If you were to list your favourite workday tasks, would rostering be one of them?
Many managers we speak to say they struggle with 3 things:
- Rostering takes too much time.
- It’s hard to share rosters with staff.
- It seems impossible to stay on top of Fair Work Awards, pay rates and leave.
If these 3 common rostering problems have got you stumped, too, you’re in the right place. We’re going to show you some simple ways to solve them – and fast!
Problem 1: Manual rosters are time consuming
If you had a dollar for every hour spent trying to create the perfect roster, you’d own an island by now.
The truth is, paper or cookie-cutter templated rosters take time – and that’s time away from managing your staff and business. It’s hard enough figuring out who should work when, let alone thinking about Fair Work Awards requirements, personality clashes and calculating wages as a percentage of sales. And if you make a mistake, it’s often easier to start over, costing you even more in time and productivity.
Even if you cobble together a couple of spreadsheets or free online templates, there’s still the risk of getting it wrong – and making mistakes with payments and awards. Sure, you might save a little time initially, but you’ll still have to do the hard work to plan the roster and check it’s correct.
Problem 2: Sharing rosters with staff
Let’s say you’ve finally emerged from underneath that pile of paperwork and are ready to let staff know when they’re working. How will you do it?
Do you plan to catch them on their way out the door? Send a mass email? Or maybe drop it into a shared folder on the Intranet?
These might seem like simple solutions, but there’s the risk that not everyone will know where to go for their roster – or will check it when they should. Plus, if they need to swap a shift or take time off for leave, you have to go back to the drawing board. And that means lost productivity and unnecessary complexity.
Problem 3: Fair Work Awards and other complications
You’ve shared the roster with your staff and can get back to business. But how do you know if you’re complying with Fair Work Awards rules, and won’t land in hot water like the recent Woolworths rosters controversy?
There’s also the added stress of calculating leave entitlements, overtime and holidays. Plus, if someone needs to swap shifts, how can you quickly calculate the wage differences between roles and departments?
Certainly, DIY rostering is risky business. You never know if you’re compliant or not. And with Fair Work Awards and pay rates changing all the time, keeping on top of it all is a full-time job in itself!
The solution: Automated rosters
As you can see, rostering takes time – and it takes you away from more important matters. On top of that, a DIY solution could end up costing you.
So what’s the solution? Automated rostering.
In just a few clicks, you can create the perfect template to use again and again. Here are a few other reasons to switch:
- Automatically calculate wage differences.
- See wages as a percentage of sales, so you know if you’ll be over or understaffed.
- Makes it easy to update Fair Work Award rules and pay rates.
- Staff can simply login to one platform on any digital device to see and swap shifts, set their availability, and apply for leave.
- Easily add leave blackouts or leave application deadlines.
- See at a glance who’s available and qualified for a shift – and the cost difference.
- No need to wait until the end of the week to check how your business is running.
It’s also a win for staff, as you can reduce their risk of fatigue and other issues that often stem from overworking, as per Safe Work Australia recommendations.
And when you switch to Wageloch, you unlock even more handy features – like our accurate Fair Work Awards interpreter engine that works in the background to keep you compliant. It’s also Australia’s only 24/7 rostering that accurately handles midnight entitlement switchover. Just think of how much time that will save!
To see how Wageloch makes rostering easy, book a demo with our friendly team in Australia today.