If you’ve ever been responsible for rostering a team, you know how challenging this ever-returning puzzle can be. You’re looking to match employees with a perfectly laid out calendar of shifts, keeping track of staff availability, budgets and skills all while trying to avoid shifts clashing, or employees not having enough time off between their rostered shifts.
When the roster is finally done...cue employees declining shifts because “something else came up”, or the horror of trying to find a last-minute cover for a team member who called in sick.
To solve these issues, we’re introducing our new rostering automation features: AutoRoster and Shift Bidding. Two new tools that will revolutionise rostering in Microkeeper.
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Auto-Roster - a supercharged rostering assistant in your pocket
Imagine this: a manager of a large event workforce hiring company is rostering for a sporting event with multiple jobs (security, ticketing agents, cleaners,...) totalling 500 shifts over the course of a week. To fill these jobs they have a pool of 150 staff members, all with different availability, skills and experience levels.
Problem: Creating a roster that works in that scenario would take ages, and might cause a few headaches in the process.
Solution: Using a set of logic and rules, AutoRoster brings all employee data together and matches unassigned shifts with the right employee. Like a little rostering assistant it will suggest a matching schedule that avoids clashing shifts, and takes into account all prerequisites:
All this is done with a few simple clicks and underpinned with a compliance provision - ensuring your staff will receive enough rest between shifts and don’t exceed a maximum amount of hours or overtime.
With automated rostering, shifts can be evenly distributed or, going even one step further, Microkeeper can offer different suggested rosters based on budget and staff experience levels.
"It’s a rostering game changer for companies of all sizes,
with the potential of saving multiple hours of work every week for managers who schedule large workforces."
Shift bidding - the fastest way to fill open shifts with interested staff
Every rostering manager has been at a stage where they’ve frantically been calling around or sending text messages to find someone to pick up an open shift. With Shift Bidding, they’ll never have to again. Simply put, it automates away this entire process.
With Shift Bidding, Microkeeper notifies eligible staff of any available shifts. Staff get a notification, see which shifts are available and then have the option to put their hand up for the shifts they’re keen to work.
That process is what we refer to as “bidding”. Managers can keep the "bidding stage" open for a selected amount of time and easily keep track of incoming bids and the amount of shifts that have been covered.
Once the bidding stage is completed, managers can easily roster based on the list of interested staff, apply “first in, best dressed” or let Microkeeper work it’s magic and suggest a roster based on an even distribution, budgets or experience levels.
You can put your whole roster up for grabs, or just choose to open up shifts you’re struggling to fill. The choice is yours. What’s certain: rosters will be more reliable and there’ll be a lot less reasons for messages and phone calls.
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