Is employee scheduling one of your biggest headaches as a team manager?
You’ve tried paper schedules taped to the wall, clumsy Excel spreadsheets, and maybe even just winging it each week by calling around. But we all know those methods are far from perfect – schedules are always changing, you can never keep track of vacations and time off requests, and it’s nearly impossible to optimize for maximum coverage and minimized labor costs.
You’re left feeling like you spend more time on scheduling logistics than actually managing your team. So, you keep thinking “There has to be a better way” and wondering if the perfect employee scheduling tool is even possible.
Well, wonder no more, because we’re here to tell you that tool may actually exist… actiPLANS!
Let’s see which valuable functionality it has to offer and what problems it can help you overcome.
How to create a work schedule for employees
Effective work scheduling is key to better team performance
A well-made and error-free work schedule helps you minimize confusion and uncertainty among employees. When staff members know in advance when they are supposed to work, they can plan their own time and prioritize tasks accordingly. This, in turn, leads to improved efficiency and decreases the likelihood of missed deadlines or other troubles.
Additionally, proper work schedules have a positive impact on employee morale and job satisfaction. When your team members feel that their work schedules are fair, well-balanced, and designed with their needs and preferences in mind, they are more likely to feel engaged and motivated in work. This can result in improved performance, better job retention rates, and a decreased likelihood of burnout or turnover.
And when it comes to effective work scheduling, nothing beats actiPLANS! Our simple yet powerful employee scheduling tool lets you create multiple custom work types and allocate them to employees using an intuitive visual timeline.
Click here to see how effortless and convenient it is to schedule work with actiPLANS 👈
Messy shift schedules are a thing of the past
At its core, shift management involves creating a structured plan to determine when your team members must work. Such variables such as company-wide shift patterns, individual workloads, availability, and preferences all come into play when building an effective shift schedule. And with actiPLANS, you can take them all into account when managing shifts.
Find out how to master shift scheduling with actiPLANS here 👈
Visual project schedule will make your life easier
A visual project timeline provides a clear and concise overview of your project phases, activities, or milestones that can be easily interpreted by all stakeholders, regardless of their technical level. It also shows how resources are allocated across your project and sets forth expectations regarding deadlines, which assists with progress tracking and performance measurement.
Here you can learn how to create a visual project schedule using actiPLANS 👈
Employee location tracking is part of work scheduling too
In today’s world, employees can work pretty much anywhere: from home offices and coworking spaces to coffee shops and resorts. But remote teams are just part of the problem – some businesses have field workers or multiple job sites and locations within a single city and require employees to rotate between them every day.
The flexibility of work scheduling settings actiPLANS comes especially in handy in this regard – you can create multiple location types in your account and then allocate them to employees just as shifts or any other work activities via a visual timeline.
Learn more about location scheduling with actiPLANS here 👈
And what about events?
From regular team meetings and once-in-a-lifetime workshops to minor product launches and massive conferences, corporate events give you an opportunity to advance employee skills, showcase your products, engage with clients or other stakeholders, and create new partnerships. But managing such events and keeping track of everyone’s attendance is easier said than done.
Luckily, actiPLANS can ease the pain of dealing with this challenging task. Just create custom events as work types in your account, schedule them on a visual timeline, and activate automatic notifications to keep employees informed about upcoming corporate events without a hitch.
Click here to explore the basics of event scheduling with actiPLANS 👈
There’s more!
As you can see, actiPLANS adapts to your work management needs without a hitch. You may use it to schedule anything from project activities and employee shifts to work locations and corporate events – the number and types of work you can create there is limited only by your unique requirements and imagination.
Need some more ideas of things you can schedule and track with actiPLANS?
Check them out here 👈
How to streamline leave management
Leave request management – the simpler the better
When it comes to leave request management, simplicity is key. And our goal at actiPLANS is to make the process as seamless as possible for all parties involved – both employees and their managers.
With actiPLANS, submitting a leave request is as easy as 1-2-3:
- Just log on to the platform,
- Select the type of leave you want to schedule,
- And specify the dates you need to be absent.
Once the request is submitted, managers can review and approve it with a few clicks. Plus, there’s always an option to automate the approval of requests for all or just specific leave types.
For more information on leave request management with actiPLANS, don’t hesitate to visit this page 👈
PTO accrual can (and should) be truly flawless
From an employee’s perspective, PTO accrual is the process of earning time off based on the rules established at their workplace. They may earn days off either monthly or annually, use and store them without any restrictions, or lose all the accrued time off by the end of each year.
Based on the complexity of your PTO accrual rules and the size of your team, calculating everyone’s time off balances can be a nightmare. But fortunately, actiPLANS helps to solve this problem by automating the process and accruing PTO neck to neck with your specific requirements and preferences.
