Designing the Perfect Shift Planning App: Why Blend Stands Out
Managers in modern, fast-paced workplaces have a lot on their plates, and keeping up is challenging. Managers are tasked with various responsibilities, from ensuring their team runs their shifts appropriately to tackling unforeseen obstacles. Therefore, a shift planning app allows managers to streamline procedures and reduce wasted time.
Shift scheduling software is usually a mobile app that streamlines the coordination of shifts, vacation requests, and internal communications. However, it's important to note that not all shift planning apps are the same.
Shift scheduling software should meet specific criteria to be valuable and straightforward. While there are still shift scheduling tools that can be adapted to any company's needs. This article will discuss why Blend is the best shift planning software for the food and catering industries and the best features of a shift planning app.
What should you look for in shift scheduling software, and which features are most important?
The following are essential qualities that shift planning apps should have to be considered trustworthy and ideal for businesses and their staff:
- A user-friendly interface
- Ideal customization and flexibility through the app
- Communication through the app
- Fast and targeted automation
- Analytics and reporting through the app
- Security and privacy provision
User-friendly interface
An easy-to-navigate and understand user interface is crucial to the success of any shift scheduling app. This means that the app as a whole and the user interface in particular, which primarily comprises the user's interaction with the app, should be designed to make it easy for managers and employees to use the app.
Key elements of good design include an uncluttered layout, legible text, and easily understood graphics. Since each app was designed to simplify users' lives, there should be no hiccups in its functionality. They are not useful if users have to spend time learning how they operate. Therefore, those apps should provide videos, demos, and customer services that will immediately solve questions and help the user, in addition to a user-friendly interface. These two components should cooperate to ensure a smooth experience for the user.
Customization and flexibility
Shift planning apps should carry out several essential tasks to help any business run smoothly, regardless of staff size. In addition, businesses of all sizes require such apps as they are generally helpful and straightforward to operate. Therefore, these apps ought to improve companies' ability to tailor their services by providing customization and flexibility primarily in these five features:
- Shift scheduling
- Shift planning
- Shift work calendar
- Scheduling process
- Shift management
Communication
A shift planning app should have built-in tools for facilitating communication between managers and employees. In-app messaging and push notifications for schedule changes are thus essential features for such apps. As a result, not only will employees be able to communicate with each other about shifts and work issues, but they will also be able to reach out to the manager as well. They will also receive timely notifications about new programs, changes, and anything related to the business's smooth operation and strategic planning. This means there will never be an unfilled shift or an excess number of employees.
Automation
The reduced likelihood of errors makes automated processes valuable to any business. However, creating schedules may be time-consuming for managers, so that automation can be beneficial. With automatic scheduling and shift-swapping managers set up schedules and programs to run automatically for the following weeks, and employees can swap shifts according to their needs and programs.
Analytics and Reporting
In shift planning, data-driven decision-making is essential. Insights and analytics on scheduling factors like overtime, attendance, and labor costs are critical for a great shift planning app. Managers can use this information to make better decisions about staffing and scheduling and keep better tabs on who's putting in the most hours and who's putting in the least, resulting in more equitable regulation of things like overtime, wages, etc., shifts, and similar matters.
Security and Privacy
When deciding on a shift scheduling app, security and privacy should be given top priority. The app's safety should be top-notch to safeguard sensitive information such as user credentials, company information, data stored within the app, and any other information that could be considered private. This is the only way for the company to ensure that its trade secrets will not be revealed to its rivals or anyone else.
Security and privacy should appear in all the app processes, like scheduling employee shifts, shift schedules, shift planners etc.
Therefore, if you are searching for a shift scheduling software that combines all the above features, Blend is the answer.
Why is Blend the perfect choice?
Blend is the perfect employee scheduling software and shift planning app for businesses, mainly in the food and beverage industry, making it the superior option for managing teams in this sector. The app has excellent shift planning features, providing easy-to-navigate shift templates, a friendly user interface, and facilitating shift work for everyone involved.
Through Blend, employees can customize their shift schedules, and managers can create multiple personal calendars for every employee. At the same time, managers can duplicate every program for the following week and make changes quickly and easily.
Blend provides several resources that facilitate team scheduling and communication. To save time for managers, the app offers multiple automations, like an automatic scheduling feature that builds schedules based on the team's availability and preferences. Employees can easily switch shifts, reducing the burden on HR to make changes manually, thanks to the shift-swapping feature. Everyone is on the same page regarding vacation requests because they can be submitted and approved.
Managers can use Blend's reporting and analytics features to keep tabs on essential data like employee performance and make more informed decisions based on that data. Moreover, managers can check out multiple shifts through an up-to-date shift planner and split shifts fairly for everyone according to their performance and the number of shifts they have worked.
Blend also provides extensive privacy and security measures to safeguard businesses and employees. For example, Blend's double-lock system ensures companies’ data is never compromised.
Blend offers a free 14-day trial with full access to all its features for businesses with up to five employees. You now know Blend has all the above mentioned capabilities, making it an invaluable tool for restaurants, bars, etc. Don't hesitate to give it a shot; after just a week, you'll see how much of a difference it can make in running your restaurant smoothly.