Here at Shiftboard we’ve heard a lot of interesting ways to describe our software, but recently I heard what may be one of the best compliments I’ve heard in a while: a volunteer coordinator got an email from one of her volunteers saying that “even a techno-peasant can understand Shiftboard!” Now I know what you’re thinking, we had never heard of this term before either, “techno-peasant,” but it does vividly illustrate the fact that Shiftboard is indeed easy to use, especially for your volunteers and employees.

Shiftboard users don’t fall into one neat little category; there are 85-year-old women who have never had an email address to 30-year-old web developers and 17-year-old festival volunteers. Shiftboard has not been designed with just one type of end user in mind; instead we’ve aimed to make the system easy and accessible to all who want it.

One of the biggest problem that we see is that people go into using Shiftboard with the idea that all software must be complicated and require some savvy IT guy to help set it up. This is far from the truth with Shiftboard, contact us today to get set up and happily scheduling the very same day.

If there is one thing that surprises people the most about Shiftboard it is probably this:  real people pick up the phones to answer your very real questions. We also make sure we respond to every single feedback question/idea/problem that you throw at us on an individual basis, no automated customer service bots, no “please state your problem…I’m sorry, I don’t understand” recordings (of course you don’t understand me, you aren’t real).

The beauty of the ingenious little system we have going here is that it’s truly a win-win situation. The customer gets the answers to their specific problems when they need it, and we get to hear the many different ways that very different organizations use Shiftboard to schedule a wide variety of needs. From film festivals to political campaigns to vet offices and everything in between, Shiftboard’s meeting people’s needs (and then some) now more than ever.

Knowing that our customer base is as diverse as it is, we’ve come up with customized pricing options for a few of our specialized packages. Looking to schedule volunteers at a church? We know that you need a solution without breaking the bank, and Shiftboard’s faith group pricing gives you the ability to do just that. How about those of you who need to recruit and staff an annual event or festival? You will have very different needs than those at the corner bakery, which is why we’ve created a very different pricing structure for you as well.

For more information feel free to give us a call at 1-800-746-7531.

It can take less than 15 minutes to determine if Shiftboard will work for your business. From an account management perspective, what occurs after those 15 minutes is quite entertaining. Some customers will toss and toil, examine and explore, compare and shop around only to come back hours, sometimes days or a few painful and exhausting months down the road.  I can’t tell you how often I answer a call from a familiar area code and hear a fatigued scheduling manager say “We are finally ready to get going, how soon can we start?”

Another group of clients call and sign up within minutes. A scheduling manager from Minted called this week: “I need to schedule 60 new employees today, they won’t stop calling and they are driving me nuts!” After I drooled over their “freshest designs on paper” we quickly verified that Shiftboard was an excellent solution. Within the hour Minted had a branded site with employees loaded and a schedule set through the next two months.  It really is that simple!

We know choosing a scheduling system is a big deal. In fact, finding the right solution is absolutely imperative.  Just keep in mind the process might not need to be as difficult as you originally thought.  We all love finding the right fit. The latest discovery I’ve made certainly fell right into my lap. Thanks to Minted, the 2010 Shiftboard Holiday card is already on its way. With that daunting decision out of my way I can spend more time scouring the holiday candy bowl!

Alison (Jones) Rogstad

One of the many tools Shiftboard offers to members of our many customer sites is the ability to upload a photo (an “avatar” in the SaaS/social networking parlance).  That’s right – just like Facebook or LinkedIn.  Ho hum, roll eyes now if you are looking for “real business value”.  Sometimes, however, I love a concrete example that can change perceptions immediately.

World Equestrian Games (WEG) the largest horse show in the world ran from September 25th-October 10th in Kentucky.  WEG had some big requirements – an integrated online volunteer registration system, real-time communication, and of course event scheduling for an estimated 12,000 volunteers.  They looked around a long time, as I don’t think there is another system out there that handles their scale (research for yourself, however, I’m a sales guy).  Buried in all those requirements was an item they only mentioned as an afterthought:  the ability to export photos and contact information from Shiftboard to their security badge system.

Our system exported a file every week  of new volunteers pictures and associated contact information.  The security badge system requires a high resolution photo (ie not the Facebook/Twitter variety), but our avatar file system supports the beefed up requirements.  Where does the rubber hit the road, you ask?  In 2 weeks, WEG’s Shiftboard site  exported files of over 100 MB holding high res photos and associated contact/security information for more than 5,000 volunteers.