This way, actiPLANS provides an accurate and up-to-date snapshot of employees’ PTO balances, usage history, and earn-out schedules so they can plan their vacations and other significant events with confidence, without having to worry about any PTO accrual mistakes.
Click here to gain more insight into streamlined PTO accrual with actiPLANS 👈
The magic of absence calendars
actiPLANS offers not just one but three types of calendars for easier leave scheduling and tracking:
- A personal leave schedule where each user can check on their PTO balances and submit leave requests.
- The schedule of colleagues where users can see others’ pending and approved leave requests.
- Organization-wide calendar where admin users can manage public holidays and other types of shared days off.
Explore each one of them in greater detail here 👈
Time off reports – your secret weapon against absenteeism
Employees who continuously miss work can harm a business in several ways. It can lead to decreased productivity, low employee morale, and increased costs due to hiring replacements or paying overtime to other employees. However, with proper reporting and documentation, these issues can be easily avoided.
That’s where actiPLANS time off reports come in.
They provide data on the amount and frequency of employee time off, so you can gain critical insights into the underlying causes of absenteeism and take proactive steps to address them.
Read about different actiPLANS reports here 👈
How to manage employee time and attendance
What makes an excellent attendance management system?
Employee attendance management is the process of controlling the working hours and absences of your employees. It helps to:
- Ensure that everyone is present and accounted for during their designated working hours.
- Minimize loss of productivity resulting from long absences.
- Empower employers to make informed decisions about employee performance, workload, and scheduling.
When it comes to a perfect attendance management system, it should offer real-time tracking capabilities so you can quickly and easily verify who is present and who is not.
Besides, the system should be easy to use and access for both employees and managers, ideally with mobile compatibility and customizable settings to accommodate various schedules and leave policies. And last but not least, it should include a variety of informative visual reports.
actiPLANS ticks all the boxes here!
Check out this post to learn what makes it an excellent attendance management system for your business 👈
Mobile attendance app is a must-have
The modern workforce is growing more flexible in terms of locations and schedules so it can’t function truly efficiently and stay productive without the help of work-related mobile apps.
The ability to access work-related information and tools from anywhere empowers employees to be more responsive to the demands of their jobs. Additionally, mobile apps foster real-time collaboration and communication, helping to enhance collaboration and increase overall performance effectiveness.
At actiPLANS, we take pride in our state-of-the-art mobile attendance app that revolutionizes the way employees handle their schedules. It allows you to request time off with just a few taps on your phone, track your colleagues’ availability, and keep everyone updated about your presence at work.
Check out this post to learn more about actiPLANS Mobile 👈
Level up attendance management with time tracking
Time tracking is an essential component of attendance management as it allows you to monitor, manage, and analyze employee hours. It lets you ensure that employees are punctual and adhere to their work schedule, and also that they are compensated fairly for the time they spend on the job.
To help you track employee hours the easy way, actiPLANS supports seamless integration with actiTIME – a multifunctional time tracking solution. There, you can track hours invested in every single task, keep a record of the exact time employees began and finished working every day, track online activities in a 100% automatic manner, run detailed productivity reports, and much more.
Learn more about this and other actiPLANS integrations here 👈
How to boost your business even more
Turn problems into opportunities for improvement
As a business owner, you’ve likely encountered your fair share of obstacles and challenges along the way. However, instead of viewing these problems as setbacks or roadblocks, it’s crucial to see them as opportunities for improvement.
By taking a proactive approach to problem-solving, you can not only address current issues but also identify potential areas for growth and expansion. This can be achieved by analyzing employees’ absence data, seeking ways to utilize resources more efficiently, or providing employees with more streamlined tools that improve productivity.
We believe that actiPLANS is one of such solutions that help to transform business challenges into tangible growth.
Click here to discover 10 simple ways in which it can help your entire company get better 👈
Let’s learn from the pandemic times
The COVID-19 pandemic made a massive impact on global economies and businesses, forcing many organizations to look for ways to manage their workforce and minimize the spread of the virus. New leave and work management tactics have emerged in order for companies to maintain productivity while ensuring both employee and customer safety.
Now, as the lockdown era seems to have a somewhat lesser effect on our everyday work-related lives, it’s wise to take time and revise the lessons learned from those turbulent years.
Click here to learn how to manage employee leave in emergency situations and let’s hope the pandemic will never come back 👈
Conclusion
Of course, finding the perfect employee scheduling tool is a never-ending quest. However, with the right combination of features and flexibility, the elusive solution may just be within our reach.
While some tools may fall short in certain areas, adiPLANS seems to check all the boxes with its user-friendly interface, powerful automation, informative reports, customizable options, and seamless integrations. With actiPLANS by your side, you can finally bid farewell to endless spreadsheets and tedious manual scheduling processes.
So why not give it a try for yourself? Sign up for a free trial today and experience the ease and efficiency of actiPLANS firsthand.
