Changing the Scheduler's life!
February 08, 2018
Changing the Scheduler's life!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with HotSchedules
HotSchedules is used by our operations team department, including all of our part-time staff. Some of our business leaders have an account to simply utilize the messaging tools that HotSchedules offers, though it is not used for scheduling purposes or finance purposes seeing as they have a more gridline schedule. HotSchedules has helped our team remain connected through the messaging tool, updates, and changes to their schedules, and keeping track of their attendance. It has also streamlined the time keeping process as we utilize the time and attendance module of HotSchedules and utilize their time clock feature for our team to clock in and out. Given it's a webpage it gives the freedom to move the clock to where our team meetings to start the work day are.
- Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications.
- The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests.
- Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time.
- Breaks and Meals: On the time clock we are limited with meals and breaks. If someone has a 4-7.99 hour shift we give them a 20 minute paid rest break. If the employee reaches an 8-hour shift they are given 2 15 minute rest breaks and a 30-minute meal. Meal and Break set up cannot understand changing the breaks. We had it set up to add a 10-minute break to equal 30 minutes when you reach the 8th hour, however, the time clock when they click "Start Break" still gives them 20 minutes on both breaks leaving confusion.
- The Availability module has a few issues we have noticed. When a new employee is set to start a new availability it does not change in the scheduler. The Scheduler still holds the old staff members availability making it challenging for the scheduler to schedule appropriately.
- We believe a late or missed schedule report should be available to print easier reports for time and attendance tracking. Currently having to go through each staff's punch is not as smooth as it could be. This seems to be a simple addition to a great arsenal of reports.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Good followup No escalation required Immediate help available Support cares about my success | Problems left unsolved Need to explain problems multiple times Slow Initial Response |
We used a scheduling system that was integrated into our budget planning programs, but we had no implementation to our staff so it was the managers job to deliver the schedule and keep track of availabilities/ time off requests. It was a lot more work and wasted about 5-6 hours a week.