Win back your day: get shift swaps sorted

Imagine suddenly losing a day. Another crisis has blown up, and it’s going to take all day to sort it out (and your to-do list is still waiting for you). You’re fuming. You’re going to figure out how this happened, and put a stop to it.  But then after you’ve dealt with the issue you go back to that ever growing to-do list and forget all about the hassle you just went through, that is, until the next time it happens.

You notice losing a day, because it happens all at once. But so many supervisors, managers and business owners are losing days — even weeks — out of the year because they simply don’t notice the time slipping away, one shift swap at a time.

Here’s how your time gets stolen:

• A worker calls in sick – they can’t make their shift.  Answering the phone call – that’s 5 minutes gone.
• You ring another casual, but can’t get through.  You leave a message.  You repeat this process a few times, that’s another 10 minutes gone.
• You find someone, confirm they are available, and you then update the roster spreadsheet.  That’s a further 10 minutes gone.
• Then you attempt to get back into whatever it was you were doing before the interruption – there’s more time wasted.
• And if this all happens late at night, early in the morning, when you are trying to have your lunch, or on the weekend – well you just lost the most valuable time of all… your personal time.

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How many shift swaps do you process each week? What about each year?
When you multiply those minutes across a year, or across multiple sites, it adds up to some serious time lost.

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We put up with ‘time theft’ because that’s how we’re conditioned. We see making phone calls and updating spreadsheets as just part of working in a business.  We don’t ever have enough time to think or realise or question “could there be an alternative to this?”.

That’s where automation comes in. You reclaim lost time by finding the repetitive tasks that don’t need your insight and experience.  Then find a technology product to automate it and do it for you –  like easyEMPLOYER’s workforce management solution..

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Here’s how a typical shift swap works with easyEMPLOYER.

1.  A casual worker indicates they can’t work a shift, either through their online account, or by notifying a manager.
2.  easyEMPLOYER automatically sends an SMS notification to other suitable casuals, OR the manager can choose whom they want this offer sent to.
3.  The other casuals respond to the shift via SMS.
4.  easyEMPLOYER receives the SMS response from the casual and depending on the workflow you choose either of these situations then happen:
   • First in best dressed. Whoever responded first is issued the shift.
   • Manager approval. A manager can see who has accepted the shift and can choose who they want to work it.
5.  In both situations the employee is informed of their new shift, sent their updated updates, and all other employees are notified the shift is gone (as long as they    didn’t decline the original request).

There’s one step you didn’t see there: the manager getting involved.  As a manager, you’re involved in the set-up, to say who’s eligible for which shifts.  After that, the system can run itself. However even if you choose to have manager approval for this process, you can still complete a shift swap request in under 60 seconds.

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Minute by minute, you’ll find more time flowing back into your day.  And that’s just from automating this one aspect of staff admin. Imagine if you streamlined everything else involved with rostering, time & attendance…. all the way through to payroll?  What if you suddenly got given back hours in each day.  Think about what you could do with that time.

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Super quick shift swaps is only just one of the amazing things easyEMPLOYER can do for your business – see more here.
Get in touch with us to discuss all of your requirements staff management requirements.