate schedules that require fewer changes, as you no longer have to try to remember who asked for what time off?
  • Empower your employees by letting them make more choices about how they spend their time away from work
  • Create a more positive working atmosphere at your company

All of these ways are great, but they are still time consuming, especially when going through all the requests each time you make the schedule. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a way for the requests to be waiting for you right on the schedule? How about knowing when each request was submitted so that you can grant requests in a first come first serve method? The solution is available today from WhatTimeDoIWork.com and there are many other benefits far beyond tracking time-off requests and auto-populating them right into the schedule.

  • Automatic alerts to scheduling conflicts and overtime hours
  • Calculation of Labor costs as the schedule is created
  • Posting of the Schedule online allowing employees easy access without picking up the phone
  • Communications sent to your entire staff as soon as a new schedule is posted.

We are so sure that our software will solve your scheduling needs that we offer the first 30 days at no charge, with no obligation.

Learn more here.

What are the benefits of Online Employee Scheduling Software vs. the Traditional Methods?

05 Dec, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Mr. Kennedy owns a midsize company called Kennedy Linens2Go, which supplies linens to hospitality businesses in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. The company operates a fleet of trucks that picks up dirty linens and drops off clean ones on a regularly scheduled basis. The principle staff members at Kennedy Linens2Go include truck drivers and linen washers.

During the majority of the year, scheduling the drivers and washers is a relatively quick and easy task. Workers have their preferred hours and shifts, and there are relatively few requests for time off.  But in the summertime, workers want time off for vacations at the beach, to travel, and to spend time with their kids. Then during the holidays, people request time off to shop and attend special functions and spend time with friends and family. During these times of the year, Mr. Kennedy spends many hours each week preparing the weekly employee work schedules.

For Mr. Kennedy, creating an employee schedule for a typical pre-holiday week means:

  • Accepting time-off requests from the staff via the phone, in his office, notes left on his desk or passing by in the hallway
  • Creating a schedule based upon what Mr. Kennedy thought were all the requests
  • Getting three last-minute requests from workers who forgot that Monday was the day to submit time-off requests
  • Throwing away the original schedule and starting over again
  • Finishing the second schedule, only to find that he forgot to include two part-time drivers
  • Starting again on schedule number three
  • Finally posting the schedule in the employee lunch room only to have one employee complain that they cannot work their scheduled shift after half of the employees have already seen the weekly schedule
  • Once again he must start over for draft 4, and then contact all his employees to inform them that a new schedule is available

After two months of pre-holiday scheduling frustration, Mr. Kennedy needs some time off himself.

Rather than a vacation, Mr. Kennedy needs a new way to create weekly employee schedules. He needs a method that is quick and easy during every week of the year, even during the holidays. He also needs a much more efficient way to notify his employees of newly posted shifts and to avoid spending hours on the phone giving each of his employees their upcoming schedule, when they are not working. He needs to stop working in his business and start spending time on his business.

Luckily the perfect solution is available today from WhatTimeDoIWork.com.  By offering, simple, flexible, realistic,  easy-to-use online employee scheduling software, WhatTimeDoIWork.com enables Mr. Kennedy to store all his employees’ names, departments, skillsets, emails, phone numbers, preferred shifts, and requested time off in one online location. With point-and-click simplicity, Mr. Kennedy can create an employee schedule in minutes. And because all time-off and shift requests are stored in the software, Mr. Kennedy receives an alert when a scheduling conflict appears—such as trying to schedule a part-time driver on a day when she doesn’t work. Schedule changes are just as easy—Mr. Kennedy can simply cut-and-paste a time slot to a new name. Even better, all new schedules and changes are distributed to all staff members via email or smart phone, and remain accessible online to the entire staff 24×7. No more calling his entire staff not only when a new schedule is posted, but if there are any updates to the schedule.

Mr. Kennedy will find numerous benefits from online scheduling software:

  • No more keeping notes of when employees want time off
  • Ability to manage/update/change a schedule at any time
  • No-shows are reduced; schedules are always available to the entire staff, so they all know their shifts
  • No more paper schedules are required
  • Employees can find their own replacements to cover in an emergency—removing Mr. Kennedy from the equation
  • Automatic alerts of overtime hours or scheduling conflicts while creating the original employee schedule, which will cut down labor costs
  • View labor dollars as the schedule is created
  • Remind employees of upcoming shifts to eliminate no shows

To sign up for online employee scheduling software, Mr. Kennedy can simply visit https://www.whattimedoiwork.com/free-trial/. He can discover for himself how much time, effort, and frustration he’ll save by moving his employee work schedules online.

Try it out today with our 30 day no obligation free trial. And when we say free we mean free:

  • No credit card is necessary to try the software
  • No service contracts or hidden fees
  • No downloads required