In today’s tech-savvy world, managers know what it takes to whip up a roster using those nifty schedule creators. Who wouldn’t want to nail the perfect work roster, whether you’re running a restaurant, call centre, or any industry with shift work?

Today, we’re exploring the art of crafting a work roster that fits each employee’s unique needs and life circumstances. When we talk about top-notch roster planning, we also talk about slick automated rostering, killer reporting tools, seamless payroll integration, flexibility, and the ability to tweak things around the clock. Sounds interesting? Keep reading for all the details.

What Is a Schedule Creator?

A work roster creator is a digital tool you can find online or in an app. It’s a lifesaver for managers to schedule employee shifts and progress, making their jobs more manageable. Back then, managers had to manually do all the scheduling, which was wasting time. They had to deal with messy schedules, last-minute holiday requests, absenteeism, and conflicts. But now, with automated rostering software — an employee’s roster creator, the problem is solved! Just use these ready-made templates to keep things simple and avoid disputes.

How to Create a Roster for Employees Easily?

Managers can create rosters online with automated tools easily. Here’s a laid-back guide to creating a scheduling spreadsheet:

1. Fire up your spreadsheet program and start a fresh sheet.
2. Toss in some column headings to keep things organised.
3. Stick “Employee Name” in column A.
4. If you’re into employee IDs, pop those in column B.
5. Label the following columns with the days of the week, starting with Monday or whatever works for your week.
6. Drop in your employee names and IDs under the correct headings.
7. Fill in the blanks with shift times, using “am” and “pm” for clarity, or go full military time if you’re into that.

Once you’ve sorted it out, share the roster with your team however works best — whether it’s up on the notice board, through email, or on your internal chat. Ensure everyone can see freshly made rosters to know when to clock in. Easy, right?

Meet Shifton Daily Planner Online

Check out Shifton’s cloud service — it’s like your go-to mate for quickly planning work rosters! With a few clicks, you can tweak shifts, jot down notes, confirm who’s in or out, handle time-off requests, and more!

Here’s what you get:

• A weekly roster planner that keeps things legal.
• Instant updates to keep everyone in the loop.
• An open shifts auction to fill those gaps effortlessly.
• Easy-to-use shift patterns for stress-free rostering.
• A timesheet tracker to tally up those hours and wages.

With Shifton, creating rosters is as easy as pie. It has cool automation features that speed things up, and you can save and reuse templates quickly. The result? A neat table that’s a breeze to navigate.

Why You Should Use a Daily Planner Online for Staff Scheduling

So picture this: you’re a manager and have to juggle employee rosters, right? Well, that’s where scheduling software comes in handy. It’s like having your assistant, but digital!

Here’s why a daily planner is a game-changer:

• Easy Templates: There’s no need to start creating rosters from scratch every time. With a daily planner, you’ve got a bunch of schedule templates to choose from. Pick one that suits your business, and you’re ready. It saves you time and keeps things looking professional.
• Get Your Team Involved: Give your employees access to the system, and they can check their shifts themselves. Less roster hassle for you, less back-and-forth. Plus, you get to approve any shift swaps, so it’s all fair and square.
• Handy Notifications: Turn on push notifications, and your team gets a heads-up when the latest roster is up. No more excuses for missing shifts!
• Smooth Conflict Resolution: Holidays? Planned time off? No worries. Employees can request time off directly, and you can approve or deny as needed. The scheduling app adjusts the roster automatically.
• Schedule Anywhere, Anytime: Forget being stuck in the office. With a Shifton daily planner, you can whip up rosters from anywhere with Wi-Fi. Whether at home or grabbing a coffee, you’ve got the flexibility to get things done when it suits you best.

By using the Shifton Roster Planner, managers can save a stack of time making work rosters, giving them more space to handle other crucial parts of running any business. This handy online tool is like having an extra pair of hands, making daily tasks smoother and keeping the restaurant running like clockwork. But let’s go more specific!

Get Ahead with Restaurant Management Software!

Have you ever heard of the Shifton roster app? It’s like a magic wand for restaurant owners, helping them increase staff efficiency and productivity. With restaurant management software, you can quickly sort out employee shift rosters, ensuring everyone gets their fair share of time off to stay sharp. And the best part? Your staff can swap shifts hassle-free, giving them more freedom and boosting their motivation at work.

Here’s why it’s a game-changer:

• It cooks up optimal staff rotation rosters in a snap, especially for those busy Friday nights or holiday rushes.
• It’s super easy to use. Everything’s neatly organised in one place.
• You can check rosters and make changes anytime, anywhere — no more headaches.

With the Shifton app, managers can breeze through scheduling tasks and focus on running a smooth ship in the restaurant biz.

Discover How Workforce Management Call Centre Software Can Help!

Managing a call centre can be challenging. It requires extensive knowledge, including planning work shifts. Moreover, you’re dealing with tight rosters, many customer calls, and high expectations from higher-ups. It’s a tough job, no doubt. You must ensure customer satisfaction while protecting your team and the company’s bottom line.

The Shifton roster planning service is like your trusty sidekick, making the whole process a breeze. It’s all covered under one roof, from sorting out shifts to tracking tasks and leave requests.

Check out these perks:

• The visual roster builder whips up shift assignments like a pro.
• It takes the pain out of creating rosters for any number of call centre projects and staff.
• Keeps roster tabs on everything from staff availability to worked hours, so you’re always in the loop.
• When it comes to payroll, it’s a lifesaver — it calculates salaries according to the given rosters, overtime, and all the details.

Plus, the Shifton app is super user-friendly, so everyone in the call centre can get on board. With Shifton, managing rosters and tasks has never been easier!

Wrap-Up

So there you have it! Shifton’s roster creator is the real deal when crafting the perfect work roster for your crew. It’s not just about nailing shifts; it’s also about effortlessly managing schedule tasks, keeping up with social media, handling payroll, and ensuring employee comfort and well-being, among other things. Running a restaurant, or a call centre, scheduling hotel shifts, or maintaining order in a salon or fitness centre can be challenging. However, with Shifton, rostering becomes a walk in the park.

Automated scheduling reduces time spent juggling rosters and ensures everyone’s in the right place at the right time. So why wait? Sign up now and try our online employee roster app for free during the trial period!

With the release of our newest modules ‘Activities’ and ‘Demand & Forecasting’ it became clear, Shifton had grown to be something more than just a simple shift planning solution. In fact, we have too many modules, and we want to make them easier to understand. We’ve decided to merge some modules, providing more value at the click of a button, effectively changing the pricing for some modules to reflect their increased value.

The base module will now include 3 additional reports: ‘Budget reports’, ‘Company employees’ and ‘Minimum weekly work time report’. The base price module will change to $1 to reflect these additions and loads of other features we’ve added as base functionality over the years.

‘Time off requests’ will get beautiful insights, previously part of ‘Vacation Management’, and the price will be $1. It now includes ‘Time Off Reports’ at no additional cost.

The ‘Attendance’ module price is changing to $1, and the following module prices are aligned to $0.5: ‘Employee working hours’, ‘Bonuses/Retentions’ & ‘Pay rate reports’. The latter is also renamed to ‘Payroll’ to reflect recent additions to its functionality and our future plans to add even more.

These changes will take immediate effect for all new customers. Existing customers will enjoy the new extended modules at the old price until 1st September 2024, after which their pricing will be updated too.

We value our customers and believe these changes will help them manage the features they need with greater ease.

Want to know more? Contact us at support@shifton.com

Most workers have a regular Monday to Friday work week with a typical 9-10 AM to 6-7 PM workday. However, this method of scheduling employees doesn’t suit organisations and companies that have to work round-the-clock: hospitals, call-centres, and fire brigades, just to name a few.

For example, many fire brigades implement a 48/96 hour work schedule. That means that fire fighters typically have to work two days straight and are given 4 days off. While they do have to be alert for two days with little time for sleep or rest, recent studies have shown that this shift work type leaves them enough time for leisure, sleep and preparing for the next rotation.

Each hospital must always have nurses available to provide 24/7 patient care. They can work 8/12-hour shifts on 3 workdays/3 days off or 2 workdays/2 days off schedule. As a rule, nurses work fixed shifts (day or night). For example, daytime nurses start working at 7 AM and finish at 7 PM, while nighttime caregivers start at 7 PM, work late night shift hours and finish at 7 AM.

Call centres may have their own rules of shift work, however, there are several common ways of achieving a steady 24/7 work cycle. Managers typically divide a day into 2 or 3 shifts. In the first case, a day is divided into two 12-hour shifts for morning and evening workers. The second option allows for three 8-hour shifts. For example: 6 AM – 2 PM (1st), 2 PM – 10 PM (2nd), and 10 PM — 6 AM (3rd).

In some cases, employees are required to alternate between shifts: work morning shifts for a couple of days and then switch to a night shift for the same period. According to the latest research, a change in working hours negatively affects sleep and eating patterns. Working a night shift schedule can cause insomnia, high blood pressure, weight and appetite disorders. This article will detail the proper ways of adapting to a night-time schedule.

12-hour night shift sleep schedule example

The human body’s circadian rhythm determines waking and resting hours. People who work in organisations with a 24/7 work cycle, including police officers, fire fighters, nurses, call centre operators, and petrol station workers, have their circadian clocks disrupted. As a rule, managers have to plan shift work so that workers will get an adequate amount of time for work and rest.

