Empowering small businesses to succeed

Sling vs. When I Work: Key Features

The choice between Sling vs When I Work depends on your business needs.

Sling Key Features:

• Employee Scheduling: Offers an intuitive drag-and-drop scheduler that simplifies shift creation and allocation.
• Labour Cost Management: Tracks labour expenses in real-time to help managers stay within budget.
• Communication Hub: Built-in messaging system for efficient communication between team members and management.
• Task Management: Tools to assign and monitor tasks, ensuring they are completed effectively.

When I Work Key Features:

• Time & Attendance Tracking: Comprehensive tools for tracking employee hours, including clock-in/clock-out features accessible via mobile devices.
• Shift Swapping: Employees can manage their shifts, swap with others, or pick up open shifts easily.
• Advanced Integration: Direct integration with payroll systems like ADP to automate payroll processing.
• Customisable Reports: Create detailed reports to support strategic decision-making in workforce management.

Sling vs. When I Work: Similarities

• Employee Scheduling – Easily and quickly schedule and assign shifts.
• Shift Swapping – the ability to swap shifts between different employees.
• Time and Attendance – calculation of worked time and verification of the employee’s presence at the workplace.
• Team Communication – One common platform to discuss shifts and work issues, making management more convenient and easier.
• Payroll Integration – Ability to automatically calculate payroll for employees with varying shift numbers and types.
• Reporting and Analytics – Tools for employee and manager alerts, performance analytics, etc.
• Mobile Accessibility – Availability of a mobile app
• Task Management – Management of various task types.
• Real-Time Updates on changes in schedules, messages, and important announcements.
• Customisable Roles and Permissions for managers at different levels.

Sling vs. When I Work: The Differences

Features exclusive to When I Work and not in Sling:

• Compliance monitoring tools
• Geofencing and Location Tracking, needed to verify if a worker has arrived and started working at the workplace.
• Multi-Language Support for teams with international staff
• Employee Feedback and Surveys to measure employee job satisfaction and the usefulness of scheduling tools.
• Shift Bidding – the ability for multiple employees to select the same shift under different terms and conditions
• Advanced Analytics
• Workforce Planning tool
• Automation and AI Tools to better track employee performance trends.
• Compensation and Benefits Management tools.

Features exclusive to Sling and not in When I Work:

• Leave Management, making it easier to cover for employees who are absent or on leave.
• Labour Cost Optimisation tools to minimise overtime costs.
• Employee Self-Service, empowering workers with tools to manage their schedules to a certain extent.

Sling vs. When I Work: Pros and Cons

Sling Pros:

• When deciding between Sling vs When I Work, consider Sling’s free plan for small teams.
• Easy to implement with user-friendly scheduling tools.
• Key features like Labour Cost Optimisation tools
• Tailored tools for restaurant and café owners

Sling Cons:

• Fewer features than When I Work, including omitted scheduling and performance analytics tools.

When I Work Pros:

• Customisable options for varied business needs.
• Feature sets suitable for rapidly growing companies, including those with international offices.

When I Work Cons:

• Higher costs compared to Sling.
• Slightly more complex interface, due to an abundance of features.

Sling vs. When I Work: Pricing

Sling offers three plans, one of which is completely free (up to 50 users and with limited functionality). The other two cost $1.7 and $3.4 per month per user in 2024. The top-tier plan includes additional analytics features.

When I Work also provides three plans, with the least expensive costing $1.5 per month per user and the priciest at $5 per user. The company advises the most expensive plan for bigger companies that need customization and heightened efficiency.

Both services offer a free one-month trial.

5 Recommendations for Choosing Between Sling vs. When I Work

1. Evaluate the size of your business: Both services cater to small and medium-sized businesses, but larger companies tend to opt for When I Work.
2. Determine if you require payroll tools. Comparing Sling vs When I Work, the latter has more seamless integration with your payroll system
3. Consider how much you need to manage expenses: Sling offers helpful features for this.
4. Decide if an out-of-the-box solution suits you: When I Work offers more customization choices.
5. Training and usability: if ease of use is crucial, Sling has a more straightforward interface with minimal training needs.

Ten Questions You Must Ask When Choosing Between Sling vs. When I Work

1. What size is my business?
2. How important is payroll integration for my work?
3. Do I need advanced monitoring of labour costs?
4. How much flexibility do I require to tailor reports and schedules?
5. Will my team comprehend a more intricate interface?
6. What is my budget for labour management tools?
7. Does the company need application scalability, in case of active growth?
8. Do I want the ability to geo-track employee availability at the checkpoint?
9. Can my team afford extended training for new software?
10. Which platform provides the support features that best fulfil our needs?

Sling vs. When I Work: Use Cases

Sling Use Cases:

• A farm grocery store with 10 employees. A free plan with a set of basic features would suit such a business. Its owner will minimise costs by obtaining the basic tools.
• Restaurant or hotel. The app is ideal for restaurants and cafes needing to manage employee schedules and communicate swiftly among teams, as well as distribute shifts and restaurant areas amongst different employees.

When I Work Use Cases:

• Corporate Enterprises. Best for big corporations requiring scalable scheduling, payroll integration, and a range of reporting options.
• Healthcare Organisations. Effective for hospitals or clinics needing to manage complex shift schedules and ensure compliance across multiple locations.

Final Thoughts on Sling vs. When I Work: Which is Best for Business

The decision between When I Work vs Sling ultimately rests on which features are needed. Sling is well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t want to invest extra time and resources. It offers crucial features like labour management and basic scheduling tools. On the other hand, When I Work is structured for larger organisations with more intricate scheduling, payroll integration and scalability demands. It provides robust customization options, although at a higher expense.