Quick Guide
As a business owner, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done – from payroll to providing the best customer service to engaging employees to checking inventory and the list just goes on. And let’s not forget about the never-ending pile of timetables, schedules, availability calendars, and employee requests — that’s right, we’re talking about staff scheduling with all its typical issues.
Business owners and managers alike know that staff scheduling is an important aspect of the daily grind. Managers feel pressure mounting when there isn’t an effective scheduling process. And employee morale takes a hit when a schedule that serves their skills and needs just doesn’t exist. But it also works the other way around: stable and efficient schedules are proven to boost team productivity and even revenue.
Among the many roles of a manager in a business, one of the most important is scheduling the staff. After all, you can’t complete work without any workers. It’s vital that you put thought into the scheduling process and treat your staff professionally. – Small Business Chron
Take control over the time and hours you do have with a staff scheduling software that works for you. It’s time to ditch pen and paper, after all, it’s the 21st century and there are a number of staff scheduling software options that are perfect for your business.
By using an automatic scheduling tool, you can reduce the time spent on creating employee shift schedules by 80% and cut your labor spending by 3%.
Worry not, we rolled up our sleeves and hit the books. After all, finding the right software should be a breeze, and shouldn’t take up all your valuable time. That’s why we scoured the web, read countless reports, and spoke to a handful of experts — all so we could present you with 9 staff scheduling software options that should simplify and speed up your schedule creating process.
How To Choose The Top 9 Staff Scheduling Software Tools?
Price
This is a no-brainer that requires little explanation. Some staff scheduling software is free or is available at low cost, however, the right fit is one that aligns with your company size and goals. So take your time before thinking that price is the only factor!
Ease of use
You and your employees need staff scheduling software that is incredibly easy to use. If training is long and the software is just too complicated to use, no one will be motivated to actually use it. And that’s the last thing you want, otherwise why spend money on a software solution if no one uses it?
Tax and labor compliance
Make sure the software complies with state and local labor laws, such as overtime and sick leave.
Fees, fines, and penalties could be the outcome of not complying with state and local labor laws. Investing in workforce management technology that incorporates all state and local labor regulations — as well as federal labor laws — can help you comply with all labor laws across your operation. – Kronos
The last thing you want is to pay fees and penalties because your software wasn’t up to date with the latest state and local labor laws.
Messaging
Through the software, it should be simple to communicate with your employees. See if it offers an in-app chat and push notifications. This way, you can send shift change notifications, reminders, and even provide work instructions in a single click.
Reporting
Easily provides reports from hours worked to overtime to absences to labor costs.
Engage in every shift
Employees should be able to easily add notes, pictures, videos, attachments, etc. to every shift if needed.
“Manage” the status of shifts
Through a calendar view, you can easily see the status of each employee’s shifts. Did the employee reject or approve the shift? Are they running late? Are they clocked in and working to complete the shift? However, not all staff scheduling software is made equal so this feature may not be available across the board.
All in one
In 2020, the new feature that most software companies are rushing to develop is allowing for an all in one experience. They recognize that managers and employees want to get everything done from one place and not to jump from software to software. We can see this unique feature in a handful of software tools, and after playing with this, we believe 100% that this is a must-have for your business!
Save Time & Money with Connecteam
Take your scheduling to the next level! Managers and employees alike can schedule, dispatch, and collaborate in the tap of a button – start for free now to take full advantage of Connecteam’s scheduling software.
In the last few months, after deciding which criteria were important for staff scheduling software, we also played around with each software and asked for real feedback from employees and managers. Our list of nine tools is the best of the best, find the one that suits your business, and experience a positive change to your day-to-day.
The Top 9 Staff Scheduling Software Tools In 2021
1. Connecteam
Ideal for businesses with deskless employees, small businesses, and Enterprise.
By far the easiest staff scheduling software, Connecteam allows you to schedule shifts and dispatch jobs easily and quickly. Create single, multiple, or team shifts, or just upload a bulk using an excel file. With calendar view, drag & drop options, and copying last week’s shifts, you save valuable time.
Connecteam’s robust staff scheduling software tool can save you time and effort thanks to quick actions, easy customization, automated reminders, and an intuitive interface.
On the manager’s side:
- Easily oversee & control multiple schedules for different teams or locations
- Create schedules for weeks & months to come in a matter of minutes
- Assign shifts in bulk, duplicate, drag & drop, use templates — all in a click
- Get feedback from employees with shift status, comments, and automatic notifications
- See in a glance when employees are unavailable, shifts are overlapping, or daily/weekly hours limits are exceeded
- Manage the scheduling even on the go
On the employees’ side:
- A simple, mobile-friendly, and easy to use app (no training needed)
- Clocking-in to a selected shift from their phone
- All the schedule and shift information is in one place, including images and files, notes, maps and shift-tasks
- Automated notifications and reminders when a shift is published, edited, or canceled
- Option to claim a shift or grab what’s available, as well as reject (if allowed by admin)
Plus, the Connecteam scheduling tool has other features for effective employee management: for example, it tags an employee’s GPS location when they clock in and clock out. And you can customize status updates for employees to check-in at the job location, so they check-in, reject, or complete their shift. Connecteam also allows for shift attachments so employees can add photos, videos, notes, etc. Plus, Connecteam has an in-app chat and employee directory so it’s easier than ever for employees to contact you if needed and vice-versa.