Compared to an 8-hour day shift, night shift (11 PM to 6 AM) work time is decreased from 8 to 7 hours. A worker can also agree to a 12 AM — 5 AM schedule, if necessary. Despite missing five work hours a week compared to their daytime colleagues, night-shift employees receive the same 40-hour-week salary. Night shift staff can be called in for extra hours of work, but can do no more than 8 hours in 24 hours.

16 to 17-year-old staff members are forbidden from working between 12 and 4 AM. However, such workers are allowed to work from 10 PM to 6 AM if they are hired by hotels, retail shops, or hospitals. There are no limitations to night shift schedule hours for hospitals, emergency services, TV, and radio stations.

Many workers who have to make a transition from a morning to an evening shift experience exhaustion, insomnia, changes in weight and appetite. It takes them too much time to cope with new daily waking and sleeping hours, however, there are tricks that make this process less painful for inexperienced workers.

How to get a good night sleep when working late evening shift hours

In order to smoothly transition between shifts, the body has to be prepared for the coming changes. If an employee switches between morning and evening shifts, the time of waking up and going to bed has to be prolonged or shortened. When an employee switches from a morning to a night shift schedule, they have to wake up and go to bed an hour later for a couple of days. To smoothly transition from night to morning working hours, employees have to wake up and go to bed an hour earlier for a couple of days.

Whenever your work begins, a good night’s sleep is a guarantee of a productive day at the job. In general, workers have to sleep at least 6 hours a day to feel well-rested. Those working the night shift have a hard time achieving this goal due to the fact that our bodies are rigged to be active during the daytime. The solution to this problem is adapting the environment to that of the nighttime.

First and foremost, one should block out all of the noises. Switching off your smartphone, doorbell, and TV is a must. If you are accustomed to sleeping with white noise on, you may purchase good noise cancelling headphones under 200 dollars to eliminate surrounding sounds interfering with your sleep. It will also work better if the bedroom is located in the quietest place of the home. Having soundproof windows with good insulation will make it easier to isolate any outdoor noise. It is also good to tell friends and neighbours about your new sleeping schedule so that they don’t call you accidentally during those hours.

It is also important to make the room as dark as possible even when the sun is shining brightly outside. Covering windows with pitch black curtains is a good solution. Avoid eating or drinking before going to bed. Make it a habit of not taking alcohol or caffeine a couple of hours before going to bed. A good read, a hot shower/bath will make it easier for your body to relax and fall asleep.

How shift work changes appetite

The changes in circadian rhythm affect the body’s sleeping as well as eating patterns. Irregular or excessive food consumption, especially at nighttime, makes workers feel fatigued and restless. Both their productivity and health suffer as a result.

There are several tips for surviving the night shift with minimum risk of developing gastrointestinal diseases or gaining excess weight. Before going to work, it is important to have the biggest meal of the day. That way you will be energised and ready to take on the day. 6 PM is the best time to have that meal for those working late at night.

What to eat during night shift work

Suffering from drowsiness and fatigue seems to be one of the most common side effects of working the night shift. These feelings can be dealt with by sticking to a healthy diet. During night shifts it is better for workers to focus on high-protein food, including tuna, chicken, tofu, eggs, low-fat cheese. These products will keep employees alert and focused.

They can be combined into nutritious snacks an employee can bring to work. For example, you can pack some brown rice salad with chicken breast and tofu or a dietary vegetable and bean soup. You can also keep hunger at bay with hazelnuts, apples, Greek yoghurt, almonds, carrots, and hummus, which are all perfectly good and healthy choices.

It is also necessary to drink enough water during the night shifts. An adequate amount of liquid will make you less dependent on coffee or sweets as sources of alertness and energy. Sugar-free black and herbal tea, fresh vegetable juices and cold water are all nice choices for hydration.

What to avoid during night shift work

Eating high-carbohydrate shortly before or during the night shift is a foolproof way of making yourself drowsy and unproductive. Things like potatoes, bread or cereals sedate and relax workers, making it harder for them to pull through the night shift.

Sweetened beverages and food that is high in sugar content can be just as harmful. Soda or a candy bar may seem like good sources of energy at first, but this kind of snack will make you sleepy a couple of hours later. Not to mention that during the nighttime a human body can’t process sugar effectively.

Too much caffeine is another health threat for night shift workers. It’s okay to drink several cups of coffee at the beginning of a night shift, but consuming it during the whole duration can cause insomnia and other sleeping disorders. Your daily dose shouldn’t be more than 400 mg of caffeine (four small cups).

We hope that night shift workers will find the listed advice helpful.

Technologies aim to make our lives easier, and in terms of business operation, WFM software truly aligns with this notion. Do you know what this exceptional type of software product is? Perhaps, you’re thinking about launching WMF scheduling software to ensure the flawless operation of your team and business overall, but you’re still unsure of how to proceed. In that case, our article could be useful for you.

What is Contact Centre Workforce Management?

Contact centre workforce management (WFM) is a strategic approach to optimising staffing, scheduling, and overall workforce efficiency in call centres. It ensures that the right number of agents with the necessary skills are available at the right time to handle customer interactions. Effective workforce management call centre solutions use AI-driven analytics, forecasting, and automation to enhance both employee performance and customer satisfaction.

The core elements of contact centre workforce management include:

• Forecasting – Predicting call volume trends to plan staffing needs.
• Managing – Monitoring agent performance and workload distribution.
• Scheduling – Creating optimised shift schedules to maintain service levels.

By implementing a structured call centre workforce management solution, businesses can reduce costs, improve agent engagement, and enhance customer experiences.

Forecasting

Accurate call centre workforce management forecasting is the foundation of effective WFM call centre operations. It involves analysing historical data, seasonal trends, and real-time demand to predict customer interactions. Key forecasting methods include:

• Time-Series Analysis – Using past call volume patterns to predict future demand.
• Workload Forecasting – Determining staffing needs based on anticipated customer interactions across multiple channels (calls, emails, live chat, etc.).
• AI-Powered Forecasting – Leveraging machine learning algorithms to refine workforce predictions dynamically.

A well-structured workforce management call centre scheduling process prevents overstaffing (which increases costs) and understaffing (which leads to long wait times and poor customer experiences).

Managing

Managing workforce management in call centre operations involves:

• Tracking Real-Time Agent Performance – Monitoring call resolution rates, handle times, and productivity metrics.
• Optimising Agent Utilisation – Ensuring fair work distribution to prevent burnout and improve job satisfaction.
• Ensuring Compliance – Adhering to labour laws, break schedules, and overtime regulations.

With a workforce management contact centre system, managers can proactively identify bottlenecks, staffing inefficiencies, and training needs, ensuring smooth call centre operations.

Scheduling

Proper workforce management and call centre scheduling ensures that agents are assigned shifts that align with call volume patterns while maintaining work-life balance. Best practices include:

• Automated Scheduling Software – Using AI to create optimised shift plans based on agent skills, availability, and demand.
• Flexible Shift Models – Offering split shifts, hybrid work models, and self-scheduling options to improve employee satisfaction.
• Dynamic Scheduling Adjustments – Adapting schedules in real-time to handle unexpected spikes in call volume.

A well-executed call centre workforce planning strategy boosts productivity, reduces absenteeism, and improves agent retention.

How Does Workforce Management Work?

The main idea of workforce management software is to boost your team’s operation and ensure that your human resources are utilised optimally according to their job roles, skills, and a specific schedule which should be maintained to streamline the entire workflow.

Typically, the WFM tool varies according to the requirements of the industry and the niche it is applied. Yet in general, the main duties you can handle with this type of software are as follows:

• Development of successful and effective schedules for your employees in an automated mode.
• Time management – namely, tracking your team’s clock-ins and clock-outs, work hours, days off, sick leaves, etc.
• Regulatory compliance – that’s what typical WFM software helps to regulate and implement in the company’s regiment.

That’s the core, and it can be accompanied by additional features and tasks a particular business needs. For instance, you can get a WFM application that can be used on multiple devices, apply labour forecasting tools integrated into it, or add some analytics tools and reports to the product to get clear and accurate analytics for further development of a company.

All these features depend on the idea of software developers mostly, and there are multiple products in the markets from basic free WFM software to more sophisticated and complex products offered on a paid basis.

Why Is Workforce Management So Important for Call Centres?

Effective workforce management in a call centre ensures that customer service teams operate efficiently, cost-effectively, and with high employee engagement. Without a structured contact centre WFM strategy, call centres face inconsistent service levels, high turnover rates, and unnecessary labour costs.

Key reasons why workforce management for call centres is essential:

• Maintains Service Levels – Ensures customers receive timely responses with minimal wait times.
• Optimises Employee Performance – Helps agents stay productive without experiencing burnout.
• Improves Customer Experience – Satisfied agents provide better service.
• Controls Labour Costs – Prevents overstaffing and unnecessary expenses.
• Boosts Agent Morale – Fair scheduling leads to happier employees.

A contact centre workforce management strategy aligns business goals with employee well-being, resulting in smoother operations and improved customer satisfaction.

WFM’s Role in a Contact Centre

Call centre WFM plays a crucial role in maintaining operational efficiency by addressing:

• Staffing Needs – Ensuring the right number of agents are available per shift.
• Call Routing Optimisation – Assigning the best-suited agents to specific customer interactions.
• Performance Monitoring – Tracking agent activity to identify improvement areas.
• Schedule Compliance – Ensuring adherence to assigned shifts and break times.

By leveraging call centre workforce management systems, businesses can streamline operations and improve service levels.

Why Use Call Centre WFM Tools?

