Sometimes it is nice to know that what we feel here at the office every week, what we hear from our customers and partners, is being clearly recognized as a big trend in employment.  In the past two weeks, national publications including the both the WSJ and NYTimes have published pieces corroborating contingent and part-time workers are growing rapidly.

On a front page article two weeks ago entitled “Weighing Costs, Companies Favor Temporary Help”, the New York Times spelled out clearly how much new hiring is trending towards part-time workers (“contingent labor” is the term human resources uses, but I’ll opt for plain English here) as a more enduring trend.  Business hiring for temporary and part-time positions in the current recession is nearly triple what it was for our last major recession in 1991-92.  Below is the key excerpt from the article:

“This year, 26.2 percent of all jobs added by private sector employers were temporary positions. In the comparable period after the recession of the early 1990s, only 10.9 percent of the private sector jobs added were temporary, and after the downturn earlier this decade, just 7.1 percent were temporary.

“Temporary employees still make up a small fraction of total employees, but that segment has been rising steeply over the past year. ‘It hints at a structural change,’ said Allen L. Sinai, chief global economist at the consulting firm Decision Economics. Temp workers ‘are becoming an ever more important part of what is going on,’ he said.”

Businesses that recognize this trend and learn quickly how to efficiently manage their blended workforce (some full-time, some part-time, some contractors) will be reaping the rewards in the coming decade in terms of lower operating expenses, competitive advantages in recruiting, and ability to more rapidly adjust service delivery to client or internal operation requirements.

– Rob

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.

Can you think back to one of those times when something seemingly trivial actually was an indicator of something important?  I had one of those moments yesterday morning, when I was least expecting it.  I walked out of the company kitchen with my first cup of joe (certainly not the last) and into the middle of the following conversation.

Alison: “ . . . didn’t have time to get to that yesterday.  I had a bunch of trial followups, plus I skyped with that company in Japan and Vikram in India.”

Michael: “Did that Tokyo call center convert their trial to a paid account yet?”

Alison: “Not yet, but they’re a great fit.  I’m pretty sure it will happen by the end of this week.”

Michael:  “What about that school in Beijing?”

Alison:  “Haven’t heard from her in 2 days.  I gotta prep for this security demo in 15 minutes.  See ya.”

I started back to my desk like my normal drone self in the morning, taking a sip of coffee while thinking deep thoughts (ie should I check my email or voicemail), when I stopped in my tracks to mentally dissect that seemingly everyday conversation.

* I remember  a few years back when a couple of us spent four days wrestling with computers, testing amongst ourselves, and trying to get skype to work.  Now the Account Services team uses skype for overseas customers as seamlessly as me making a cell phone call.
* I remember our first call center customer, a small singer office facility with 20 employees.  Now we have customers like VoiceCurve, with multiple locations over the globe and Managers like Vikram in India providing call center scheduling coverage for hundreds of employees in multiple time zones.
* I remember high-fiving in the office when our first international client came abroad in the UK.  Now we’re working with organizations in 3 Asian cities in a single day, and I don’t even know 2 of them.

With that little revelation, I resolved to really savor my morning java . . . at my desk, just to be sure to stay out of the way of progress.

-Rob

Sometimes smaller enhancements don’t make the blog or new features list. However, it seems the quick & easy fixes often make the biggest impact in a manager’s daily Shiftboard routine. Here are a few updates that are guaranteed to make online scheduling even easier.

-       We’ve added a People Search on the Dashboard so you can find any account from any screen

-       You can customize your automatic “Shift Reminder” messages

-       You can customize the “No Pick-Up” message sent to end users

-       Manager Notes can be sorted by Team or Member across any date range. Of course, just like all other data within Shiftboard the information can be downloaded to Excel in real-time.

-       Members can run their own shift report to view their total hours

-       Last but not least, and certainly the favorite this month is the ability to customize what day of the week shows up first on your calendar.  This setting allows organizations that operate anything different than the standard Monday to Friday schedule to choose their workweek start day.

Thanks to our customers for keeping us in the loop and providing great feedback – enjoy! If you would like any help utilizing these features give us a call at 1-800-746-7531 or email: feedback@shiftboard.com

- Alison

Shiftboard is a huge supporter of nonprofits.  Over the years we have assisted hundreds of organizations with our time, energy and products. Support for nonprofits is so ingrained in Shiftboard’s culture, that we have actually volunteered to speak at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) to share our knowledge of how dynamic workforce management can help their cause.

The NTC is all about connecting and learning how technology can help nonprofits build communities and create social change. They actually rely on the community to decide which speaking session proposal would be the most beneficial. That’s where the Shiftboard community comes in.

Shiftboard is in the running and are asking for your support by voting for our speaking proposal titled Sign Up For Dynamic Workforce Management – 8 Magic Methods. Through working with customers and volunteering at nonprofits, we know we have unique insight to share. With expertise in creating online communities and years of implementing technology that supports nonprofit missions, our presentation would be invaluable to the NTC audience.

Voting is taking place now through September 30th, so please cast your vote today. Thank you!

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.

Many of our clients have employees who are working multiple jobs. Juggling two different schedules, with your worker as the liaison, can be frustrating for all parties involved. Volunteer and non-profit groups often face a similar dilemma. While two weeks down the road a volunteer’s schedule is a white canvas waiting for shifts to be etched in, prior obligations and unaccounted for circumstances inevitably leave schedulers scrambling to fill shifts.

Scheduling shouldn't be a stunt...

Plan ahead by utilizing Shiftboard’s Availability tool. Users (or their managers) can choose certain days of the week, at certain hours, and then specify busy or available. For random, spur of the moment events, you can select Specific Availability, and choose which days you will be available or unavailable. If you want to be really stringent, you can default your site so that members’ unaccounted availability times will be considered busy, thereby excluding them from being scheduled except for those times they have actually entered as available.

Constantly updating a calendar to accommodate ever changing priorities and schedules can be a real headache. So take a scheduler’s aspirin, use Availability, and give your workers an incentive to think more than a few days down the proverbial calendar road. Rest easy schedulers – those you see, are those available.

- Alison