Coordinate Shifts With Ease

Shift management software, also known as employee scheduling software or shift planning software, is a tool that helps businesses efficiently organize and manage their employee schedules. It streamlines the scheduling process, allowing employers to create, edit, and communicate work schedules easily. This software is often integrated with features such as time tracking and absence management.

Shift planning is essential for effective workforce management. Small businesses and multinational enterprises alike need to understand their staffing needs and be able to schedule employees efficiently. Having a shift scheduling solution can be key to avoiding common challenges like scheduling conflicts, overstaffing or understaffing, and unnecessary overtime.

Modern shift scheduling software replaces printed-out Excel spreadsheets and rotas, saving time in planning while improving team communication. It provides a better overview of employee time constraints and can help control labor costs by allocating staff based on actual scheduling needs.

Depending on business needs, scheduling tools may be integrated with time-tracking software, allowing employees to clock in at the start of their shifts and track work hours. Also, by integrating with absence calendars, shift scheduling apps can take paid time off (PTO), sick leave, and public holidays into consideration, providing a more accurate view of employee availability.

Another benefit is that most employee shift scheduling software is cloud-based, meaning employees and managers can access shift plans from anywhere. Any changes to schedules are updated in real-time, reducing the risks of miscommunication and no-shows.

The best employee shift planning software should be easy to use, with drag-and-drop functionality to simplify planning and include a clearly labeled shift calendar to keep employees in the loop.

The terms shift plan and shift schedule are often used interchangeably. However, there is a slight difference in meaning between the two.

A shift plan is a part of a shift schedule. The shift plan itself determines when an employee is expected at work and when they have time off. It determines the start times and end times for any given workday.

The shift schedule is a more comprehensive system, including all the employee shift plans in a given week. This can be used to identify shift overlaps and scheduling conflicts, allowing businesses to plan capacity more effectively.

With flair, employees can view both their individual shift plan and the shift schedule for their team or work location.

flair is a Salesforce-native, all-in-one HR suite. It includes functionality ranging from recruiting and onboarding to time tracking and performance management. For companies that work in shifts, we also offer a shift scheduling feature as an optional add-on.

Our Shift Planner is a user-friendly employee scheduling app that enables managers to schedule shifts and distribute shift plans among team members. Users can create predefined shifts in Salesforce for recurring daily tasks and add them to the work schedule with just one click.

Managers can also publish open shifts that employees may request, adding more flexibility to the scheduling. Using our self-service Employee Hub, employees may also swap shifts with colleagues. Users can add notes to a shift to keep employees or managers informed and help them to prepare.

For work that requires specific training, certification, or experience, you can tag shifts with necessary skills. This allows you to plan with more precision and avoid understaffing in a specific area. Filtering by location also allows companies with multiple sites to check employee availability on any given week and schedule accordingly.

The calendar view in the flair Shift Planner makes it easy for managers and employees to view upcoming shifts. It is color-coded for easier recognition and is integrated with our time clock and absence management features. At a glance, you can see how many work hours have been scheduled for each employee, ensuring you assign them the amount of work as agreed in their contract. Any planned time off is also clearly shown on the shift calendar.

With flair, you can also define set break times during a shift and designate paid time that employees use for preparation at the beginning or end of a shift. These features can help you fulfill local labor standards more easily.

The Shift Planner is a feature within the flair HR app on Salesforce. When a manager creates and publishes a shift plan, the information will instantly sync with the Employee Hub, our self-service employee portal. Staff are instantly notified via email or an in-app message.

Visit our Help Center article to learn exactly how you can start easily planning and managing shifts with flair.

Besides shift planning, flair includes a time tracking feature with a digital time clock. Employees can track time easily, clocking in and out with just one click. This helps organizations to comply with labor law, manage overtime, and stay in control of labor costs. Timesheets are securely stored in Salesforce and can be viewed in the Employee Hub.

Time off and leave management is also fully integrated with the flair Shift Planner, providing a comprehensive view of employee availability.

Time tracking and absence requests are both available in our mobile app for Android and iOS.