Adopting workforce management software call centre solutions provides better scheduling, real-time monitoring, and workforce analytics. These tools are designed to:

Maintaining Service Levels

• Ensures the right number of agents are scheduled based on call volume predictions.
• Reduces abandoned calls, long wait times, and agent fatigue.
• Helps maintain customer service KPIs, such as first-call resolution (FCR) and response times.

Optimising Employee Performance

• Provides data-driven insights into agent workload, call handling efficiency, and peak productivity hours.
• Identifies training needs to improve call quality and response accuracy.
• Prevents overworking employees by balancing workloads effectively.

Better Customer Experience

• Improves call routing by assigning the right agent to the right task.
• Reduces customer wait times, increasing satisfaction and loyalty.
• Ensures consistent service quality across all shifts and time zones.

Optimising Labour Costs

• Prevents overstaffing during low-demand periods, saving payroll costs.
• Reduces overtime expenses by ensuring proper shift planning.
• Maximises workforce utilisation for higher ROI on labour investment.

Boosting Agent Morale

• Provides predictable schedules that align with employee preferences.
• Reduces burnout by ensuring reasonable workloads and rest breaks.
• Increases retention by creating a positive work environment.

Implementing contact centre workforce management software ensures better control over staffing, compliance, and service quality, leading to higher productivity and reduced operational costs.

Key Features of Call Centre Workforce Management

A well-structured workforce management call centre strategy depends on advanced tools and features that ensure accurate scheduling, real-time monitoring, and operational efficiency. Modern contact centre workforce management software includes functionalities designed to optimise agent performance, control labour costs, and enhance customer service levels.

Here are the key features that make call centre workforce management systems effective:

Staff Forecasting and Scheduling

One of the most critical aspects of workforce management in call centre operations is accurate forecasting. By analysing historical data, seasonal trends, and real-time demand, businesses can:

• Predict call volume fluctuations and adjust staffing levels accordingly.
• Schedule agents efficiently to prevent overstaffing or understaffing.
• Improve service levels by aligning the right number of employees with expected workloads.

With AI-powered workforce management call centre scheduling, managers can automate

Consistent Customer Experiences

A structured call centre workforce planning approach ensures that:

• Customers receive fast and efficient support, regardless of the time of day.
• Service levels remain consistent across all shifts and channels (phone, email, chat, social media).
• Agents are properly allocated to handle high-demand periods.

By integrating call centre workforce optimisation tools, businesses enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Agent Job Satisfaction and Engagement

A workforce call centre strategy isn’t just about productivity — it also focuses on agent well-being. The best workforce management contact centre tools provide:

• Flexible scheduling options that give employees control over their shifts.
• Fair workload distribution, preventing stress and burnout.
• Employee feedback mechanisms to keep agents engaged and motivated.

High agent engagement leads to lower turnover rates and a more efficient call centre workforce.

AI-Optimised Schedules

Artificial intelligence plays a significant role in call centre workforce management by:

• Predicting peak and slow periods with high accuracy.
• Adjusting schedules dynamically based on real-time call volume.
• Optimising break times to ensure continuous coverage without disrupting service.

With AI-driven call centre workforce management solutions, businesses reduce manual scheduling efforts and improve overall efficiency.

Shift Bidding

Allowing agents to bid for shifts based on their availability and preferences improves:

• Work-life balance, making rosters more flexible.
• Employee satisfaction, leading to better retention.
• Fair shift distribution, ensuring that all employees get opportunities for desirable shifts.

Shift bidding is a key feature in modern workforce management software call centre solutions.

Time and Attendance Tracking

Tracking work schedule adherence is essential for:

• Ensuring employees clock in and out on time.
• Managing absenteeism and identifying trends.
• Preventing excessive overtime and labour law violations.

By integrating time-tracking features, managers maintain full visibility into workforce efficiency.

Real-Time Team Management

A workforce management call centre solution must allow supervisors to:

• Monitor agent activity in real-time.
• Identify and address workload imbalances before they affect service levels.
• Make live roster adjustments to handle unexpected demand surges.

This feature ensures that managers can respond instantly to any scheduling or staffing issues.

Operational Efficiency

Using workforce management in a call centre improves operational workflows by:

• Reducing manual scheduling efforts, saving time and resources.
• Optimising shift coverage to maintain consistent service levels.
• Enhancing workforce productivity, ensuring better customer interactions.

With the right call centre WFM tools, businesses run more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Budget Savings

A properly managed workforce management call centre strategy leads to:

• Lower labour costs by preventing overstaffing and unnecessary overtime.
• More efficient resource allocation, reducing wasted payroll expenses.
• Better financial planning, ensuring labour budgets are aligned with revenue goals.

Companies that use contact centre workforce management software cut costs while improving service delivery.

Reporting and Analytics

Data-driven insights are essential for continuous improvement. A strong workforce management call centre system provides:

• Performance tracking for individual agents and teams.
• Detailed workforce reports to optimise shift planning.
• AI-driven analytics to improve forecasting and staffing decisions.

With robust reporting tools, businesses make informed scheduling decisions that drive better results.

Benefits of Workforce Management Software

Investing in workforce management software call centre solutions significantly enhances operational efficiency, employee satisfaction, and customer service quality. These systems automate complex tasks, improve accuracy, and provide data-driven insights for better decision-making.

Here are the top benefits of contact centre workforce management software:

1. Increased Accuracy in Scheduling and Forecasting

Using AI-driven workforce management call centre forecasting, businesses can:

• Predict call volume fluctuations with precision.
• Reduce scheduling errors that lead to overstaffing or understaffing.
• Ensure optimal workforce distribution based on demand trends.

Accurate scheduling improves productivity, ensuring agents are available when they are needed most.

2. Reduce the Amount of Time Spent Scheduling

Manual scheduling is time-consuming and prone to human error. A call centre workforce management solution automates:

• Shift assignments, ensuring fair and balanced work distribution.
• Break and lunch scheduling, optimising agent availability.
• Last-minute roster adjustments, handling unforeseen absences seamlessly.

By eliminating manual scheduling tasks, managers save time and focus on improving customer service strategies.

3. Ensure Roster Adherence

A contact centre workforce management system ensures:

• Agents follow their assigned work rosters.
• Breaks and lunch periods comply with company policies and labour laws.
• Real-time alerts notify managers of roster deviations.

Adhering to rosters and policies leads to higher service consistency and regulatory compliance.

4. Understand Where Agents Need Extra Support

A strong workforce management call centre system tracks:

• Performance gaps, identifying agents who may need additional training.
• Workload distribution, ensuring no employee is overworked or underutilised.
• Real-time agent productivity, allowing for quick adjustments.

By analysing workforce data, businesses can implement targeted training and coaching programmes.

5. Create a Better Agent Experience

Happy agents deliver better customer service. Workforce management solutions help:

• Provide fair and flexible scheduling that aligns with agent preferences.
• Reduce stress and burnout by balancing workloads.
• Offer self-scheduling features, giving employees more control over their shifts.

A better work-life balance leads to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates.

6. Promote Regulatory Compliance

Labour laws and compliance requirements vary across industries and locations. Workforce management in a call centre ensures:

• Adherence to work-hour limits and overtime regulations.
• Automated break and lunch scheduling to comply with labour laws.
• Accurate tracking of hours worked, preventing payroll discrepancies.

By maintaining compliance with legal requirements, businesses avoid penalties and improve workforce transparency.

Call Centre Workforce Management Best Practices

Implementing call centre workforce management best practices ensures that call centres operate efficiently, cost-effectively, and with high employee engagement. By optimising scheduling, leveraging technology, and maintaining agent satisfaction, businesses can enhance service levels while reducing operational costs.

Below are the most effective best practices for workforce management call centre operations:

1. Choose the Right WFM Software

Selecting the right workforce management software call centre is critical for accurate forecasting, real-time scheduling, and performance tracking. Key factors to consider:

• AI-driven scheduling capabilities to automate and optimise workforce allocation.
• Real-time monitoring to track agent adherence and workload balance.
• Self-service options that allow employees to swap or request shifts.
• Analytics and reporting features to improve decision-making.

With contact centre workforce management software, businesses can enhance productivity and optimise resource allocation.

2. Schedule the Right Agents at the Right Time

Proper scheduling prevents staffing shortages and excessive overtime costs. To optimise workforce management in a call centre, companies should:

• Leverage In-Depth Analytics. Use historical data and AI-based forecasting to predict call volumes, peak hours, and seasonal trends.
• Empower Your Employees. Allow agents to request preferred shifts while ensuring coverage for critical time slots.
• Build a Knowledge Base. Provide training and resources to enhance agent skills and improve scheduling efficiency.
• Empower Employees with Self-Service. Enable shift swaps and availability updates through a workforce call centre management system.
• Continuous Learning. Offer ongoing training programmes to improve agent efficiency and adaptability.
• Don’t Forget About Shrinkage. Factor in absenteeism, breaks, and meeting times to ensure full shift coverage.
• Be Adaptable. Use real-time scheduling tools to adjust shifts dynamically based on demand fluctuations.

By applying these scheduling strategies, businesses maximise workforce efficiency and agent productivity.

3. Help Keep Agent Morale High and Prevent Burnout

Agent well-being and engagement directly impact customer service quality. To maintain high morale, managers should:

Provide Schedule Predictability or Autonomy

• Give employees advance notice of shift schedules to improve work-life balance.
• Offer flexible scheduling options, such as hybrid work models or shift bidding.

