When I Work Makes Staff Scheduling a Snap

Managing the resources of a company is key to increasing revenue and improving profit margins. Keeping an eye on all resources and ensuring they’re optimally utilized is a daunting task. Handling human resources, in particular, is a delicate task and mishandling them might take a hit on organizational culture.

When I Work helps employers manage employee scheduling better. Read on for more a deeper look at the app.

Overview

When I Work connects your staff to their work schedule online using any platform of their convenience — web, mobile apps and text messaging. Managers can schedule shifts, move them around, check availability, address time off requests, swap shifts, assign locations, arrange drops and set preferences — all without having to move an inch from their desk.

Signing up for When I Work doesn’t require a credit card; there’s a thirty day free trial period to evaluate the service and all its features before opting for a paid subscription.

Pricing

Not counting the free plan, When I Work offers 7 different plans. All plans have the exact same features and the number of employees your company has is the sole criterion that determines pricing. Small and medium businesses who have anywhere between 1 to 250 employees can find a plan that fits right into their budget.

A free plan that supports managing up to five employees is available in “blink & you will miss” small print on the pricing page. As the web app notes, until you add a sixth employee to manage from the free account, there’s no need for submitting credit card information.

Using When I Work

Ease of Use

I loved the way the app cuts useless, but common, practices like email activation, overlays, forced tutorials etc. Straight off the bat you’re taken to a page where you can start adding employee information and their schedule. The user interface is free of clutter and quite refined. I wasn’t quite sure until today that green on a white background would look as great as blue on white!

First of all, even though the sections are given sequential numbers, you don’t have to go through all the steps in that order. Create employees and shifts then mix and match them later when you begin the actual scheduling. The way timings show up when you start entering numbers and assigning a color to the shift are nicely done.

Scheduling Shifts

From the Scheduler, you can view all employees and their positions in the company along with a weekly calender.

Assigning shifts is very simple; click on the date corresponding to an employee name and choose a color code that denotes a particular shift. You can add multiple shift timings for multiple days and have option to repeat the shift too. Deleting or altering a shift schedule can be done by double clicking on the color code. A rule based system for advanced scheduling, say, a warning message if one or more employees have the shift or a notice if an employee is always stuck in a particular shift etc., would be a nice addition.

The option to create a new shift on the fly from the right from the scheduler can he very useful for companies who are expanding fast. It’s also good to see the number of man hours available every day and week at a glance! Once the roster is ready you can mail it directly to employees or take a print out to pin it on the noticeboard.

Creating Positions

Positions is a brilliant feature if employees at your company work in teams. Instead of selecting and assigning the shifts for all the members of the team who will be working in the same shift, you can create a position and assign member(s) to it and schedule the timings. Once you assign a shift to a position, all members will automatically be assigned that particular shift. Neat, isn’t it?

Once you create Positions, tabs dedicated to them are automatically added to the scheduler. From these tabs you can get a quick view of which positions have been covered in the schedule.

Employee Requests

When I was working full time, the best day would be when I request for day(s) off in the ERP! You company might be a better workplace than the one I was working in but employees often need some time off work to tend to personal things and factoring them into schedule is a tricky task.

Employees can put in a request with a date and the reason for taking time off and it will come the manager’s screen for approval. If approved, the respective shifts will be tagged time off.

Dashboard

Usually I cover this part of the app in the beginning but when it comes to When I Work, the power of dashboard is revealed after getting the schedule ready. As you can see, the schedule of employees for the day is displayed so you don’t have to view the crowded scheduler to find out who is working when.

Another point where When I Work outdoes itself is with the notification system. Whenever a new employee is added, a shift is created or a request is submitted, then you can view them all from a single place. Notifications will come in handy to prioritize a manager’s tasks.

Finding Replacements

When I Work has a ton of awesome features and the most interesting one is ShiftReplace. With the ShiftReplace feature, handling a scheduling snafu or emergency replacement becomes a walk in the park. Select the shift that needs a replacement and hit the Replace button. The app will immediately show you a list of employees who are free and once you select them, they will be intimated of the same. The first one to accept the new timing will be automatically assigned in the scheduler.

Final Thoughts

The When I Work team could do a little bit of tweaking on the landing page that allows creating employees and shifts. Since adding employees and creating shift timings are displayed with sequential numbers, I was a bit confused to see a button to complete the task in both cases. You can create an employee and a shift. Later you can assign the shift timings from the calender. But the way things are designed, it looks as if creating an employee should immediately be followed by his/her respective shift timing.

Overall, When I Work is a fantastic app and could very well aid your organization in handling scheduling tasks that otherwise tend to be extra work we don’t even realize could be done so much easier. I would recommend When I Work for companies that cannot afford under using its manpower. It’s a huge time and money saver!

Share Your Thoughts!

Do you think When I Work covers all aspects of work scheduling in a company? Are there better alternatives?