Price: Free to use with a free-for-life plan, or you can choose one of the premium plans, starting at just $39/month for up to 50 users. There is also a free 14-day trial.
Would you like to save time & money on your scheduling flow? Sign up now for Connecteam’s free plan and try yourself with no commitment!
2. Google Sheets
Ideal for small companies or freelancers.
Google’s free cloud spreadsheet software makes employee scheduling quite simple. The pre-fixed rows and columns offer organized options so you can set each individual employee in their own column within one spreadsheet. Or have one spreadsheet per employee and simply divide up their columns by days of the week. With its sharing feature, you can quickly share the spreadsheets with employees via email. Plus, it has an automatic-saving, cloud feature so you don’t have to worry about losing all the data.
Price: Free.
3. When I Work
Ideal for small companies, non-profit, and multi-site businesses.
When I Work is a great option for employee scheduling software for businesses with less than 75 employees. They have a free version that doesn’t limit you to one company location but it doesn’t let you schedule weeks into the future.
However, it does have scheduling features like GPS locations and job instructions. Also, admins can view historical timesheets of a user on mobile, but editing past user entries/ shifts from the mobile is not available, and you will need the desktop version for it.
Price: Starts at $2.25/user/month. Time and attendance tracking can also be added for an additional $1.50 per employee, per month. It does also have an enterprise version with volume discounts.
We made a dedicated page with When I Work VS Connecteam’s solutions head to head comparison, so if you are not sure which software fits you better, have a look here.
4. Google Calendar
Ideal for small companies or freelancers.
Google Calendar is a cloud creation of Google. However, it is designed to be a calendar so you can view everything in a day, four-day, week, month, year, or schedule format. Easily add events and reminders into a calendar and add notifications so employees don’t miss a shift.
Create employee shift calendars and share with everyone so they can view the shared work schedule calendar from their own personal calendar.
Price: Free.
5. Homebase
Ideal for brick and mortar businesses.
Homebase has a number of features, like scheduling, timesheets, time clocks, and messaging, but it also has special recruiting software that can post to online job boards. Homebase can also sync data from many payrolls and POS companies.
Price: Free for just one location and unlimited users. There are 3 more feature-rich paid plans starting at $19.95/unlimited users/per location/month, with custom pricing for enterprises. Free trial is also available.
6. Paycor Scheduling (Ex. Ximble)
Ideal for small businesses.
Paycor Scheduling helps you focus on what’s important — increasing productivity and reducing labor costs. The built-in reporting provides insight into your shift hours and costs, and this scheduling software also offers AI so you can use historical data to assign the right staff to any shift.
It has an easy scheduling feature and it’s simple to create and reuse schedule templates. Aside from a time-tracking tool, it also includes a staff management feature that can help track time-off requests and employee availability.
Price: Starts at $1/user/month, and Enterprise has custom pricing.
7. Humanity
Ideal for small companies like a coffee shop or those on an hourly salary.
Humanity is pretty easy to use and their apps make it simple to edit and check schedules straight from your phone. It is easy to manage schedules, all employee availabilities, employee shift trades, and day-off requests.
Humanity is known for its customer support team, and also offers lots of integrations with other software platforms, such as Oracle, Workday. BambooHR, as well as multiple payroll partners.
Price: Starts at $2/user/month, but includes a $60 minimum fee. You can trial Humanity for free for 30 days.
8. TSheets
Ideal for service businesses.
As far as staff scheduling goes, TSheets offers similar scheduling and time-tracking software as other software tools do. Its mobile app sends your employees updates about their upcoming shifts and shift changes, then it sends you a notification if an employee is late or forgot to clock in.
However, the system is a little complicated and does need a lot of implementation. In any case, two main features are worthy of mention: GPS Time Tracker that maps employee locations from when they clock-in to when they clock-out. And the second feature allows employees to attach photos to timesheets.
Price: Starts at $4/user/month, plus there is an additional base fee depending on how many users you need. A free 14-day trial is offered.
9. Deputy
Ideal for small companies and multi-location businesses.
Here’s the thing, you really need to know IT & software if you are going to use Deputy. And they know it. That’s why they ask for all your pen and paper timesheets and scheduling in advance so they can customize the software for you and then you can begin onboarding.
Deputy is a scheduling and time management software that overall is well-rounded and time-efficient. Additionally, it easily integrates with other business systems; it integrates with more than 35 payroll, POS, and accounting programs. Use Deputy to forecast sales traffic and schedule shifts automatically.
Price: Starts at $2/user/month.
Find The Best Staff Scheduling Software Tool For Your Business
With the right staff scheduling software, you’ll save valuable time and money! And let’s not forget how much happier your employees will be with a schedule that genuinely works for them. You want your scheduling tool to be as simple as possible, and your end schedule to be employee-friendly, otherwise, you are going to have a hard time trying to make your employees actually use it. Go through the nine software solutions we highlight above and choose the one that fits your company best.
Make Scheduling Simple with Connecteam
Ranked as one of the best employee scheduling tools in 2020, Connecteam offers top tools that make scheduling seamless and quick. Save valuable time and avoid mistakes, with simple, yet effective mobile scheduling.
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