Keep Agents Engaged

• Implement gamification to make daily tasks more interactive and rewarding.
• Foster a positive work environment with recognition programmes.

Show Appreciation for Great Work

• Provide incentives and bonuses for top-performing agents.
• Recognise hard work and achievements to boost motivation.

A positive workplace culture leads to lower turnover rates and higher service quality.

4. Let AI Take the Grunt Work

AI-powered workforce management call centre scheduling tools eliminate manual errors and streamline operations by:

• Automating demand-based scheduling to prevent overstaffing and understaffing.
• Optimising agent assignments based on performance, skills, and customer needs.
• Improving workforce flexibility with real-time shift adjustments.

With AI-driven workforce management contact centre solutions, businesses enhance efficiency and reduce administrative workload.

5. Incorporate Employee (and Customer) Feedback

Listening to both employees and customers helps refine workforce management strategies. Best practices include:

• Conducting regular employee surveys to identify scheduling challenges.
• Using customer feedback to assess service levels and adjust staffing accordingly.
• Implementing workforce management call centre jobs reviews to improve agent performance and satisfaction.

Integrating feedback into call centre workforce management solutions leads to better agent experiences and higher customer satisfaction rates.

How Software Can Support Your Call Centre Workforce Management

Adopting workforce management software call centre solutions simplifies staff scheduling, real-time monitoring, and performance tracking. Advanced contact centre workforce management software automates forecasting, shift planning, and compliance tracking, ensuring businesses optimise resources while maintaining high service levels.

Here’s how call centre workforce management systems support efficient operations:

Track KPIs and Metrics

Measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) allows businesses to improve workforce management call centre strategies. Essential KPIs include:

• Call Volume Trends – Tracks fluctuations in incoming customer requests to refine forecasting.
• First-Call Resolution (FCR) – Measures how effectively agents resolve issues in a single interaction.
• Schedule Adherence – Ensures employees follow assigned shifts and break schedules.
• Occupancy Rate – Determines agent productivity levels to prevent overwork or underutilisation.
• Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) – Evaluates service quality and agent performance.

By analysing real-time data, businesses can continuously optimise workforce operations.

Automate Schedule Adherence and Approvals

Automating workforce management in a call centre ensures schedule consistency by:

• Enforcing work-hour limits to prevent excessive overtime.
• Managing shift swaps while maintaining adequate coverage.
• Automating break scheduling to comply with labour laws.
• Providing real-time adherence alerts to help managers address issues proactively.

With workforce management call centre scheduling tools, managers can reduce scheduling conflicts and improve compliance.

Enable Skills-Based Routing

Effective workforce management contact centre strategies include skill-based call routing, which:

• Matches customers with the most qualified agents, improving first-contact resolution.
• Enhances operational efficiency by directing specialised inquiries to expert teams.
• Reduces call transfer rates, leading to faster response times and improved customer satisfaction.

With AI-powered workforce call centre solutions, businesses increase efficiency while optimising agent workload distribution.

Use Predictive Forecasting

Call centre workforce forecasting tools analyse historical trends, real-time demand, and seasonal fluctuations to:

• Adjust staffing levels dynamically based on predicted workload.
• Prevent overstaffing during low-demand periods, reducing labour costs.
• Ensure peak demand is met with adequate agent coverage.

By leveraging predictive analytics, businesses improve workforce allocation and service consistency.

Thank you for clarifying! I’ll make changes to the last section by removing mentions of AI and performance.

How Shifton Can Help with Workforce Management Call Centre Solutions

Shifton is a cloud-based service designed for employee shift planning and scheduling. It helps businesses efficiently manage workforce schedules, reduce administrative workload, and improve shift coordination. Key benefits include:

• Automated Shift Planning – Quickly creates optimised work schedules, ensuring fair shift distribution.
• Real-Time Adjustments – Allows managers to modify schedules instantly to accommodate staffing needs.
• Self-Scheduling Features – Enables employees to bid for shifts, request swaps, and set availability preferences.
• Flexible Scheduling Options – Supports fixed, rotating, and part-time shifts, making workforce management more adaptable.
• Compliance Support – Helps businesses structure shifts according to labour laws and company policies.

With Shifton’s intuitive scheduling platform, businesses can streamline workforce planning, improve team coordination, and maintain seamless shift operations.

Automation can be applied to nearly everything, even in the niche of security services where, alongside special security monitoring tools, you can also utilise security guard scheduling software to boost your company’s efficiency and elevate it to the top levels.

In Shifton, we’ve had numerous successful cases of implementing security guard management software, and we’re thrilled to share some insights and benefits of this technical solution with our blog readers.

What is Security Guard Scheduling Software?

The core idea of security scheduling software is to optimise your human resources to make them work with the highest efficiency. In terms of a security department or a company offering security and bodyguarding services, this product addresses the following issues:

• Proper scheduling to provide fair and transparent shifts for everyone working in your company. You can create schedules and share them with your staff instantly in a single environment to inform them, or even allow them to choose when to work and which shifts to take on.
• Preventing overworking. This tool helps management avoid excessively loading some workers while others may remain under-utilised and earn less.
• Control your staff’s time. Specifically, in Shifton, we incorporate GPS in our security staff scheduling software, allowing a business owner or manager in charge to monitor each worker’s clock-ins and clock-outs, their absence from the workplace, or tardiness issues.
• Accurate accounting processes. In the security service industry, there are multiple considerations when calculating payroll. Using an adjusted security guard schedule template, you can calculate salaries automatically, add bonuses or penalties for each employee, and easily send pre-prepared tables with payroll calculations to your accounting department.

How Does Security Guard Scheduling Software Work?

Certainly, each security scheduling software may have its unique features, but generally, it operates in the same manner.

• You have an environment your employees can access where you create schedules using pre-set templates or by developing your own template.
• You can easily fill in the form and allocate work shifts and hours among your workers.
• When it’s time to calculate payroll, the platform automatically computes work hours for each employee and generates a table or report you can use further for payroll.
• If your software also acts as security guard tracking software, it offers special tools to register work hours and enable your workers to signal when they start and end their shifts.

This is a brief overview of any security guard scheduling software. However, if you want it to be the most effective and provide you with advanced functionality, you can gain all those benefits from Shifton.

Shifton Best Security Guard Scheduling Software of 2024

Why do we claim Shifton is the best security guard management software? There are numerous reasons. Generally, the core features that make our product the #1 choice in the market for security service agencies and security departments include:

• Built-in scenarios and templates for successful workflow scheduling in the agency. We provide customers with numerous templates that fit various types of business and hiring models, allowing you to tailor them to your specific workflow.
• Special task module, which offers extensive opportunities to assign tasks in addition to creating schedules and shifts. This multi-functional assignment module helps monitor who and when is responsible and has to take up the shift, while simultaneously assigning tasks to be completed during the shift.
• Easy and flexible shift changes. In case of an emergency or unexpected situation, you can alter shifts, provide shift replacements, and simultaneously receive instant updates on the work hours of each worker to prevent overworking.
• Instant communication with your staff. Shifton offers straightforward communication with the entire staff through the application’s built-in tools. You can inform your workers promptly about changes, receive their feedback, and contact them via the app when your personnel are in the field.
• Alert tools that help deliver your messages to the staff immediately with seamless acknowledgment of receipt.
• Advanced payroll tools that offer complex salary calculations, including the application of special bonus and penalty scenarios.
• Tracking tools help monitor task performance, shifts taken, and timely arrivals.

That’s the basic package we provide, and in addition, you can use this tool for forecasting, analytics, and planning. You’ll have access to multiple integrated report forms and analytic tools.

Understanding the Value of Security Guard Scheduling Software

So, what makes security scheduling software a must-have for niche businesses? Let’s explore the most significant benefits.

Optimised Coverage for Security Goals

Nothing is worse than understaffing in the security industry. If you fail to provide enough guards to achieve the highest security levels, you lose more than a client—you lose your good reputation. With special security scheduling software, you can plan your security coverage and engage as many people as necessary for impeccable performance.

Improved Visibility and Accountability

Shifton, as an example of security management software, offers the highest level of visibility and accountability. No longer do you need to draft plans and check them in the office. Instead, you can instantly view schedules and current tasks for each employee, knowing who is in the field and who is on their day off. You don’t need to spend time on calls and clarifying the current state of affairs. You simply launch the app and receive instant information about everything related to your personnel.

Lower Scheduling Overhead

Save your time on scheduling and managing multiple details. This can be done automatically by your security scheduling software. Even the most complex rules and calculations are executed error-free with the help of software.

Real-Time Monitoring

Tracking the workflow in real-time is invaluable. Thus, you can respond swiftly to new circumstances, plan future routines in advance, and get instant updates on emergencies, delays, or unexpected situations. You can then address them promptly to ensure smooth operations.

Improved Communication

The key to each business is clear and fast communication between team members and managers. That’s why using security guard management software helps maintain communication in the fastest and most convenient way. You can receive immediate feedback from your guards about the completion of their tasks, receive information about required schedule changes from employees unable to take up a shift, or inform your staff about anything you want with guaranteed notification for everyone.

These features, implemented through the state-of-the-art technology provided by Shifton, assist businesses engaged in security services to achieve their goals and offer clients impeccable levels of service. Additionally, such software reduces costs and time expenses for CEOs, allowing them to concentrate on more important matters instead of endlessly monitoring, informing, and scheduling their staff.

