5 Effective Features You Must Have in a Rostering Solution

One effective way to control business expenses, improve employee engagement, and provide quality care is to have a comprehensive roster by skillset. 

The benefits of utilising appropriate tool features transcend managing business costs and enhancing the employee experience. According to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) in their 2021 report, there will be a shortage of workers by 2030. 

To counter such shortfall, employee retention and engagement will play an important role. The cornerstone of team recognition is trust and involvement—Do you create actions that engage your workforce? Do you treat them equally? Do you recognise their efforts? 

Your team will trust you if there is encouragement to do their best and information transparency. In the light of rostering solution, this means better self-service options to manage schedule, improved shift swapping and visibility, and most importantly, being paid on time and accurately. 

That said, the right rostering solution features can significantly minimise the burden on your admin, creating more engaged and informed teams. Check out these five features we highly recommend you need to have for your rostering solution. 

1. Built-in Award Analysis 

Generally, you can do wage calculations by payroll, but award analysis—at the point of rostering—means you can project your labour expenditures more efficiently. Without such transformation, it’ll be hard for you to find payroll errors, and you will likely miss out on opportunities. 

Not all rosters go according to plan, even with the utmost preparations. Sudden changes in projects/tasks, unplanned leave, and unforeseeable circumstances can cast off thorough planning. However, a rostering platform with award calculations can display updated costs as changes occur, effectively preventing you from overspending. It also gives you enough time to reduce spending before payroll comes. 

Calculations done incorrectly are unwitting, yet minor errors like this can add up. Hence, adding a reliable award analysis to your rostering solution platform will lessen potential mistakes in payroll. An award-interpreted timesheet can help lessen your admin time, considering the number of calculations happening at the end of the period. 

Selecting a modern platform like RosterElf will take care of all the intricacies, allowing you to manage expenses and process payroll accurately and seamlessly. 

2. Maximises Filling of Vacant Shifts 

You must monitor your company costs closely to help your workforce reduce spending. 

Having a rostering app platform grants you transparency over contracted hours together with a streamlined shift-filling process. With such functionality, you can find suitable people to fill every shift fast, ensuring optimal inclusion across the roster. You can quickly discover the most efficient way to present the shift to your team. 

With such an optimal process, you can avoid sending blanket notifications to your entire workforce. Make sure it's evenhanded instead of depending on the same people to fill the empty shifts. Being transparent and fair towards your employees always has a positive impact. 

3. Updates the Roster Fast and Effectively

Creating a well-balanced roster is an essential step in the process of budgeting. Managing the cost against income in determining employees who will work and when guarantees you’ll be fruitful. 

Your plan needs to be flexible, eventually. The flow and decline of occupancy, endless loops of unplanned and planned leaves, and keenness of shift details can cause an abrupt decrease or increase in revenue or cost. 

So, how do you go about the unexpected and sustain profitability? 

The restricting factor to a flexible roster is the tools’ lack of adaptability. Your rostering solution should let you plan and make changes fast without going back to square one. Flexible planning tools ensure you will be able to meet the demands and changes of your employees. It should also allow you to create efficient rosters in just a few clicks. 

4. Can Streamline Leave Processes

Part of your roster planning is allowing your employees to take days off. This should consist of protocols about how much notice is necessary and how many employees are taking leave simultaneously. 

Old school ways of tracking leave requests (using external systems and paper) could potentially cause employee disappointment and understaffing. A comprehensive rostering app can show a clear view of leave requests and other petitions over the same period. It can also display the affected shifts brought by these changes. 

Managers can then quickly approve leave without having to worry about whether there is a possibility of the workforce being shorthanded. With RosterElf’s self-service functionality, your employees can take responsibility for their availability as the software displays leave balances and shifts affected. 

5. Shows Roster Rules for Conformity 

From financial and productivity standpoints, compliance should be your priority, apart from creating rosters that make sense—viewing the required credentials for a specific shift when scheduling staff availability is imperative. This is to avoid being tagged as non-compliance. 

Your roster and payroll software must be snappy enough to alarm you when compulsory requirements (e.g. complete vaccinations or police checks) are missing, thus preventing you from adding such employees to your roster. Your roster rules should support your commitment to employees’ welfare. Make sure it can be configured to help you reduce burnout and overtime. 

Takeaway 

Whether it’s about optimising labour expenditure in a competitive market or improving employee retention, the features you adopt in your rostering solution are vital in every aspect of workforce management. Good rostering software can help you effectively plan, manage, and simplify processes, increasing profitability and quality employee care. 

With RosterElf, managing your rostering process has never been easier. Our roster tool offers you and your employees weekly and daily views. You’ll get to adjust shift times to meet your projected labour costs and a total breakdown of estimated wages for every employee. 

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