Tag: operations

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Task Management 101: Advantages and Best Practices for Hourly Staff

Summary

  • Task management breaks down projects into smaller, more manageable duties.

  • Shift-based workforces can use task management to ensure daily work gets done efficiently and on time. 

  • Utilizing a checklist app makes tasks more manageable for shift workers.

Task management is the process of breaking down your operations or projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. It goes down to the granular level to identify every action item needed to run a productive shift or complete a project successfully.

In principle, you’re probably doing task management daily. An example would be going to work. Going to work involves smaller activities such as dressing up, making coffee, and commuting to the workplace. Task management functions in the same way. 

In organizations, task management helps managers and teams prioritize tasks, track progress, boost productivity, and ensure that things get done on time. However, while task management is closely tied to project management, they are different. Project management takes a 30,000 ft look at a project as a whole, whereas task management zooms in and deals with delegating and tracking specific jobs. 

Task management for shift-based businesses

Typically, task management is associated with white-collar organizations that run simultaneous projects, such as advertising agencies or software development companies. Such organizations usually work on long-running projects or implementations, using task management to assign and track action items. 

However, task management is also vital for hourly employees in industries like retail and hospitality. For these shift-based operations, task management defines what recurring tasks need to get done during every shift; this increases team productivity and accountability.

To successfully manage tasks, here are factors you need to consider carefully:

  • Time – When assigning tasks, ensure they align correctly with your schedule. For instance, stocking up on table essentials such as sugar packets and condiments is usually done before the restaurant opens and not in the middle of the day.
  • Resources – Take inventory of the things needed to accomplish a particular task. Consider tangibles such as supplies and tools and intangibles such as certifications or specific skills.
  • Dependencies – Are there any prerequisites to performing specific tasks? For instance, nurse handoffs are crucial from one shift to the next as they transfer vital and specific patient care information. Another example of dependency would be manager or supervisor sign-offs.

The goal of task management for hourly teams is to ensure productive shifts. The best way to do this is through a checklist system categorized by team and location. Take a look at this example:

Opening duties for restaurant FOH:

    • Set up tables and chairs
    • Sanitize surfaces and windows
    • Empty trash bins
    • Clean bathrooms
    • Arrange table napkins and other table placements
    • Restock tabletop essentials or condiment area with sugar packets, ketchup, salt, etc.
    • Stock bar with glassware and drinks

While the tasks seem part of a routine, they can easily fall through the cracks. Having specific to-do lists helps your team stay organized and focused on the tasks they must accomplish during the day. 

Why should you prioritize task management?

Want the short answer? Because it ensures things get done. At the end of the day, every organization wants an efficient and productive workforce – proper task management is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. 

Some dismiss task management because their daily operations remain fairly consistent. However, for some businesses, even a slight misstep can cause significant operational problems or even health and safety concerns. Task management shields your team from this kind of risk.

Here are some of the major reasons why task management is a must for hourly teams:

Increased productivity

Task management drives focus within teams, laying out precisely what needs to get done on a daily basis. Things like task checklists and due times ensure employees stay on top of their duties.

Autonomy and accountability

Task management gives your employees autonomy over their tasks. Because they know what they need to accomplish, they can manage their time better and focus on doing their tasks well even when managers are not around. 

Effective task management also signifies trust, and employees appreciate that. By handing off daily checklists to employees, they know it is up to them to complete these tasks on time and up to standard – and because it creates a paper trail, failure to finish tasks can easily be addressed. 

Better workflow

Teams work better when there are clear directions. Operations run smoothly when each employee knows their tasks on a granular level. Don’t mistake this for micromanaging. It’s about setting specific tasks and expectations for your team. 

Instructing your team to go ahead and have a productive shift is easy. But how do they do that exactly? This is where task management comes in. Think of task management as mapping out the necessary steps for achieving a successful shift. 

More visibility

Tracking shift responsibilities with software-based task management gives managers a glimpse into frontline operations. With checklists and due times assigned across an organization, managers can easily confirm that important work is getting done, who’s completing the work, and what time.

Improved prioritization

Task management enables you to allocate your resources better and prioritize tasks accordingly. Because everything is laid out, it’s easy to identify which tasks are more urgent than others. As a result, you can focus on what matters without overwhelming your employees.

Good customer service

Higher efficiency naturally leads to better customer service. When tasks are managed effectively, customers notice – it’s easy to sense if your operations are chaotic or your employees seem lost. Forgetting simple duties like restocking a particular shelf, cleaning a bathroom, or updating a menu can lead to poor customer experience. Task management keeps you from repeatedly making these kinds of mistakes. 