Being a hotelier or a CEO in the hospitality business gives you multiple duties, challenges, and emergencies which can be overcome using employee management software for hotels. It’s well-known that a considerable amount of processes in any hotel relate to effective communication with your staff. In hotels, you generally have many employees. Even if it is a family business, you cannot run it alone.

This fact leads to a conclusion: most difficulties and blunders you might face while trying to establish your hotel business arise from the lack of timely and effective communication with your staff. At Shifton, we fully understand this and can assist by sharing our experience and hotel scheduling software.

How to manage hotel staff: keys to success

Your staff should work seamlessly because your hotel’s reputation and your clients’ loyalty largely depend on their performance. This means you need to consider all potential challenges that may undermine your efforts to create a flawless hotel. Special attention is needed for the following:

• Lack of communication among your employees and teams.
• Difficulties with shift scheduling, leading to customer service problems.
• Low flexibility in staff management, resulting in staff shortages over time.
• Ineffective task management.
• Lack of motivation and an ineffective system of rewards and punishments.

Along with your efforts to mitigate these issues, employee management software for hotels can be invaluable for reviewing and adjusting your staff’s operations. Save time, consider communication channels to contact your staff promptly, but firstly, analyse which issues occur regularly and work on them.

Communication issues in the hospitality industry

The first and foremost thing you need to provide is communication in the hotel industry. Your managers need to book rooms for clients timely and inform maids about which rooms require cleaning. You need timely information on who starts their shift today and who will be on duty tomorrow. Your bartenders must inform you about which supplies they need, and the security service must provide timely reports. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and communication forms the basis for success. What happens when it lacks?

• The entire operation can descend into chaos.
• Customers become dissatisfied and might post negative reviews of your service.
• Staff shortages become inevitable.
• You lose money and good workers instead of further motivating them.

Sounds worrying, doesn’t it? Yet, you only need one additional tool besides your time for maintaining hotels. That’s staff scheduling software for hotels, which addresses multiple issues simultaneously.

Automation of staff management and planning

Getting Shifton’s employee management software for hotels equips you with a comprehensive tool.

1. Your staff won’t miss their shifts or overwork thanks to a GPS-powered time clock, allowing them to clock in and out directly from their mobile devices.
2. You create schedules for all teams effortlessly due to integrated hotel employee schedule templates.
3. You receive instant insights into your establishment’s operation using the software’s automated reporting.
4. You streamline daily tasks and operations, which improves time management.
5. Automated human resources tasks assist with a more efficient and personalised hiring and onboarding process.
6. You get a framework for communication and information for your staff, as employees can access important information on the go since Shifton functions as an employee mobile app for hotels.
7. Obtaining feedback from your staff is crucial, and you get a digital social feed that encourages employee engagement and collaboration.
8. Seamless payroll and accounting integration with QuickBooks Online — this enables fair and quick salary calculations, automatically motivating good employees.

How to improve the management of a work team?

Efficient team management in the hospitality industry can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and overall business success. With Shifton, you can apply the following tips and enjoy almost immediate results.

• Utilise special scheduling templates, such as 2/2, 3/3, 1/3, 5/2, to create effective working shifts and allocate your staff logically and efficiently.
• Use the Tasks tool to assign tasks to employees, track their completion, create checklists for maids and cooks, and check task statuses instantly to ensure everything is going smoothly. This streamlines operations and makes task management beneficial for your business.
• Notify your staff using their mobile apps. By working within a shared framework, your employees will receive automatic push notifications and reminders, ensuring they never miss them.
• Provide increased flexibility by enabling online exchanges of shifts, weekends, and sick days. Your staff will appreciate your quick response to urgent needs for replacements or sick days. Your business will benefit from this too.
• Motivate your employees with overtime bonuses. These can be calculated automatically as Shifton tracks each employee’s working hours and provides clear reports on overtime worked today.
• Manage breaks to avoid impacting your business. Schedule breaks in advance or set limits on the number and duration of breaks.
• Monitor attendance and get timely information when a person starts and ends their shift, and who was late or missed a shift.

These tips can assist you in efficiently managing a hotel, even with a team of over 100 employees.

Employee management software for hospitality

With effective employee management software for hotels, you can more efficiently schedule employees and adapt flexibly in emergencies.

• Assign staff shifts based on job role and availability.
• Use drag and drop, assign shifts in bulk, set recurring shifts, create customisable templates, and even allow employees to claim available open shifts.
• Easily resolve scheduling issues with alerts for overtime, limitations, or scheduling conflicts.
• Provide push notifications to employees, allowing them to immediately accept or reject shifts directly from their mobile devices.
• Include shift tasks, notes, and even files within the schedule, so employees know exactly what to do upon arrival at work.
• Complete oversight over collaborative staff scheduling in real-time, all while on the go.

Communication is the cornerstone of effective hotel management. However, delivering it can be complex. Thanks to modern automation tools, you can delegate some communication and interaction processes to these solutions. Today, Shifton offers hotel businesses a versatile automation tool that aids in staff management, shift management, solutions for emergent situations, recruiting and motivating your team. Just select it and use it to achieve success with this employee mobile app for hotels.

The team at Shifton keeps improving a tool for selecting and deploying medical staff for shifts, introducing the nurse schedule template. Nobody doubts anymore that efficient planning plays a crucial role in healthcare, ensuring that hospitals and clinics operate effectively. Let’s talk about how a chosen nurse scheduling app or template assists with online schedule planning.

Nurse Schedule Templates: What Is It?

Nurse schedule templates are like the backbone of the hospital nurse shift management system. They’re pre-made documents that help managers plan when their nursing teams work. These schedules cover all sorts of shifts, from day to night. Plus, they consider each staff member’s requirements, like when they can and can’t work, to keep everyone happy and the schedule running smoothly.

How do Nurse Schedule Templates Boost Hospital and Clinic Management?

Nurse schedule templates are really crucial for running hospitals and clinics smoothly. Heaps of healthcare places are using them to make nurse staffing schedules easier, and here’s why:

No Mess: These templates help cut down on mistakes in scheduling so you don’t end up short-staffed and scrambling to cover shifts. Managers can easily spot gaps or overlaps and fix them to make sure there’s always someone on duty.

Time Saver: Using healthcare staff scheduling templates or apps saves loads of time compared to making schedules from scratch every week. Tweak a pre-made template or update an app instead.

Happy Nurses: Nursing is challenging, so keeping nurses happy is key. Using these templates means nurses get clear, fair schedules they can plan around. That makes for a happier, more productive team.

Transparency: Managing nurse scheduler apps and templates also makes schedules more transparent. Everyone can see who’s working when, so there’s no feeling like someone’s getting special treatment. It’s all about teamwork and making sure patients get top-notch care.

How to Create a Nurse Schedule Template

While numerous templates are available online for staff scheduling, creating your own is straightforward—easier than you’d expect. It’s a one-off task that will save you time in the long run. Here are 5 easy steps for you to follow:

1. Pick a platform. Use Excel, Google Sheets, or online nurse scheduling software.
2. Personalise the template with your organisation’s details and staff names.
3. If necessary, include hourly rates for staff.
4. Populate the schedule based on staff availability, ensuring everyone’s workload is balanced.
5. Share the schedule with your team, controlling who can edit it as needed.

Enhancing Nurse Shift Schedules: 6 Helpful Tips

Healthcare organisations need to up their game regarding nurse scheduling to boost clinical and business results. Crafting a nurse shift schedule is just the beginning; to make it work for everyone, check out these six tips:

Use Nurse Scheduling Software

Nurse scheduling software rocks because it keeps everything clear and transparent, so your team always knows when and where they work. Say goodbye to old-school Excel sheets and give shift scheduling software like Shifton a crack. It makes scheduling a breeze, even with the medical staff’s hectic and ever-changing schedules. Plus, it handles time-off requests and keeps track of attendance and payroll — all in one handy spot.

Consider What Your Staff Want

When sorting out schedules, consider what your nursing crew likes. It’s an easy way to keep them happy, lift their spirits, and keep them around. Some folks prefer specific shifts, while others might want to avoid working on particular days. Working around these preferences will make your team happier and less likely to jump ship.

Have Backup Plans

Life’s unpredictable, so be ready for emergencies. While it’s unfortunate, these things happen, and they can disrupt the shift schedule, especially during those significant hospital shift changes. It’s great if you have an on-call nurse who can always come to help when needed, just like many clinics do.

Keep Your Schedule Updated

Don’t let your schedule gather dust. Make sure you keep an eye on the nurse’s schedule and give it a refresh now and then. That way, it stays current with any changes in staff availability, hospital needs, etc. The last thing you want is for your team to check an outdated schedule and miss shifts or show up late, throwing off the whole nurse shift change routine.

Give Your Nurses Some Rest

Make sure your nurses get enough downtime between shifts to recharge. When nurses don’t get enough sleep, they’re more likely to get needlestick injuries and deal with health issues like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, depression, and heart problems. Plus, working long hours can lead to compassion fatigue. That’s why it’s vital to automate shift planning. Smart shift scheduling software can handle scheduling without hiccups, unlike humans, who can mess things up.

Good Communication Is Key

Keeping your team informed about their schedules is critical to keeping everyone happy and avoiding mix-ups. Want to keep the good vibes flowing in your crew? Always keep them informed about what’s going on and any upcoming changes. Using a nurse scheduling app where everyone can quickly check in? That’s a great idea!

