The Timesheet Blog

All companies strive to manage their human resources effectively, especially in today’s economy when employee populations already feel a bit lean. It is often necessary to stretch resources – to utilize their skills wherever they can make an impact – even if it means sharing employees across departments.

For managers, sharing skilled workers can present challenges. They must cooperate to schedule employees efficiently, and in a way that applies valuable skills to the company’s greatest advantage. In cases where multiple managers are vying for the same resource, scheduling can become complicated; a single resource could easily end up double or triple booked.

Visible, Real Time Collaboration

Web Schedule addresses these challenges. Similar to Google Docs (TM), it allows multiple managers to collaborate on the same schedule – each from his/her own computer – and see others’ changes in real time. With visibility into each employee’s scheduled activities, managers can avoid scheduling conflicts.

Watch this video to see how easy it is to collaborate on employee schedules with Web Schedule.

Ready to tackle your employee scheduling nightmare?  Try a free trial.  No download required – sign up and get started today!

Have a story about your scheduling challenges? Please share your story in the comment section or ask us how we can be of assistance. Get our RSS feed , connect with us on LinkedIn, follow us @Replicon on Twitter.

Employee Scheduling Solution: Part 2 of a 2-part series

In our last post, we talked about a number of common scheduling problems that all have one practical solution – employee scheduling software. You understand the importance of creating an effective schedule, communicating changes clearly, and ensuring adherence. Now, let’s talk about a tool that will help you achieve all of these goals and more.

Introducing Web Schedule

At Replicon, we have created a powerful new scheduling module. You can use Web Schedule as a standalone feature or in combination with your existing access to Web TimeSheet. Like all our products, the Web Schedule application is Software as a Service (SaaS) that uses an online interface. This provides you quick access with a low risk, affordable pricing structure. Centralization and standardization are built into the design automatically. This makes it easy for each department to get on board with best practices for staff scheduling.

Fluid Functionality and Time Saving Templates

This employee scheduling software offers intuitive functionality. Managers can simply drag and drop time blocks anywhere on the screen to instantly create expected work periods for employees. You can also build a variety of templates that represent your company’s most commonly used schedules for different departments or positions. These static schedules can include 5 day workweeks, 4 on/3 off, or any other configuration that suits your needs.

Days can be broken up into multiple segments of scheduled work time with breaks in between for lunch or other off-the-clock activities. Blocks of time can be set aside for recurring events such as staff meetings. You can also clearly define the type of activity each employee is supposed to work on for a specific period. This helps ensure that workers use their on-the-clock hours to promote the greatest level of overall productivity for their department.

Internal Visibility

Everyone with administrative access to the employee scheduling software can see all the data entered into the system. Each administrator can be set up with an appropriate level of permission to create schedules and/or update them. Every change made in Web Schedule can be reviewed to see which user made the alteration (and when). New schedule entries are initially created in an unpublished version – they aren’t made public until you make a final decision.

Employee Communication

When a change in schedule is finalized, the affected employees’ scheduling calendars are automatically updated. Each employee has can view his/her current monthly schedule calendar with assigned activities and the status of any time off requests. If you are using the Web TimeSheet application along with Web Schedule, employees can also easily enter their hours worked. This encourages employee compliance with accurate and timely recordkeeping.

Time & Attendance Adherence

Approvers can sort timesheets to show all hours worked (or missed) that fall outside the preset parameters. These discrepancies can be addressed to either correct the error or confirm the employee’s failure to adhere to the schedule before the data is sent to Payroll. Management and HR can also readily pull historical data on any employee to see if a particular time & attendance violation is part of a larger pattern.

Detailed Reporting

In addition to tracking discrepancies, you can rapidly gather information for any time period to review past staff scheduling and time worked. Having access to accurate reports assists each department manager in ensuring fair, consistent application of company policies.

Try a free trial or sign up for service today for a low subscription fee. Want to see Web Schedule in action? Watch our mini-tutorial to see how easy it is to create and update schedules.

Which Web Schedule options will help you most in your business? Tell us in the comments. Feel free to ask any questions about this new product – we’re here to help. Stay in touch with us on LinkedIn and Twitter too.

At Replicon, our philosophy of constant innovation has paid off once again for our customers.  We are excited to introduce the newest addition to our Web TimeSheet family of products – Web Schedule.  This employee scheduling software module makes creating, updating, and communicating work schedules as painless as possible.

Why Employees Like Web Schedule

With Web Schedule, your employees have access to real-time updates to their individual schedules.  This eliminates confusion about last minute changes.  When you integrate this employee scheduling software with Web TimeSheet, employees can instantly populate their timesheet using the data from their published schedule.  Then, they can simply make changes to indicate any discrepancies (such as additional time or missed time) each day.

Why Managers Like Web Schedule

Managers tasked with managing schedules and approving timesheets can do this much more quickly now.  Any discrepancies are listed and described at the top of the timesheet approval page.  Errors can be corrected before the final timesheet is sent to payroll.  Actual failure to adhere to the schedule can be addressed while the incident is still fresh.  Managers can also pull historical reports to identify a pattern of time & attendance issues.

Why Companies Like Web Schedule

Besides the obvious benefits of saving time and optimizing labour cost through effective scheduling, you get access to a free trial.  Try Web Schedule with your existing access to Web Timesheet or sign up to sample both of these products together.

Watch this quick video to see our Web Schedule software in action.

Are you using this software on a trial basis right now?  We would love to hear your first impressions.  Talk to us in the comments.  Also, feel free to join us via LinkedIn and Twitter to stay fully connected.