Best practices for task management

Task management seems like a straightforward process where you create a list of tasks for your employees per team, shift, and location. However, it may involve many moving parts, especially if you’re managing a midsize to enterprise-level hourly workforce. 

Here are some best practices to help task management work for you:

Use a task management software

Post-its and whiteboards are not cut for efficient task management. It’s best to utilize software designed to organize tasks, provide real-time task status alerts, and give you data and analytics on how your team is accomplishing tasks.  

Task management software keeps track of every task in each shift and notifies managers upon task completion. It also promotes transparency as everyone sees the same sets of tasks and has visibility on action items ticked off the list.

Track progress

More than completing things on time, a considerable part of task management is tracking completion. It’s important to see when tasks get done in real-time in order to stay on top of daily operations. Moreover, tracking completion helps you see where and when work is taking too long, what’s causing the delay, and how to address the inefficiency.

Evaluate your task management strategy

Just like performance management, task management should be an ongoing process. Day-to-day tasks can be repetitive but can change over time, especially when organizational shifts and market changes occur. 

For instance, demand will likely influence your team’s tasks. So consider when it will likely peak and ensure that your to-do lists are adequate to meet that uptick in demand. 

Meanwhile, revisiting your task management strategy allows you to pivot quickly in case of unprecedented market changes that will cause a significant shift in your operations. For instance, the disruption of COVID-19 caused in most workforces. 

Tie it in with the rest of  your workforce management

Task management shouldn’t be a siloed process. It would be best to integrate it with other areas of workforce management, such as employee scheduling.

Over time, task management will give you a wealth of data that can aid in optimizing schedules, tracking skills, and making critical workforce decisions.  

Webinar: How to Track Skills Development for Hourly Staff

Finding the right software for task management

Task management is no easy feat, but a reliable software system can simplify it. Workforce.com’s task management is the ideal solution for hourly workers. You can use it to create checklists lists for various teams and track real-time completion rates.

Workforce.com task checklist mobile view

Task management features are even better when synced with employee scheduling, time and attendance, and human resources. Employees can clock in, check their schedules, complete tasks, and get paid through a single app.

To learn more about Workforce.com’s task management platform and how it ties in with other solutions, book a call today. 

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What is employee self-service? [Guide]

Summary

  • Employee self-service (ESS) is technology that allows employees to perform HR tasks on their own such as updating their personal information, viewing pay stubs, and accessing company handbooks.

  • For shift workers, employee self-service goes beyond streamlining HR. It’s also about giving employees the flexibility they need to be productive in and outside of work.

  • A truly effective ESS software is one that’s optimized for daily operations – think access to schedules, reviewable timesheets, vacant shift claiming, and PTO management.

Updating personal information, managing benefits, and filing leave requests —these are all HR tasks that can be delegated to staff through employee self-service (ESS). But what is employee self-service exactly, and why is it important, especially for hourly workforces?

What is employee self-service?

Employee self-service refers to technology that allows employees to complete various administrative tasks related to HR, IT, and operations on their own. 

It’s all about providing a way for staff to easily get admin work done without going through a middleman. Some common tasks done through ESS include updating bank details, accessing employee handbooks and company policies, requesting PTO, managing and enrolling for benefits, editing timesheets, and much more. 

How does employee self-service work?

Employee self-service is usually done through a portal where employees can view and manage their employment details. Sometimes, ESS portals are managed internally via a company’s private intranet. However, most businesses run their ESS portal through HCM software.

In this instance, employees get their own login credentials and profile, where they can then access various things like their schedules, timesheets, benefits, time off, and more. ESS features allow employees to edit this information themselves without having to get HR’s help. 

The benefit of ESS features

Employee self-service goes beyond streamlining HR processes for hourly employees. It’s also about ensuring employees perform at their best each shift. Here are some of the unique benefits of implementing employee self-service:

Flexibility

Flexibility for shift-based workers is not about extra vacation days or working remotely. It’s about knowing their schedules ahead of time so that they can plan their personal life accordingly. 

Self-service gives employees the ability to see their schedules in advance, file leave requests, pick up open shifts, view their timesheets, and access their benefits or wages. All of these are crucial not only for daily operations, but for giving employees the tools they need to plan their lives accordingly outside of work. 

Efficiency

Employee self-service features are typically only possible if your business runs its operations and HR on a single, online system. With all your data in one place, it’s very easy for employees to update whatever information they need. This, in turn, streamlines things like onboarding, leave management, and timesheet approvals.

Employee self-service features also improve your response time to unexpected absences. Mobile features like shift swapping and shift bidding enable employees to schedule themselves whenever call-outs or no-shows occur.