Final Thoughts

Using nurse staffing software makes managing your workload simpler and increases productivity. When this critical task isn’t done well, it can cause problems for nurses, nurse leaders, hospitals, and patients. Lousy scheduling can also make nurses unhappy and cost hospitals a lot in overtime pay. That’s where Shifton helps out! As a nurse manager, ensuring your nursing staff is well-organised is vital to facilitate seamless patient care.

With Shifton, you can:

• Easily organise and oversee your nursing team to ensure adequate coverage.
• Monitor patient care tasks, such as medication administration and procedures.
• Coordinate and communicate with your team effortlessly.

Bid farewell to the headaches of manual scheduling. Everyone’s heard about it — in 2024, nurse scheduling apps will be rolling out. They’re all about making shift planning easier, reducing paperwork, and helping nurses balance work and life.

Give Shifton software a try today for smoother nursing management.

Following the schedule is one of the most important things in any company’s working process. Professionals need to value their time and use it properly during working hours. Workers can benefit from the following advice to make their job less hectic.

Knowing your limits is one of the simplest time management tips

Don’t be afraid to speak to your management if you encounter difficulties. It’s better to clear things up from the start than wait until the situation goes out of control. For instance, if you need to book a hotel for a business trip, ensure you make reservations for the correct number of rooms with the hotel in the right part of town. You should also enquire about any financial limits.

You can’t always handle things on your own. There’s no shame in asking for help from your colleagues. If you receive a task you can’t manage, you can share the work among some of your co-workers. This can be done if, for example, you are tasked with front-end work on an entire website. You can delegate the work on a couple of pages to fellow programmers. This way, you will avoid unnecessary fatigue and increase your chances of completing the assignment on time.

Don’t loiter your time away

Whatever happens, you should remain focused on your responsibilities. Don’t jump out of your chair the second you see your boss leave the office. Focus on your work instead of aimlessly wandering around the office and chatting with colleagues. We suggest that you make a detailed work plan to keep yourself on track.

Try to keep away from distractions. There’s nothing wrong with calling our mates and loved ones occasionally. This practice, however, can become a bad habit if the phone calls and texting get out of control.

Organise your working space

Treating your work desk with respect has to be one of the top time management tips. Pay particular attention to where your documents are kept. That way you won’t waste precious time searching for them. Write down all of your assignments in a work journal or a digital document. Otherwise, you risk forgetting about them. You also shouldn’t eat where you work. This lowers concentration and makes you drowsy.

Be punctual

Try to arrive at work and leave on time. Taking too many days-off without a strong reason or without notifying your superiors is a poor decision. If you want to leave work early, inform your manager about it.

Don’t make colleagues wait for your part of the job to be completed. Especially if you work on a big project and people rely on you. Your inaction or lacklustre work will affect their progress as well.

It seems many of us are capable of divvying up our time and the time of our employees properly and in a rational way. If that’s the case, why do we often face a shortage of this prominent, valuable, and sadly finite resource? At first, it seems we do everything right: jot down plans in our notebooks, minimise distractions, and stick to our goals. Perhaps the root cause of our losses and time deficit is failing to follow effective time management rules? Let’s try to find out what causes this and learn how to properly manage our time effectively and rationally.

To do this, we need to talk about the four-frame model of time management. If we want to understand its principles, we must first define what time management actually means. Effective time management is a science, a tool or teaching about properly managing, distributing, organising, recording, and using time.

Why do we need the time management process?

• It is a tool that allows you to complete the most set tasks in the shortest time possible;

• Time management process helps us set our work priorities straight;

• It gives us the opportunity to focus on the most vital tasks first and tackle less important responsibilities only after dealing with high-priority assignments;

• By following proper time management models you will have time for leisure, family, and a vibrant life outside of work.

Of course, you shouldn’t forget that effective time management will lead you to master new important skills and methods used in achieving specific goals and completing crucial projects. The time management process is a huge mechanism that involves a wide variety of actions, skills, and abilities like any other discipline. These include proper goal planning, delegating responsibility, making lists and plans, monitoring, analysing time costs, evaluating the value of various actions, setting priorities, etc.

What exactly is a four-frame model?

Classic time management emerged some time ago, back when there was a solitary approach towards management. The world is constantly developing, and the same can be said about the study of effective time distribution. After the 2012 release of the “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership” book by Lee Bolman and Terry Deal, time management processes started being viewed as a complex, multi-layered apparatus. That’s when the “four-frame model” notion first appeared. It is a system of controlling your time as well as the system, process, yourself, and other people.

The main difference between monostatic and four-frame management is that traditional time management, which is more oriented towards controlling time, was based on a single component — its priority. More specifically, it concerned doing your work tasks depending on their importance. The four-frame model is a more detailed, accurate, and multi-faceted tool that uncovers patterns and different time management models.

In simpler terms, to make your and your employee’s work effective and successful, you must forget about viewing the time management process as a one-sided issue. When doing your job, you have to pay attention to all four factors mentioned below. Each of them will help you reach your goals and stay on schedule.

• You have to learn how to use every minute of your time properly and control it completely;

• A good company director must develop a system for carrying out certain tasks, whether this concerns his own duties or work executed by his employees;

• You must be in complete control of how employees work on certain tasks and projects. We don’t suggest constantly controlling every aspect of the work process. Not to mention that a company CEO has to inspect and supervise some of the most valuable or problematic work areas;

• The final and no less important four-frame time management factor: a good boss has to have self-discipline as well as the ability to control his subordinates, be self-collected, and make rational and sequential decisions.

Of course, one shouldn’t forget about self-discipline as it is important for employees of any rank, from the highest to the lowest levels. When both you and your employee are orderly and polite, planning effective time management will be a breeze. If you don’t have a proper level of self-organisation and aren’t good at setting your priorities straight, you will find it hard to systematise and structure your own time.

By using this model out of all the time management models, you will start controlling your own time, your employee’s time, and the work process as a whole. It seems as if this tool was specially tailored for your perception of time, your attitude towards life and work. It will take your system’s peculiarities and work process into account and will be oriented towards the people around you.

Being a real estate agent is a role that consists of multiple functions, a huge amount of data, and constant communication with property sellers, buyers, and developers, although most of these functions can be passed on to specialised software for real estate management. Are you surprised? Then, let’s chat in detail about how real estate software for property management and scheduling helps businesses maintain the highest quality of services and, thus, high customer satisfaction.

If you want to succeed in the competitive real estate industry, it’s crucial to get ahead of other agents. This means you shouldn’t limit yourself to one location and need to gather as many property offers to sell as possible. A real estate showing scheduler will be very handy to help you streamline your business and team.

Real estate scheduling apps don’t just limit you to scheduling routines. They extend beyond that and also assist you with multiple tasks you may have:

• managing your busy agendas;
• securing more listing appointments;
• planning cleaners’ visits and decorators’ work at the pre-showing stage;
• calculating payroll for your staff if you’re a real estate agency owner;
• facilitating easy and effective communication within your team.

If you organise your schedule properly, you will maximise the number of appointments and showings, which will directly impact your commission cheque.

The Features of the Best Property Management Software in 2024

Let’s break down how software for real estate management can simplify your everyday routines, and which of its features are particularly handy for real estate agents:

Job scheduling option

When you have a team working for you, you need to schedule their work, distribute the load, and check their assignments to ensure flawless operation of the agency, bringing you clientele and hence, profit. An opportunity to create optimal schedules for your employees based on each employee’s submitted availability and job qualifications is what you can appreciate in modern real estate scheduling software. In Shifton, for instance, you can add all relevant information, such as location and tasks, and share assignments with your employees online, so your staff has everything they need to perform at their best on their mobile phones. Everyone gets their share of the work, and you avoid drawbacks and overlaps due to the use of a well-thought-out real estate scheduler.

Digital tasks, forms, and checklists for your best operations

When you have a shared platform for simultaneous work with your team, you can streamline the entire workflow. Moreover, this option can be used both for your employees’ tasks and for your personal task management plans.

• You create tasks quickly and assign them to your employees,
• You maintain a clear overview of their progress in real-time right in the real estate scheduling software. This could range from one-off maintenance requests to routine inspections and cleaning jobs.
• You can add all the information your employees need to get the work done on time, such as notes and deadlines.
• In a real estate scheduler like Shifton, you can formulate custom reports, forms, and checklists for your staff to fill out, use electronic signatures to confirm each employee’s identity, and submit them back for your review to stay in the loop and ensure compliance.

Manage your facilities with ease

When you’re running a real estate agency, working as a freelance real estate agent, conducting an inspection service, or a facilities management business, you need full oversight of all your resources at a glance. That is what real estate software for property management is utilised for. With it, you can indicate all the facilities and housing, add them to the list, manage them, and delegate tasks that concern these facilities to your staff. The main benefits you get from such solutions are as follows:

• You can flexibly manage each facility or real estate object and indicate all the information concerning it using software for real estate management.
• You can assign housing for sale for your employees to disperse responsibilities.

Ensure the safety and performance of your field staff

Real estate shift scheduling software enables you to equip your brokers, agents, inspectors, and field staff with the necessary tools to perform excellent work, including digital safety forms and secure site sign-in and out. Furthermore, when your staff is in the field, they don’t need to spend time after completing their tasks to generate reports. In the best app for realtors Shifton, checklists and reports can be filled in remotely, from a mobile phone, and even on the go, simplifying the working process.

