Worker Predictive Scheduling Made Easy

Predictive scheduling provides workers with advanced notice of their work schedule. This process improves workforce management for the business, give workers some control in their lives, and in many US states, it’s regulated, so it’s the law.

In this article, we provide information on the process of regulating predictive scheduling and how its use is benefitting businesses and workers alike.

Law

In many US states, a policy for predictive scheduling legislation is being considered.  So far some dozen states have proposed regulations including San Franciso, where employers are required to give workers at least two weeks notice of their schedule with no changes to it accepted a week out. Plus for on-call workers, they’re guaranteed a minimum of two hours pay for being scheduled even if they’re not required to work the shift.

Seattle has a similar law, to that of San Francisco whereas New York is less strict on what the business needs to do for compliance. Employers are required to give just 72 hours notice of a work schedule, but they also need all retail employees to be paid a minimum of 20 hours over a two-week schedule.

So far there are as many as 12 states either with a regulated policy or they are working on it. In addition to these 12 states, there are more states following this lead as employers feel pressured to do more to improve conditions for their staff.

In the states that have legislation in place, failure to comply with it may result in the business receiving hefty financial penalties.

Benefits of Predictive Scheduling Software

Employers

With predictive scheduling now in law in many states companies must comply and give adequate prior notice of work schedules, managing the process manually is time-consuming and costly.

Software providers have seen the opportunity to develop and sell as a service intuitive worker scheduling software. Businesses can make light work of creating and sharing work schedules with their staff.

The industries that are benefiting the most from scheduling technology are those have a lot of staff. Think manufacturing, and retail and technology. Businesses in these sectors employ lots of staff, many who are shift workers, and freelancers i.e. paid by the hour.

Using software i.e. a tool that helps schedule employees and other types of staff like freelancers, enables companies with a lot of staff, change schedules at a moments notice when the need arises. The main cause for altering worker timetables is to cover for illness and holiday leave.

Time

There are only 24 hours in the day and for most companies fewer hours of work so everything they do is to improve output and that takes time.

With predictive scheduling not going away any time soon and likely to be regulated everywhere in the US and globally, it can be done manually or with technology. This is where all businesses weigh up the pros and cons of using software to cut down on time taken to organise and automate work schedules versus doing it manually.

Staff

Employers have more data available on their staffing requirements. Labour costs for a product business can be as high as 35% of gross sales.

For a services business, labour costs as much as 50% of gross sales. These are large numbers so you can see why companies need to manage workflow requirements efficiently.

Any enterprise aims to manage staffing levels, so they’re at an optimum level all the time. Data from the predictive scheduling software informs management of historical activity of productivity every hour so the company can prevent overstaffing or understaffing.

Labour can be directly attributed to output, so with knowledge of staffing levels, and output management can avoid peaks and troughs in staffing levels.

Software

The SaaS model is a volume game, i.e. low cost to use, with a high volume of clients and it’s the model of external software providers. The low cost to use SaaS is attractive to startups, micro and small businesses as well as the larger enterprises.

Less staff are required in the business when Apps that take care of business tasks like accounting, inventory, workflow and staff scheduling, are deployed. Therefore with less staff needed for the non-productive activity, there’s more cash flow and investment available to grow the business.

Employees

When you’re an employee knowing in work schedule in advance empowers you to make better use of your time.

We all need downtime to rejuvenate our energy levels so we can be productive when we’re at work.

Therefore with advanced notice of the work-schedule holidays can be organised as well as personal meetings with family and friends.

There’s time to book in health check-ups and time to exercise. We all need work-life balance and as the saying goes: A happy employee is a happy employer.