Finally, communication is also another thing that ESS simplifies for hourly workers. It eliminates the lengthy back-and-forth communication that often plagues fast-paced work environments. Whether it’s a question about their schedules or a clarification about their timesheets, ESS speeds up the correspondence. 

Reduced administrative burden

At its core, self-service functionality really just makes life easier for managers and HR. By offloading basic admin work to employees, managers can spend more time on the things that matter. 

Employee onboarding, for instance, is an area where employee self-service features come in handy. DIY onboarding checklists reduce HR’s time spent on paperwork and data entry by allowing employees to fill in their own information and upload required documents. At the same time, new hires can also access the employee handbook and other relevant company policies as they integrate into the organization.

HR can use the time saved to focus on things like strategic initiatives and skills development programs. At the same time, frontline managers can spend more time on the floor and coaching their teams. 

Webinar: How to Track Skills Development for Hourly Staff

Increased team morale

Employees tend to be more satisfied with their work when a strong employee self-service system is in place. They feel that they’re trusted enough to do specific HR tasks on their own and that the organization values their time. 

Implementing a self-service system signals to employees that management trusts them; this inherently makes employees feel more valued. When things like timesheets, schedules, and PTO details are readily available for them to access, it leaves no room for ambiguity or miscommunication. Employees can rest assured that everything is in the system, and they can refer back to this information if need be. 

Challenges with implementing employee self-service

Implementing employee self-service in an organization can be challenging. Here are some of the hurdles organizations typically come across when trying to implement ESS in their organization:

Adoption

Resistance to change is a common challenge for organizations trying to implement employee self-service systems for their staff. Some employees may feel like learning the new platform is time-consuming and may prefer the traditional hands-off approach.

Training time

There’s a learning curve to using employee self-service systems, which can affect how receptive employees will be to the new system. It becomes more challenging when you have multiple platforms that employees need to learn. For example, you have one portal for scheduling and another for onboarding and benefits. Employees may perceive this as additional work and struggle to juggle multiple accounts.

Maintenance

Deploying an employee self-service system is not a one-time thing. It’s an iterative process. More than building an easy-to-do-business model, it also needs updated information. 

Think of it as a knowledge base or portal for your employees. Any update on policies, employee handbook, or standard operating procedures must be reflected in the system, which requires regular evaluation and upkeep. 

Analyzing adoption

Getting an employee self-service system up and running is just half the battle. The other half is monitoring how the employees are actually using it.

Analyzing how the system is used is vital to understanding your return on investment. By monitoring adoption and use, you’ll discover how staff engage with the system, what works well with it, and what features need to be improved.

Improving employee self-service for hourly workers

Employee self-service is only effective when it’s implemented correctly. Here are some best practices to realize its ROI for hourly workers. 

Prioritize ease of use

An employee self-service system is only as good as its interface. People tend to gravitate toward systems that are easy to use and low on time commitment. Don’t adopt a dated system with a clunky UI – it will only make employees’ jobs harder. 

Keep it all-in-one

For shift-based workforces, it’s important to have all self-service functionality housed in a single platform. If you can, only subject your employees to creating a single account for everything they need since it’s often confusing for employees to manage different portals.

Make it mobile

Employee self-service platforms are more effective when they’re app-based. Shift workers can’t be bothered logging into a communal desktop to do things like check their schedule or submit timesheets – they should have 24/7 access to whatever they need right from their phone.

Get user feedback

Ask your employees what they think about the system, and act on their feedback. A system may seem good on paper, but nothing beats real-time insight from the people who use it. 

Gather feedback from your employees, validate it, and then see how you can improve your ESS. Remember that implementing it is an iterative process. It should be consistently updated to maximize employee efficiency and satisfaction.  

Finding the right employee self-service software

The best employee self-service system is one that’s optimized not only for HR admin work, but for daily operations. 

At Workforce.com, we’re all about shift workers. That’s why we believe ESS needs to go beyond viewing and updating personal information. For shift-based teams, it needs to be dynamic enough to streamline scheduling changes, timesheet approvals, and much more.

Screenshot of an ESS portal on a phone
Workforce.com’s Employee Self-Service app makes it easier for staff to manage their information.

Workforce.com has a specialized employee self-service platform that allows them to view personal details, access contracts, view time off balances, check schedules, approve timesheets, and bid for shifts, all in a single platform.

Learn more about how Workforce.com’s employee self-service software helps hourly workforces around the globe. Book a call with us today. 