Talk about business value and ROI from a distributed online system.  All those 5,000+ folks uploaded their own photos from their own web browsers at all hours of the day and night (after also applying online in the same fashion, of course).  Most event managers try to coordinate that effort – managing times when volunteers can come in to get their photos taken and badges made.  Or they need to bring a passport photo (which 25% forget to bring along).  Try to imagine the number of managers, length of lines, volunteer frustration, and massive costs if WEG had done things the old fashioned way.  Instead, they have thousands of volunteers uploading pictures to the Shiftboard cloud service. Wow!  Any operations manager will tell you, it’s not just for social networking anymore.

Mark Gadia and Julie Zhan are Volunteer Co-Coordinators at the San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) and have been active Shiftboard users for 2 years.  As Volunteer Coordinators, Mark and Julie are responsible for all-things-volunteer including: volunteer recruitment, engagement, training, scheduling and communication.  They also contribute to the SDAFF Blog.  I recently sat down with Mark and Julie to learn more about the festival, gain insight into the volunteer experience and hear how Shiftboard has simplified their lives.

Shiftboard: Tell us about the San Diego Asian Film Festival…

SDAFF: The San Diego Asian Film Festival is an annual event with an emphasis on Asian American cinema, but we also showcase international films, shorts, documentaries and animation.  Along with films, patrons will be able to meet and speak with filmmakers and actors, enjoy meaningful discussions, hear live music, and enjoy nightly parties.  The 11^th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival takes place October 21-28, 2010 in San Diego, CA.  For more information about the festival, to volunteer or purchase tickets, please visit SDAFF.org.

Shiftboard: Give us the stats…How many volunteers do you need to recruit?  How many shifts are you looking to fill?

SDAFF: We have recruited over 800 volunteers.  We need at least 300 volunteers to fill over 1,000 shifts over an 8 day festival.

Shiftboard: Wow, only 2 volunteer coordinators manage 800 volunteers, nicely done!  What recruitment strategies have you found to work best for your organization?

SDAFF: The best strategy that we’ve had is word of mouth actually!  Our volunteers love volunteering for the festival so much that they can’t help but tell everybody about their experiences.  Also, we have a dedicated Street Team that heads out into the community and does grass roots marketing and volunteer recruitment in organizations, schools, and businesses.

Shiftboard: What advice can you give to other Volunteer Coordinators to help simplify their lives?

SDAFF:  Scheduling over a thousand shifts for an eight day film festival and keeping track of over 800 volunteers can be a daunting task.  Using Shiftboard has streamlined the process both from the administrative and volunteer side. Creating shifts, organizing and communicating with volunteers has never been easier.  Edward Shaffer, whose Shiftboard handle is “Sparkles Chocopie” and is also our Facilities Coordinator, says that “In the past, for other festivals, I have used other online scheduling systems and I prefer to work with Shiftboard!”

Shiftboard: Your team has created Shiftboard ‘handles’ sort of like a social media alias? Awesome!  Do you have any other fun aliases or stories you can share about the volunteer experience?

SDAFF: Edward’s handle is actually a combination of two things.  ”Sparkles” comes from the fact that he shares the first name of a character in a popular vampire movie/book series where the vampires sparkle when in daylight.  ”Chocopie” comes from his extreme addiction to choco pies which is a chocolate cookie snack with marshmallow filling.

Shiftboard: Is there any other ‘behind the scenes’ info you would like to share with our readers?

SDAFF:  We believe we are one of the best organized film festivals in the country.  Hopefully when patrons attend the 11th San Diego Asian Film Festival, they will see this.

Shiftboard: Thanks Mark and Julie for chatting with us. We wish you all the best for a successful festival.

Do you want to win free tickets to the San Diego Asian American Film Festival?  Be the first person to email Stephanie@shiftboard.com and we’ll send you 2 free tickets!

It’s official, this summer has gone by way too fast.  A few short months ago I was writing about the beginning of festival season and now here we are, getting ready to wrap things up with the unofficial end of summer–Labor Day Weekend–only 2 weeks away.  Here at Shiftboard we’ve learned a lot over the past few months, who says learning doesn’t happen in the summer?  To summarize here are 3 points that have stood out to us the most:

1.  Done right-self service scheduling can fill an entire festival’s staffing needs in one weekend.  Create a buzz, let your volunteers know when you will be posting the shifts, provide a bit of info/incentive about each role, and voila! You’ll have volunteers waiting to sign up for their shifts of choice.

2.  Your scheduling “rules” are often unnecessary-we are constantly amazed by the level of complexity that some schedulers put themselves through, especially since nine times out of 10 they don’t need to.  In the case of online scheduling, keeping it simple and organized is often best.

