Making sure you have enough employees scheduled for each shift could be a complicated and confusing task, but it doesn’t have to be so difficult. Employee scheduling software has built-in functions that let you define how many people need to be scheduled and calculate staffing levels. You’ll be able to customize schedule files according to the needs of your business regardless of industry.

If you’ve just bought employee scheduling software, you may be reviewing the steps to get started. The company you bought the software from may have told you that the first steps to starting your shift schedule include defining your shifts, defining explanations and coverage targets for those shifts, and then adding your employee names and information about them, such as the contact information, position, unique skills, and the number of hours they wish to work. But, before you can even start the set-up process, you need to decide how many schedule files you want to set up. There are two main approaches you could take: you could have one, master schedule file for the entire organization, or you could have separate, individual schedules for each department or unit within the organization.

The Group schedule is a beneficial staff schedule that lets you gather employees into 99 different groups in a convenient one- to seven-day format. This is a great way to view schedules by shift, department, location or any other type of multi-divisional report - all in a single view.

If you’re using paper and pencil or a spreadsheet to make your work schedules, you may be wondering if there’s a better way to do it. A scheduling program can help a lot. It will help you make sure you’ve got the right number of staff assigned to each shift. It will save you scheduling time. And, it will help you keep employees informed about their own work schedule, as well as special announcements. Now you may be wondering how to schedule staff with employee scheduling software.