 

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How COVIDCheck Colorado Optimized Operations Across 55 Locations

 

During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, emergency testing and vaccination service COVIDCheck Colorado was established to help return half a million disconnected and isolated people back to their normal lives. For Carol Carrasquillo, COVIDCheck Colorado’s site optimization director, this proved to be a monumental yet extremely necessary challenge. In charge of continuous improvement measures and training protocols across all testing locations, Carrasquillo understands more than most what it takes to optimize a workforce to provide the best possible level of care. 

CHALLENGE

With communities throughout Colorado suffering amidst the pandemic, COVIDCheck Colorado acted quickly to expand its operations. While this rapid expansion provided more public access to testing and vaccines, it was very difficult for Carrasquillo to control frontline staffing issues like no-shows, emergencies, and most commonly, overtime. 

“We weren’t necessarily keeping up with the number of staff on-site as quickly as we could,” says Carrasquillo. “When you’re getting those types of 80-hour weeks, there’s cause for concern because that’s not sustainable.”

She also struggled with ensuring all staff had proper medical training and credentials. “Vaccination sites are very particular about the credentials that someone has to have in order to vaccinate,” says Carrasquillo. “It would put us at a big compliance risk if someone were performing duties that they weren’t actually medically certified to do.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge Carrasquillo faced with operations was adjusting staffing levels across 55 different locations in response to fluctuating demand. “It was hard knowing who was at each site and when they were working,” reflects Carrasquillo. “We were doing everything in Excel spreadsheets.”

Carrasquillo needed a solution that would provide her with increased operational visibility so that she could better control labor costs, ensure proper medical compliance, and adjust staffing levels across all sites. She also wanted to equip her staff with technology that would help them perform their jobs efficiently, effectively, and above all, safely.

SOLUTION

Carrasquillo used Workforce.com to optimize operations across all 55 of COVIDCheck Colorado’s sites. The workforce management platform automated tasks such as timekeeping and schedule distribution. It also provided Carrasquillo with more visibility into key operational areas like staffing levels, medical compliance, and labor costs. 

“Without Workforce.com, we wouldn’t be able to assess our staff as far as where they are, when they are working, and how many hours they’re working,” says Carrasquillo. “Workforce.com is able to quickly assess where we can reallocate extra resources.”

RESULTS

Powered by Workforce.com, Carrasquillo orchestrated 3,400 frontline workers in the successful administration of 300,000 vaccinations and 800,000 tests. With an overhauled workforce management system, operations across all 55 COVIDCheck Colorado sites were streamlined to ensure the best possible efficiency, safety, and patient outcomes. Here are some of the specific ways Workforce.com helped Carrasquillo achieve this success:

Reduced labor costs

With its live insights into scheduled vs actual wages, overtime, and demand data, Workforce.com provides Carrasquillo with the information she needs to pinpoint and limit overspending wherever present. “I can see how much overtime is being worked on a weekly basis,” says Carrasquillo. “[Workforce.com] gives us visibility and raises red flags where we might have opportunities to address unnecessary overtime.”

Most importantly, these savings have enabled Carrasquillo to carry out the equitable deliverance of care, an important part of COVIDCheck Colorado’s mission. “We can take any of those extra dollars that we have and really go out to the different communities that we wanted to reach.”

Improved patient outcomes

Optimizing labor costs has also led to better patient outcomes. “We’re able to provide more resources to our sites and newer sites, to be able to run them right from an operational perspective, and test and vaccinate as many people as we can in the community,” says Carrasquillo. 

The results speak for themselves, as COVIDCheck Colorado’s NPS scores have consistently fallen in the nineties since implementing Workforce.com. 

Labor compliance at all sites

Using Workforce.com’s Qualifications feature, Carrasquillo can easily check on employee medical certifications and training requirements. “What it has allowed us to do is be able to quickly assess who is actually qualified from a medical certification perspective to do different roles,” says Carrasquillo. 

She can also automatically limit scheduling according to qualifications, meaning shifts assigned to unqualified workers are flagged for managers to see and change.

Greater workforce visibility

With a live timeclock feed, Carrasquillo and her site managers can see where and when people are working, making it much easier to track down employees who need to be sent to understaffed sites. 

“We’ve been using Workforce.com to capture and really assess our capacity,” Carrasquillo states. “We’ve leveraged it to look at how many appointments we have compared to how many people are scheduled and determine whether we have enough staff.”

With the help of Workforce.com, Carrasquillo successfully optimized operations at all COVIDCheck Colorado sites, helping bring emergency aid to thousands of people in need. At the core of this achievement was her ability to empower and allocate her staff with the right tools. 

“Your staff is what is really going to make or break your operations,” reflects Carrasquillo. “Whether you have enough to help serve customers or you have too many and need to reallocate them somewhere else, Workforce.com helps make things more efficient and effective.”

