Every company and employer knows that success's secret recipe is putting your employees first. When employees don't feel valued, or they don't enjoy the work culture, you risk high employee turnover and decreased workplace productivity.
High employee turnover has a detrimental effect on a company because the average cost of employee turnover is approximately one-third of an employee's salary. It's a cost that only a few companies are willing to pay.
Rather than shelling money on hiring people who are likely to leave, companies use scheduling and HR software to hire ones that stay longer.
Scheduling software helps meet your team's pressing needs, such as reducing stress and empowering employees to excel in their work while ensuring smooth business operations.
Implementing scheduling software might change the game for a company and ensure it streamlines all scheduling-related activities to decrease employee turnover rate.
In this article, we explore methods for reducing the employee turnover rate.
Let's dive in!
6 Ways HR can reduce employee turnover using scheduling software
Here are a few ways HR can reduce employee turnover using scheduling software:
Provides flexible schedules to employees
What COVID-19 made crystal clear to companies is the importance of having a flexible work schedule. From taking ailing parents to doctors to picking up kids from school, employee flexibility is no longer a luxury; it has become a necessity.
With 96% of the workforce requiring a flexible schedule and only 42% having access to it, providing flexible schedules is an enriching way to increase productivity and reduce turnover.
That's where employee scheduling software comes in. The scheduling software empowers employees to create schedules and choose shifts that suit their requirements.
Rather than forcing employees to fill up an excel sheet or create new work schedules from scratch, HR software for small businesses helps you and employees update shifts directly on the platform.
Using this software, HR might easily fill open shifts. The tool helps send automated invitations to top employees and lets employees bid on the shift timing.
A schedule or HR software makes workplace scheduling a two-way street, which benefits the company in many ways.
Ensures accurate payroll processing
What is worse than underpaying an employee for their work? Often, when a company manually tracks the overtime and hours worked each week, an employee might receive a wrong check.
Maybe the extra hours they worked did not get recorded, or schedules were not updated on time.
While it's common for humans to make errors, it is uncommon for employees to accept a pay cut.
When employees get underpaid even after putting in their best efforts, they might feel demotivated to continue working and search for better job opportunities, resulting in employee turnover.
So, HR or scheduling software ensures timesheets integrate with the payroll processing so that every hour worked is paid. It can even be suitable for calculating bonus pay after an employee has completed a difficult project. This ensures that no employee gets disappointed about the amount on their check.
Typically, using the clock in and out of employees' time, these tools create a timesheet, reducing the margin of error to zero.
Reduce instances of oversight
As the human brain is far from being infallible, you might forget employee requests from time to time. Maybe the employees messaged you when you were in the middle of an office meeting or scribbled it on a piece of paper, which you unfortunately misplaced.
All this chaos results in employee dissatisfaction as you fail to acknowledge their shift swap or leave request.
That's why it's essential for companies to use digitization and automate manual processes. Apart from improving workflow, these processes keep employees happy and satisfied.
With happy employees being 13% more productive, reducing instances of oversight empowers a company to reduce employee turnover.
Scheduling software allows employees to send shift change and leave requests using the platform. This is a beneficial tool as after an employee requests a change; the software triggers an email message to you for approval.
Enhances workplace collaboration
Did you know that employee engagement directly links to their retention? Companies can ensure employee engagement with constant workplace collaboration and communication.
Most scheduling software provides instant messaging services on mobile phones to ensure employees do not ignore calls or leave emails unread.
Using scheduling software, your employees message anyone during circumstances such as shift swapping and leave requests.
Employees might customize workplace communication and know how they want to receive notifications about the communication message on mobile, on the web, and through email.
Give employees more power
Often, employees might focus on last-minute shift changes due to personal or work emergencies.
When this happens, it distorts the functioning and performance of the entire company, as covering last-minute changes might be challenging.
Rather than managers scrambling to search for qualified employees, employees might focus on shift swaps among themselves. These tools allow employees to connect and agree on shift coverage while submitting the request to you.
When a tool has a self-scheduling feature, employees are responsible for changing their shift swaps themselves. Providing employees with this level of autonomy is essential to increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover rates.
Provides forecast about busy work season
Using employee scheduling software combined with other business analytics solutions helps boost its effectiveness.
A company forecasts the busiest work season based on the time tracked by employees during the entire year and cross-referencing data from the point of sales (POS) counter.
For a restaurant and retail shops, it provides details about when they had the maximum customer footfall.
Alternatively, the software details the time of the year when sales are low. This helps you manage the employees required for the holiday season or high-volume shopping weekends.
Apart from providing accurate forecasts about the busy work season, these tools help estimate the workforce required to meet the growing demand.
Features of a scheduling software
When searching for scheduling software, focus on the following features:
Dynamic visual calendars
Many scheduling software has engaging calendars that provide an overview of the weekly or monthly tasks and duties allocated. These calendars are easy to comprehend and reduce instances of error.
Shift swapping
Having to rearrange and relook at an approved schedule might be annoying and time-consuming. Regardless of your industry and team size, you will likely face such a situation. That's why it's imperative to choose software that allows you to make necessary shift changes without disrupting the company's workflow.
Time tracking and timesheet reporting
Manually tracking an employee's work time is challenging. Due to various reasons, you might miss their overtime resulting in employee dissatisfaction. That's why to choose software that offers time tracking and timesheet reporting features. This feature ensures that employees track their time accurately.
Absence management
While scheduling software's primary purpose is keeping track of schedules and time spent at work, managing employee absence is equally essential. Compiling absence information from scheduling software helps proactive management and ensures a company delivers projects on time.
Employee self-service
An accessible, intuitive, and user-friendly scheduling software allows employees to manage their schedules. This includes clocking in and out of time and viewing work schedules. So, choose a feature that allows an employee to focus on shift swapping.
Reporting and business intelligence
Business intelligence provides your company with an overview of the entire scheduling process. An analysis of employee work time, shift changes, and absence affects the company's plan. Typically, data-based evaluations show which works processes and workflows are successful and which are not financially feasible for your company.
Integration
Often, employee scheduling software works in collaboration and tandem with other essential business tools and systems. Ensure to choose software that integrates human resource management, time and attendance, workforce management, and business intelligence.
Key takeaways
Companies looking to reduce employee turnover might be unaware of scheduling software's numerous benefits. Employee turnover is a significant reason why many companies bear hefty financial losses.
Today, having scheduling software in your arsenal is necessary because effective scheduling is critical for smooth business operations.
Neglecting the scheduling aspect of your workforce results in lower employee retention and decreases employee satisfaction.
Taking on scheduling software does a lot more than providing employees with their schedules. Scheduling effectively means that projects get completed on time, and every team member knows what's expected of them.
At the crux, scheduling software is essential to drive your workforce and reduce employee turnover. How are you using scheduling software to decrease your employee turnover as an HR career?
