If you ask your management team their least favorite role and responsibility within your organization you will likely get an answer related to the stresses and frustrations of scheduling. Manual scheduling is a time-consuming process that requires your managers to balance various factors to achieve a smooth and effective plant that benefits your company and its employees. Even once your management team completes a schedule there can be last minute changes. Life happens! Look at 2020! 👀
Conflicts arise, duplicate shifts get claimed, and a slew of other possible errors are bound to happen with any manual pen and papper process. This means even more time goes into schedling. Additional attention, and what may feel like continuous modifications throughout the week lead to one conclusion. You are paying people to sit at a desk and draw schedules. At Zira we think this is crazy!
With innovations in technology and ease of accessibility, manual scheduling is a thing of the past; scheduling can now be completed in the click of a button with artificial intelligence and algorithmic optimization. Implementing an AI-driven scheduling application into the management of your business can offer various benefits leading to higher productivity and increased revenues.
Save Time & Valuable Resources
The management team of your organization is an essential component to ensuring your business runs as smoothly as possible through their leadership capabilities and industry skills. While scheduling is a component of efficient management it should not be the main focus of your management team. Manual scheduling should not be taking up the time of your most valued company assets from more productive tasks and goals. Your management team should be able to focus their time and energy on leading their staff to reach goals and completing their assignments and deadlines. With AI scheduling your management team will be able to dedicate their resources and time to more important matters than scheduling and apply their leadership skills in a more productive way for your business.
Eliminate Bias
Bad schedules affect different people in different ways. It is smart to look for ways to avoid unequally discriminating against your staffs ability to earn via scheduling policies.
It is inevitable that when managing a team of employees managers will form relationships, bonds, and preferences with their team members. While this should not interfere with their ability to manage staff effectively it can create internal biases that could be applied unfairly in scenarios such as scheduling.
Manual scheduling can be arbitrary and subjective allowing management to create schedules that may not consider the entire employee base equally and fairly. Algorithmic scheduling removes the human element that can contribute to unfair scheduling practices and thereby eliminates the possibility for bias that can lead to conflict among staff or managers.
New laws are being created to protect employees for intentional as well as subconscious biases. Get ahead of things by looking for ways to fair scheduling logic.
Create a Better Schedule for Your Company & Staff in One Click
A scheduling application driven by data can create an optimized schedule that will simultaneously meet the needs of your business and its staff.
Using A.I. and a scheduling application like Zira not only creates a better schedule from the the same data set your managers use today (i.e. Coverage Needs and Employee Availability) it also unlocks a variety of data sources allowing you to optimize schedules futher than you ever imagine. Some of these include:
- Employee Preferences — Being a flexible employer is important to retain valuable talent. If you have staff that balances other responsibilities and needs some accommodations made with regard to scheduling, an automated scheduling application can take these parameters into account and deliver shifts your employees want.
- Revenue/Efficiency Metrics — With Zira you can customize and implement options such as cost of labor, sales, and tenure when prioritizing shift allocation.
- Compliance — As if scheduling is not intricate enough, ensuring your business remains compliant with federal, state, and local laws can be daunting through a manual scheduling process. If one thing is misplaced or executed wrong, you could end up spending millions paying an audit penalty. A scheduling platform like Zira automatically applies preset compliance policies to the schedule to help you stay ahead of the regulations and avoid audits.
- Shift Scoring — The ability to identify which staff performs well together used to be an art that good managers could pinpoint and build off of. Now Zira can use data to figure out which groupings produce the best sales and how to best utilize that boost in productivity.
Focusing On Metrics that Matter
The benefits from algorithmic scheduling are really seen in the labor cost savings and performance boost achieved. Focusing on key metrics allows you as the business owner to realize savings and invest where it counts:
- Increased Retention — Retaining talent is crucial to keep your business running smoothly. Keeping the scheduling objective automatically reduces one aspect of employee dissatisfaction and conflict. The reality is hiring and training new staff is a costly and lengthy process; it is in a company’s best interest to retain their talent for as long as possible.
- Save Time — Your managers will no longer be wasting their talent on creating schedules, modifying schedules, and addressing scheduling gripes. Rather they can spend their time on more valuable projects and efforts to improve your business.
- Save Money — Scheduling mishaps that result in issues such as accidental overtime, duplicate shifts assigned, and compliance violations can turn into costly mistakes for your business. With a scheduling application, you are able to set the necessary parameters to create a compliant and efficient schedule that is within your company budget.
- Boost In Staff Morale — Eliminating the uncertainty around scheduling and giving your employees quick and easy access to their hours will improve overall morale and keep staff happy and informed.
How Zira Can Help Your Business?
With the Zira scheduling application, employers such as you will have the capability to create a better schedule quickly and efficiently. Once your company has established and selected the parameters within our easy-to-use platform scheduling will become one click away. Employers and employees will have access to schedules instantaneously and remain connected and informed through the application. Our scheduling application allows management teams to oversee schedules and communicate with employees as needed to find quick coverage, manage performance, and identify trends all from one location.
At Zira we offer advanced and innovative scheduling solutions that can help your business save time, money, and frustration. Contact us for a consultation and to request a demo of our automated scheduling application for your company and workforce.
