All managers and business leaders are constantly challenged to improve the efficiency of their employees. The key to achieving optimal employee efficiency is effective planning and scheduling so that everything gets done on time and no deadlines or events are missed. Many organizations ignore the wonders of employee scheduling or use less efficient methods that require considerable polishing. While more functional alternatives are available, many organizations still use scheduling tools including informal handwritten schedulers or Excel spreadsheets.
Some of these latter alternatives include employee scheduling software products that prove to be more efficient compared to handwritten schedulers or Excel spreadsheets. Scheduling software products generally offer desktop scheduling and internet/cloud technology based scheduling. Here are details of the features you can expect from these products:
Top 5 Features Desktop Employee Scheduling Software Products Offer
These software products can offer scheduling options only to employees listed in the higher hierarchy, for example, managers. Since the rest of the employees are not involved in the planning process, the chances of confusion are considerably less. Take a look at some of the main features these software products offer:
- With a variety of options available for organizing employee schedules, desktop scheduling software products can be easily reshaped to suit your needs. The user interfaces are designed with efficient planning options in mind that can be modified if necessary.
- Graphical reports and charts can be printed based on the data and resources available for the task, activity, or event at hand.
- Inform your employees about any updates or alerts via email or calendars. Users will be directed to their desktop calendars when the administrator makes a change.
- With these desktop schedulers, managers can control the amount of access they give an employee. Sometimes employees other than managers must have permission to modify the details of a task or event, while others are only allowed limited access to the details.
- Data can be easily imported and exported to different formats such as PDF, JPG, DOC, etc.
Top 5 Features Cloud-Based Employee Scheduling Software Products Offer
These software products come with additional benefits and work over the Internet. The following are the features that a cloud-based employee scheduling software offers:
- Just like a desktop software, a cloud-based software also comes with a user interface that offers many options to suit particular needs. Events, employees, and tasks can be organized in various ways depending on their nature.
- Through mobile phone applications, changes can be made even when there is no Internet connection available and can be uploaded when the Internet is accessible.
- Files can be imported and exported in formats like CSV, iCalendar, etc.
- Managers can control the amount of access employees are given when planning a particular project or event.
- These software products can also be integrated with Google Maps for additional features and options.