Following COVIDCheck Colorado’s success with Workforce.com, Carrasquillo believes change is imminent for emergency health services regarding how administrative tasks and oversight are carried out. “I think the future of the healthcare space is that we need to leverage and utilize [workforce management] in a way that just makes things more operationally efficient.”

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The Lake Elsinore Storm team up with Workforce.com to increase operations visibility

 

Minor League Baseball has been the city of Lake Elsinore’s pastime for a long time now – since 1994 to be exact. Perhaps nobody understands this better than the local team’s very own director of operations, Jason Natale.

“I’ve been coming here since I was about five years old. I sat on top of the dugout, had my birthday parties here … Storm Baseball was a big passion for me.”

Jason’s childhood passion continues to this day, as he is now the operations manager for the Lake Elsinore Storm, an affiliate of the MLB’s San Diego Padres. While the team’s goal is to win on the field, Jason’s primary goal behind the scenes is to ensure all 6,000 fans enjoy a clean and organized service experience at every game. 

CHALLENGE

Knowing what it’s like to be a fan himself, Jason takes pride in maximizing operational efficiency to increase fan engagement and satisfaction. “I’m a perfectionist,” he says. “I want everything to be pristine for the guests before they show up.” Achieving these results often proved difficult, however, as Jason conducted the majority of his work manually across multiple platforms; this limited the visibility he had into his workforce.

Simple administrative tasks like checking the attendance and locations of crews, managing overtime costs, and viewing sales per labor hour were taking too much time and energy. Most importantly, they slowed his reaction time to frontline issues impacting a wide range of the stadium’s operations entities. 

Since the Storm do not have the same revenue volume as teams in the major league, they rely heavily on providing a high quality service experience for their fans. Multiple entities operate under the Storm umbrella, from stadium cleaning to concessions, to curate this positive service experience. Jason needed increased clarity into the pain points affecting each of these entities in order to continue building customer satisfaction. 

SOLUTION

The perfectionist in Jason pairs perfectly with Workforce.com. The intuitive cloud-based system gives him the visibility he needs to optimize productivity and react quickly to frontline issues across his workforce. It handles all the time and attendance data for Jason’s employees, while also integrating with the stadium’s POS system, allowing him to compare labor hours and sales metrics. 

With Workforce.com, Jason uses his time more efficiently to prepare and operate the stadium for games. The software eliminates any frustration and stress that normally comes with inefficient administrative processes, making his job easier, and in the end, fan satisfaction higher. 

RESULTS

Jason now experiences success in operations throughout the stadium after Workforce.com joined the team. Here are some of the many ways the new workforce management system has increased operational excellence for both Jason as well as the team as a whole:

Optimizing sales per labor hour

With Workforce.com Jason can easily track cashiers turns, or sales per labor hour – a major KPI for the team. He can look at how much in sales a worker does in a shift and compare that to their labor costs. From these metrics, he can determine how to lead, schedule, and train employees better, increasing employee value.

Greater workforce visibility

Jason makes better decisions in the moment now with the help of leading indicators. With a live wage tracker, both the mobile app and kiosk app capture clock-ins, giving Jason live insights into whether he should call someone in, or send someone home, based on forecasted demand. Key alerts also greatly assist Jason, notifying him when he needs to address an abandoned shift.

“I can track my employees from my mobile phone. If someone didn’t show up, I can just look at my phone, and it’ll notify me, saying this person isn’t here. And I can reach out to HR and go from there.”

Minimizing overtime hours

Jason uses attendance features and push notifications in the app to control overtime hours among his employees. 

“With the pandemic, we are limited in staff, so a lot of our staff do get overtime,” Jason states. “So I am definitely getting notified when a person is beyond their hours and how to make sure they get home at the right time.”

Tracking attendance with GPS

With multiple service teams covering a large stadium, GPS clock-ins via the mobile app are critical for Jason’s visibility into daily operations. 

“I can track my people, I know when they’re coming, I know when they’re on site. It’s reassuring that it is all GPS located, so they’re not clocking in from down the street somewhere,” says Jason. 

Improved customer experience

Perhaps most importantly, the Storm are experiencing a major boost in sales following their partnership with Workforce.com, indicating an overall improvement in customer experience. In 2019, the average fan spent $24 per game across parking, ticketing, retail, and food; now the average has doubled to $48.

For Jason, a love for the sport of baseball has developed into a passion for optimizing service operations and increasing customer satisfaction. Baseball is about more than what’s happening on the field; it’s about the service experience as a whole, from cleaning seats to preparing hotdogs. In Workforce.com, Jason found a reliable teammate to optimize the operations driving this all-American experience.