Considering an HCM Scheduling Solution? Read this NOW!

Scheduling is difficult and complex. It requires knowledge of government and union regulations, a focus on employee engagement, and accurate forecasting, among other crucial elements. Scheduling processes become engrained and moving them to a cloud service can be extremely challenging. But it’s worth considering a scheduling solution. Let’s review some of the questions you may be thinking or may want to think about when considering this topic.



1. “Our timekeeping system and payroll are top tier; why do we need anything else?”



As an experienced scheduling consultant who has worked with dozens of organizations, you’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard something along these lines. When we look further into a client’s systems and processes, we find that their schedules are being created on Excel, whiteboards, or even handwritten on paper! Scheduling can impact calculations for pay premiums, have implications on fatigue management and have a potential return on investment (ROI) far above what a new timekeeping and payroll system can provide alone.



2. “Our managers know how to schedule, so we don’t need a Scheduling Solution.”






As a manager, I would agree that this is 100% accurate. As a scheduling specialist, I can also say that it’s not 100% accurate. Can this be both true and false at the same time? Absolutely. Managers as a group know how to schedule their operations, but when a scheduling solution is implemented correctly, it enhances those current processes. It can add value to the organization on multiple levels.



3. “What value can a Scheduling Solution provide for my business?”




With an enterprise system, a business would also have top-down access to review schedules as they are created in real-time. Are you worried that Steve may be over budgeted hours for the week? Instead of having to contact Steve’s manager to find out what the upcoming schedules are, leadership would be able to view the schedules immediately within the system. This gives a sense of reassurance, control, and confidence that employees are looking at the same data.



Shift swapping problems? Accountability and tracking of shift swaps can be especially problematic. With a Scheduling solution, the system would track these changes and ensure that all personnel are providing confirmation. This tracking is available for any other schedule changes that occur after a schedule is final.



Want to standardize scheduling processes across multiple divisions? Scheduling systems can do that. Want to ensure that government regulations concerning shift length, rest periods, and breaks are controlled at a system level? Scheduling systems can do that too.




4. “But what about the ROI you mentioned?”



Scheduling solutions for manufacturing, energy, or complex businesses with unions provide sophisticated tools to account for rotational schedules and fatigue management. These tools save considerable hours on maintenance of schedules and drive compliance which reduces compensation paid for violations of union or government regulations.



With businesses like retail, food and beverage, or anything using metrics for forecasting, the sky is the limit! If an organization has 100 locations and can trim just 15 minutes a week for one year, the savings would be 1300 hours of labor. That’s a significant return on investment for such a small change at each location. Conversely, a scheduling solution can help pinpoint if locations are struggling during specific time periods and proactively adjust to ensure that staffing is adequate during these periods. No organization wants to lose sales or experience poor customer satisfaction because of inadequate staffing.



5. “I’m sold, but what can go wrong?”



Great question, and one I don’t hear often enough. Here is what you need to consider to ensure success when implementing a scheduling solution:




Change management will be important. It can be hard to convince people that a large-scale change like this will ultimately benefit them, but your change management efforts will pay dividends.



Ask yourself, is the business ready for this change? Do we have all the current union rules and policies available? Do we have the data points for forecasting, and have we determined how to use those for scheduling? Do I have the internal subject matter experts in place and ready for a project of this size and complexity? If the answers to any of these questions were “no”, then consider a pre-implementation planning exercise.



Be sure to consider the end user. It’s the front-line associates who can benefit from and interact the most with the new scheduling system. Implementing a new scheduling system without keeping these associates in mind can lead to poor adoption and have a heavy negative impact on morale. Another essential stakeholder group is the scheduling managers. Creating a Scheduling solution that is too constraining or unusable to scheduling managers will yield significantly fewer benefits.




If you’re thinking about implementing a scheduling solution at your organization, talk to an expert . Whether you need help finding the right solution, have questions about the process, or need help building a business case, HRchitect can help.



About the Author






Patrick Manning has over 15 years of management experience across a multitude of industries including several years in workforce management at some of the leading global hospitality and entertainment/gaming resorts such as MGM Resorts International and Caesar’s Entertainment where he excelled as a Workforce Analyst, Workforce Management Dual Rate Supervisor/Specialist, Scheduling Planner, and Project Manager.



Learn more about Patrick on LinkedIn .
The post Considering an HCM Scheduling Solution? Read this NOW! appeared first on HRchitect .