Enhance customer experience

Shifton, as an example of the top planner for real estate agents, delivers all the capabilities you require to elevate a customer experience to a higher level due to advanced functionality including the following built-in tools:

• An automated appointment confirmation and reminders that prevent you from missing appointments.
• Rapid replacement scheduling when an agent can’t attend an appointment – you can swap them with another employee to streamline the operation and retain customers’ loyalty.
• Location pairing to dispatch the nearest frontline workers to customers quickly and save time and costs on long-distance appointments.
• Comment fields to share information from previous jobs and provide instant feedback while your employees are in the field.
• Virtual meeting options to scale up your team-building efforts and provide instant communication with the staff in a single online workspace.
• An intelligent job matching and automated staff scheduling based on business priorities to consistently meet SLAs. For example, allows property valuation companies to rapidly assign available workers to new jobs to meet tight turnaround times for larger clients.

Consequently, when you transfer numerous operations to the online field using real estate scheduling software, you gain multiple benefits from streamlining all these processes to quicker completion of deals, and superior customer service.

What Are the Benefits of Property Management Software for Real Estate Businesses?

The principal benefits of using specialised software for real estate management relate to its helpful nature and the well-crafted tools that are integrated into it.

• It boosts efficiency by automating complex and repeatable daily tasks and processes. This further allows you to save time so you can focus on the bigger picture.
• It allows you to organise, manage, and track important information and processes on a centralised platform. Additionally, you can share it instantly with your staff using cloud technologies.
• It supports your business’ security by providing a secure platform for managing sensitive information, such as tenant information, personal data of sellers, buyers, landlords, their payments, and other vulnerable information. Due to the high protection level, the real estate scheduling app and its cloud storage reliably protect it from leaks.
• It provides you with real-time insights by giving you a clear overview of all data managed in the system and providing instant feedback from your workers. This lets you stay on top of your operations and make informed decisions in a timely and thoughtful manner.

Gone are the days when a paper planner and a calculator were all you needed for successful operation of real estate businesses. Today, to stay ahead of your competitors and attract more clients and profitable deals, you need to be fast, client-orientated, provide agile and informed decisions, and develop synergy within your team. All this can be accomplished by harnessing high technologies. In 2024, a real estate scheduler is a must for agents and agency owners. Furthermore, if this scheduler is as advanced as Shifton, you reap even more benefits and foster an ecosystem that is advantageous for your staff communication.

The niche of retail is highly profitable and in demand, yet it has multiple hidden pitfalls which can lead to low efficiency in retail management. There’s no need to fear them as retail management tips by Shifton may help you tackle the challenges on your path to achieving the highest efficiency in retail management workflow.

The first thing to consider for an effective manager in retail is that this line of business requires you to manage a diverse range of elements and processes daily. Consider it a continuous water flow you need to manage. This flow includes overseeing all store employees, delegating multiple tasks to them, managing how they’re completed, and simultaneously being part of a team for synergy. Sounds a bit fanciful? It’s real when you have informational support and know how to synergise your retail team’s work. Shifton shares the most effective retail staff management tips to help you with that.

What is a retail manager and which tasks do they perform?

A retail manager is someone who manages a retail store, assists with management, or oversees a certain department. Since retail stores can vary in size from small businesses with a few hundred feet of storefronts to large warehouses, shopping centres, and supermarkets owned by massive corporations, the duties and tasks of a retail manager can vary. Moreover, they also vary from day to day depending on the current load on a selling point or a department, customer flow, and even seasonality.

Yet, most commonly, being a retail manager includes the following retail staff management tasks:

• arranging the store environment to make it ergonomic and appealing to customers;
• managing store employees, their tasks, and outcomes;
• maintaining and tracking goods available in stock;
• tracking, mitigating, and preventing shoplifting losses;
• customer service which relies on your assistance;
• tracking sales over set periods and providing reports to higher executives.

In short, a retail manager is an employee responsible for the overall functionality and effectiveness of a selling point.

How to be a good retail manager

We offer you a few tips that suit retail managers of any type and at any size of business, providing resultative retail staff management when applied.

Retail scheduling is a must!

Your selling point should work like clockwork to bring in profit. For this, you need your personnel to start their work on time and work in sync. Thus, even for a small grocery store, you need to provide proper retail scheduling. And regular and logical shifts in supermarkets or shopping centres are indeed a real must.

Although scheduling in the retail industry can be a headache, the solution is simple and is embodied in modern retail scheduling software. With it, you don’t need to keep gigantic data masses in mind or write them in tables on paper to decide on time-off requests, holidays, emergencies, peak times, quiet times, sick days, etc. Instead, you use an automated tool, and you can fill in new variables and data on the go.

Using a proper retail scheduler, you can perform multiple tasks at once.

• Determining the best combination of employees for each shift to make their work as efficient and customer-friendly as possible. You can select teams for the shift based on their skills, hard work, and the synergy they have.
• A retail scheduler like Shifton streamlines the scheduling process by providing alerts and suggestions so you can avoid double bookings, conflicts, and scheduling someone when they can’t work. You optimise shift work schedules in a couple of moves, and you create optimal shift schedules instantly.
• Distribution of schedules and shifts is also up to retail employee scheduling software. Your team has access to the dashboard in the app, and they can easily get info about when their shift is or propose changes if they have some hurdles. You can organise everything in the cloud so that it’s available anywhere, anytime, and alerts your retail team instantly of any provided changes. Each employee can propose schedule changes, independently swap shifts, and receive alerts of work schedule changes

The best thing about employee scheduling software for retail is that it automates everything that can be automated, from shift assignments to salary calculations and working hours calculations for each employee and the team as a whole. You can automatically create an optimal rotation schedule for shop assistants, cashiers, guards, loaders, and sales floor staff with automatic coordination of shift changes and assignment of shifts to employees, including overtime.

Retail manager tasks

Task management is also part of the retail staff management routines. You need to highlight daily tasks, decide on their executors, track their completion, and report on the results. The good news is that you can use the same retail scheduler as retail task management software. It includes tasks you need to delegate to the employees you manage, and aside from that, you can plan your days and provide checklists for yourself so as not to miss anything. You can set priorities, control the completion of each assignment, and provide notifications about crucially important tasks and timelines for both you and your staff.

Use effective time management

When we said that a retail point should work like clockwork, it was about effective time management too. If your shop assistants are constantly late, couriers don’t manage timely deliveries, or your warehouse staff forgets about resupplying stocks, what happens then? A true disaster! Yet it can also be automated to mitigate the risks that we listed. You need to apply time and attendance management software for retail. Shifton offers this opportunity in its scheduling software for large retail businesses. The same refers to periods of downtime where there are fewer customers, and most employees are not engaged in workflow. Good time management is what allows you to provide flexible solutions for your team: when you need them to start working, when you need to have more staff in the store to cope with a surge in customers, and when you can give them days off without adversely affecting the store’s efficiency. Just try to provide time management in Shifton, and you may be surprised at how easy it is when automated and streamlined.

Hire a high-quality team

The effectiveness of your store or department starts with your team. You can have some assistant managers if you manage a large department to delegate recruiting and headhunting tasks, and you can use retail scheduling software to control each worker’s efficiency to replace them if they don’t meet your requirements or are slacking off.

Use retail scheduling software

As you can see, multiple retail management routines can be made easier with retail employee scheduling software. With this software, you provide higher results in the following areas:

• managing employee scheduling;
• analysing daily sales;
• tracking employee time off;
• providing effective task management for you and each employee.

From a broader perspective, it can help you build an effective management strategy and set goals for each selling point that are achievable and logical.

Focus on your store’s traffic

Traffic in a selling point is what indicates its profitability. You can use software to count customers and export reports about busy times. By knowing your store’s traffic and when you’re the busiest, you can be more prepared and prevent emergencies on peak dates, for instance, holidays, Black Fridays, or sales times. It can help you schedule adequate staff for your expected amount of customers and avoid arranging major organisational tasks or stocking for times when the store will be bustling with customers.

Provide instant data tracking

Retail management is based on numbers: sales, visitors, goods in stock, sold goods, income, and maintenance expenses form the whole workflow. All this data requires your attention and accurate calculation. Manually, it’s a tough job, but it still has to be done. When you use retail scheduling software, you can keep all data in one place, operate it, and provide reports that show your management results in numbers.

What data to check and process?

• Customer numbers;
• Sales levels;
• Number of sold goods in specified periods;
• Working hours for each employee;
• Overtime;
• Peak hours in your store.

Then you can operate this data to analyse the whole work and improve it when needed.

How to improve the management of a retail team?

Efficient team management in the retail industry can make all the difference in customer satisfaction and overall business success. Here are some additional tips:

• Provide the best scheduling template (like 2/2, 3/3, 1/3, 5/2), depending on your store’s specifics. Don’t be afraid to try some of them to decide on the best one.
• Set clear tasks and notify your staff about them. You can create task assignments for employees in a cloud environment using the retail scheduler. Besides, don’t forget to track these tasks and provide checklists and task statuses for them. Shifton employee scheduling software provides you with all these functions.
• Send automatic push notifications and reminders to your staff to alert them and prevent missing shifts or outdated assignments.
• Don’t remain stuck in your office space. Exchange shifts, weekends, and sick days online to save time and stay mobile.
• Motivate your employees with overtime bonuses – you can easily calculate them in employee scheduling software.
• Work with breaks to prevent overlapping breaks in your team. Create pre-scheduled breaks or set limits on the number and duration of breaks to ensure the store always has enough staff to offer customer service.
• Manage attendance to know when a person actually starts and ends their shift. If you notice some staff are frequently late, you can apply penalties for poor performance, just as you calculate bonuses.

