Creating employee schedules can be a timely and arduous task, thankfully employee schedule software can automate this process for you. Employee Schedule Software can create a schedule based on how many shifts are available at certain times, the attributes required of each employee for each shift and most importantly when the employees are available.

Shifts are assigned based on a number of factors just like how you would do if the schedule was being produced manually. Each employee enters into the system the hours they are available during the week - they are encouraged to be as flexible as possible so they will receive more shifts. The shift manager enters the shifts available for this week (or applies the same shifts available as last week). For each shift the start time, end time, number of employees needed, employee type and pay rate are all entered. The intelligent algorithm will then generate a shift schedule that correctly matches the restrictions of each employee to shifts they can work. The shift manager can manually make adjustments before the shift schedule is published to the staff.

In some more advanced shift schedulers employees can make requests for which shifts they wish to work. The shift manager can then enter in which ranking the employees should be given shifts if multiple employees request the same shift. This could be based on how long the employee has been working at the company, their pay rate or simply if they are considered to be a good worker.

If you purchase web based employee schedule software employees will be able to login from their home computers to see when they are next working. This instant approach to shift information is great, if before they had to phone their manager during business hours. It also gives them piece of mind to know they can always login to see the shifts allocated to them, rather than being uncertain if they working within the next week.

Most employee schedule software also manages the time off taken by employees. The shift manager will have allocated a certain amount of days holiday to each employee. Through the system employees can then pick which days they wish to take off. The system won't let them take more days off than they are allocated. Also if the day off is approved from the shift manager the employee is automatically not assigned a shift on this day.