3.  Clarity and transparency is the key to accurate communication.  If people-especially managers-only get a few pieces of the puzzle miscommunications are bound to occur, using a clear, always up to date, and accurate calendar is one giant leap in the right direction towards better overall communication and run around.

Hope these make sense to you all, we’ve seen them to be tried and true from the largest international events down to local small businesses and everything in between.

Nahid

As an economics graduate, I’ve come to realize that I almost always try to quantify certain actions–especially in terms of the most efficient way to use a limited amount of resources.  That said, it’s no surprise that I’ve found myself at a company that does just that-making the best use of manager’s, scheduler’s, and volunteer coordinator’s very limited time.  Why would someone who is constantly under the gun and crunched for time sit down and manually work around availability, skill sets, and employee preferences when there are easy ways around it?

An important concept familiar to all econ/finance/business people is the opportunity cost of certain actions.  In theory, everything you do has an opportunity cost (how’s that for pressure?).    If you spend the afternoon in a yoga class you aren’t just out $20, but you also incur an opportunity cost.  Those 90 minutes dedicated to your inner self could have been spent on the job making money or perfecting a skill to set you up for future success.  It all boils down to deciding what the best use of your time really is.  To many, spending those 90 minutes once a week is critical in avoiding a stress induced meltdown which we can all agree would lead to far worse consequences than foregoing a few bucks.

To the small business owner, volunteer coordinator, or manager at a large conglomerate it’s safe to say that their scarcest yet most valuable resource is time.  Any product or tool that can effectively reduce time spent doing one thing to put towards time doing something else like growing the business, planning an event, or simply eliminating stress is a very good thing.  Yes, there is a cost associated with online scheduling, but that cost is minimal compared to the payback.  Rather than eating up hours every week plugging in schedules, calling around to get coverage, making changes to employee contact information, and making sure your schedule is current and up to date,  Shiftboard allows you to put that time into your primary goal.  Who can afford the opportunity cost of not using online scheduling?  Not only will you put time previously spent scheduling towards a greater good, but chances are your current scheduling process won’t hold a candle to the tools, communications, and overall ease of use that the team here at Shiftboard has worked hard to create, test, and perfect.

-Nahid

Shiftboard was recently featured in a Federal Times article about the importance of streamlining and simplifying all the processes that need to happen from date of hire to the first day of work to the first major task/event for any new or seasoned employee.  Any new hire can tell you that the first hours spent in their new job are almost always dedicated to filling out dozens of different forms, specific availability, tax information, emergency contact stuff…the list goes on and on.

It’s never easy on the other end either, HR managers have to keep track of not only the new forms, but past resumes, notes, and references, to name a few key pieces.

Many Shiftboard users don’t realize that they can actually input and store all of this information in their Shiftboard site.  Yes, Shiftboard is useful for the obvious reasons-online scheduling-but there are many other workforce management benefits to using the software.  Users are able to upload their resume’s upon registration to your organization that can be stored and viewed in their user profile.  Emergency contact information as well as basic personal information is also stored within Shiftboard, and can be exported into an Excel report at the click of a button.

Shiftboard clients can customize information fields that need to be kept with each employee’s profile–from experience levels and certifications to T-shirt sizes and their favorite bar.  Probably the best part of all of this is that as long as you have an internet connection you will always have access to this information in a secure spot–you will be able to control who sees it, who can change, and it will always be password protected.

If you have any questions about how to access the features mentioned above give us a call at 1-800-746-7531 or shoot us an email by clicking Contact above.

–Nahid

One of the biggest headaches in trying to create financial labor forecasts is the constant cross referencing-adding up hours, typos, no shows, actual vs. scheduled, etc…

With Shiftboard’s financial forecasting tools you will be able to run a report of your employee’s scheduled hours and see just how close (or far) from your budget you fall.  Having this capacity to run this report directly from the data that you will be using will greatly reduce not only errors, but headaches and time spent creating a labor forecast as well.

Individuals can be assigned a pay code with an associated amount, or an overriding pay rate. When you run reports Shiftboard will calculate the overall labor cost based on hours and the associated wage.  For shifts that haven’t been filled yet, Shiftboard allows you to make a prediction on what your labor expenditures will be. By assigning default pay rates/codes to your teams, you can run reports to help determine how much you will be distributing to your workers – even if you don’t know which workers will be filling those shifts. Staffing companies can benefit from this as well—if you work with contractors whose wages vary site to site, leave your worker’s financials blank and Shiftboard will use the team’s default wage to come up with their forecasted labor.

Brief PowerPoint presentation illustrates the value of online scheduling in today’s busy world:

Download (PPT, 300.5KB)