Simplify Scheduling

With a strong employee communication app, you can more efficiently roster employees in the following ways:

• Assign staff shifts based on job role and availability.
• Utilise drag and drop, assign shifts in bulk, set recurring shifts, create customisable templates, and even allow employees to claim open shifts available.
• Automated push notifications so employees can instantly accept or reject shifts directly from their mobile devices.
• Include shift tasks, notes, and even files within the schedule so employees know precisely what to do when they arrive at work.
• Complete oversight of collaborative staff scheduling in real-time, even while on the go.

Being an effective retail manager isn’t a mission impossible, whether managing a small shop or a full-fledged retail department. Just remember your efficiency relies on three pillars, which are as follows:

• Thorough planning and time management.
• Effective recruiting to build the best team.
• Impeccable employee scheduling software that assists with most routine tasks daily.

If the first two are mainly your responsibility, Shifton can provide you with the third pillar to streamline your management workflow, making it time-saving and effective.

Have you ever experienced using a restaurant scheduling app? If not, perhaps it’s time to consider which processes, assignments, and routines could be managed with specialised software for personnel management in restaurants. Gain expertise from Shifton’s developers to utilise the best features of such products in your workflow.

Being a restaurant manager is an ongoing hustle. You have to juggle multiple tasks and, at the same time, oversee a diverse staff from chefs and sous-chefs to couriers, suppliers, cleaners, and more. Additionally, unexpected emergencies can disrupt your day, and it’s entirely your responsibility, even though routine tasks can’t be postponed. All of this, alongside daily tasks from scheduling to payroll to reporting, can become overwhelming.

Yet, you’re not alone in this unending routine, as Shifton assists restaurant managers in making their lives easier with a single tool that can act as a master key for you.

You likely won’t be surprised by automation in the restaurant industry. However, a dedicated app for restaurant management can allow you to spend more time doing what you love while saving your sanity.

Restaurant management tips for happy employee benefits

Whether you’re using sales forecasts and labour targets to create restaurant employee rosters or handling payroll, Shifton provides you with the tools needed every step of the way. With Shifton’s scheduling app for restaurants, you can automate and execute the following processes in a streamlined manner:

• Accurately track working hours for each employee;
• Reduce time theft and buddy punching in your restaurant;
• Empower your team members to provide your customers with the best service possible.

The best way to ensure a happy team is through communication. In a single restaurant, it’s already challenging as everyone is constantly on the move. What then about chain establishments? With Shifton’s restaurant management application, you provide your staff with a communication channel to connect with one another and also with you. You can observe in real-time how communication in a shared environment reduces misunderstandings, leading to fewer drawbacks, and improving staff loyalty and happiness while maintaining a consistent workload.

Enhance your team’s performance with work schedule tips

For a restaurant, having a clear and well-thought-out schedule is essential. You need your chefs and their assistants to be at work at the appointed time. Suppose you don’t schedule your cleaners to prepare the restaurant’s hall to be at its best for visitors. You need waiters to be ready to promptly start serving customers. Your reputation is at risk if any aspect of this operation fails due to scheduling errors.

Using an automated restaurant staff scheduler is like a magic key. It helps boost employee productivity and increases your revenue. Let’s consider how to choose the right type of schedule for your establishment and which tips to use to make it work flawlessly.

Scheduling software for restaurants

Software for personnel management allows you to create a basic set of scheduling policies and adhere to them. This forms the foundation for the entire operation, assisting in managing how far in advance you release schedules and the timeline for employees to make time-off requests. You can also set minimum hours for each employee or designate specific shifts as high-traffic (and therefore better for tips) using a scheduling app for restaurants.

As a result:

• You give your team a clear understanding of their upcoming work and the number of shifts/working hours they are required to complete.
• You demonstrate your proficiency in time management, affirming your professionalism in the eyes of your employees.
• You inspire your staff to opt for high-traffic shifts to earn more tips.

Employee engagement

Now, we move to the next step. You need to maintain maximum engagement from your team to ensure seamless restaurant operations. With an automated system for restaurant management, you can provide your team with immediate feedback on their performance, timely advice, and gather their feedback. Restaurant management software like Shifton offers managers and employees a convenient communication channel that helps your team feel supported and engaged at work.

Employee retention

In the restaurant industry, employee turnover is common, but it’s a significant challenge because finding and hiring reliable professionals is difficult. Managing your restaurant efficiently involves showing your employees that you respect their time and appreciate their skills, encouraging their engagement and loyalty to their job. An effective restaurant management system is crucial for creating a positive environment. Thus, don’t overlook the staff you have but simultaneously evaluate their performance to determine whether to strengthen the team by hiring new staff or motivating current personnel to improve productivity. With Shifton’s restaurant management software, you can assess each worker’s efficiency using various parameters, including working hours, overwork, customer satisfaction levels, etc.

Fast notifications and reminders

Do you want your staff to perform their duties perfectly? Is it essential for them to handle multiple tasks you assign? Don’t allow any chances for missing something or forgetting assignments. Automated shift reminders integrated into restaurant scheduling software can significantly reduce no-shows or missed tasks. Simply create notifying text messages or push notifications and configure settings to send them to employees’ mobile devices at specific times. The same applies to alerts for emergencies, notifications about corporate events, or upcoming team-building meetings if you hold them.

Collect data and utilise it wisely

At the end of each day, jot down notes on how your staff handled their daily routines, which issues were crucial, and which tasks deserved recognition. You can also analyse the effectiveness of each shift to determine if you’re consistently understaffed or overstaffed during a specific shift. All that data is easily tracked in Shifton’s restaurant management system. Just access it and use the data to adjust your schedule accordingly, develop your management strategy, and report the results to the restaurant owner.

Boost productivity with high-tech solutions embedded in the Shifton restaurant scheduling app

Restaurant management tools benefit your entire team, from hosts and waiters to cooks. By maintaining higher operational efficiency and smooth communication through software solutions, you create a conducive work environment for everyone.

What types of technologies safeguard the restaurant business? Let’s explore.

Employee scheduling software

With automation, you can put aside painstaking work with spreadsheets, tables, paper schedules, and plans.

Instead, restaurant employee scheduling software, which utilises cloud technologies, offers you and your staff the following features:

• Quick schedule development with just a few clicks, which is available in Shifton as user-friendly templates.
• Easy distribution of information about rosters and shifts among your employees.
• Flexible adjustments and changes to the schedule, which you can implement online from anywhere in the world.
• The convenience of tracking working hours, overtime, missed shifts, or days off.

Task management software

Assigning tasks using specialised staff management software? That is undoubtedly the best way to keep your restaurant functioning smoothly. In Shifton, you can establish checklists for every employee from chef to server, and oversee their completion. From cleaning cooktops to restocking sanitizers, it’s easy for tasks to be overlooked.

That’s where task management software proves beneficial.

• It’s a brilliant way to streamline your tasks, with separate checklists for each role and shift.
• It allows you to monitor your team’s productivity.
• It helps reduce errors and checks for missed or forgotten tasks. Task management software keeps historical data of completed tasks, enabling you to review it and obtain the necessary information.

Employee communications tools

When it comes to employee communications, texting and phone calls are the most popular channels. Yet, they are unsuitable for restaurants where each worker is constantly on the move and doesn’t have time to check messages or answer calls. The best solution is to give your employees a shared platform to communicate with you and each other. Within a restaurant management system, it is beneficial for the following reasons:

• You can easily contact each employee.
• They can communicate with one another to prevent misunderstandings and buddy punches.
• You can monitor the entire working process simply by reviewing the information your employees share with others. If something goes amiss, you’re among the first to know about it.

Shifton offers a secure, business-focused communication tool that enables the instant sharing of schedules and announcements. It also simplifies employee requests for time off and addressing payroll issues like missed punches.

Timekeeping for restaurants

Timekeeping restaurant software is an essential tool. With time-clocking software, employees can clock in and out with a single touch. Additionally, the software syncs directly with your payroll system to automatically calculate hours worked.

Restaurant time-clocking software can also help prevent early clock-ins, thereby reducing labour costs. It addresses issues with enforced break times and shift lengths. The software will swiftly calculate overtime and maintain secure records of your team’s hours.

Payroll automation

Using restaurant employee management software is a great alternative to hiring a payroll specialist or providing your accounting department with an additional workload to calculate wages. Instead, you have all working hours tracked and payroll calculated instantly in Shifton. This automates wage calculations, overtime pay, and tax and benefit withholdings. There’s no relying on manual calculations, so you’ll have fewer payroll errors and spend less time at the computer.

As every type of software we mentioned is useful, having all of them in one tool is a godsend. That’s what Shifton offers to restaurant managers. Payroll software syncs directly with your time clock and scheduling software in Shifton, and you get a unified environment for most management tasks and operations.

What are the benefits of restaurant management software?

The most significant benefits of Shifton for restaurant management objectives are as follows:

• A shared environment for managers and employees to communicate and provide instant feedback.
• A one-size-fits-all tool that combines the features of time management software, task management tools, HR tools, shift scheduler, and a communication channel.
• It offers adjustable multi-level access to its functions, which can be utilised by managers and staff at different levels.
• It automates most processes you previously had to remember or perform manually.

Thus, by using restaurant management software, you enhance the whole restaurant business operation, reduce the possibilities of mistakes and drawbacks, and manage your team more easily. The results are beneficial for you as a manager, as you work efficiently and hassle-free, and for your team, as its members can satisfy their customers and receive fair rewards for their efforts.