It has been found that 60 percent of Australian businesses fail within their first three years. There are many factors at work in this, but the human factor always plays a significant role. Maybe the wrong person was hired for the job or maybe a proper company culture wasn’t properly established.
Out of the range of reasons why businesses fail, mismanagement of people is both one of the biggest and one of the most avoidable. And one of the first major mismanagement potholes you risk falling into is ineffective rostering.
Human resource management via an effective roster is about more than just listing the working hours of each employee. Done properly, rostering can be vital for scheduling how people operate within the organisation — and thus the conduct of operations overall.
Here’s a rundown of effective rostering software: how it can help your business thrive and a few tools to keep you on top of your rostering game.
Why is effective rostering so important?
Hiring the best person for the role is great, but you shouldn’t stop there. Knowing when to best utilise their skills can be just as important.
Effective rostering ensures your company’s resources are being put to their best use. It also ensures the welfare of other employees — there’s nothing worse than being under- or over-staffed.
Creating an effective roster can seem challenging at first. Ensuring people with the right skills are on staff when needed can quickly get complex. Add workplace health and safety and leave requirements to the mix and things get even more daunting. This isn’t to say it’s impossible.
Appropriate tools streamline the rostering process, ensuring the smooth running of your business. So, let’s look at some software solutions.
Rostering software recommendations
Regardless of how small your team is, a staff roster is crucial to smooth operations. Implementing one needn’t be tedious. Gone are the days of manual, written timesheets. Today, we have access to a much smarter way to prepare staff schedules. This more effective solution? Online rostering.
Online rostering is effective and time-saving. The benefits include the ability to:
- Send changes via email or SMS to employees
- Save on the printing costs of manual timesheets
- Amend schedules at the click of a button
- Sync rosters with your employees’ calendars
- Automatically allocate leave or sick days.
Because there are many options for rostering software, we have created a list of some of the best:
1. Connecteam
With Connecteam’s online roster app, it’s easy to save time and effort on your roster planning. Connecteam’s robust staff roster app allows you to reduce labour costs, improve staff satisfaction and avoid the headache of creating rosters manually. Whether you’re a small business owner or an enterprise company, Connecteam is a leading choice.
2. Homebase
Many small businesses use Homebase to easily create and share rosters with staff. With it you can track hours, manage breaks, keep an eye on overtime, keep everyone aligned and manage labour costs.
3. mHelpDesk
If you’re in the field service industry, then you’ll love using mHelpDesk. It’s similar to Google Calendar and Outlook as it allows you to easily see your team’s availability. With it, you can simply and easily roster field technicians, automate assignment notifications, view jobs, review customer details and eliminate overbooking and underbooking.
4. WhenIWork
WhenIWork is a well-known and well-established rostering solution that provides businesses a free plan for up to 75 users. On top of this, it claims to be able to save you up to 15 hours a week when creating a roster.
5. HotSchedules
HotSchedules prides itself on helping you easily roster the right staff member at the right time. The cost saving of getting it right can be almost 2 percent — a considerable figure given that payroll is often the largest expense in running a business. Towards this goal, HotSchedules offers a clean interface and gives managers total visibility and control over what employees are doing (e.g. shift trades, time off, etc.). While it has broader functionality, HotSchedules is ideally suited for the restaurant and hospitality industry.
Choose the right rostering solution for your business
All of the rostering software solutions listed above meet the basic requirements when discussing rostering. Elements like calendar management, shift swapping, time tracking and vacation time are all taken care of.
Further, each one provides you with real-time, detailed reports and allows for mobile access. In all, they each can ensure you’re on top of your rostering needs — even on the move.
