Many companies mistakenly assume that there are no decent employee scheduling software programs available on the market. They do a short market survey, come to this conclusion prematurely, and then begin to manually develop their own scheduling software for their employees. Worse is that these same companies then begin using programs like Microsoft Excel and think that they are creating employee scheduling software that will make their employees more efficient at work and help them stay organized. This is more than nave. It is a complete waste of time. The reality is that the requirements are far more complicated. Every employee has their own individual schedule and their own individual scheduling needs and no spreadsheet program is ever going to be able to keep up to it. Meeting the individual requirements of each and every employee can be a strenuous task and can be extremely time consuming as well. Development such as this is difficult to undertake, thus the hiring of software developers and/or IT experts is necessary. This increases the costs incurred by the company as well.
Adding to the complexity of making employee scheduling software is that the kind of employees that are hired by a company can also change the requirements. For example, if a company has employees working part-time, the scheduling requirements considerably increase in complexity.
There is the additional consideration that the time, cost and additional workload associated with development of the time and attendance scheduling software is unnecessary and avoidable if the company realizes the high level of scheduling software already developed and on the market. When developing software there is not only the cost of the actual software development but there is a considerable internal staff cost in developing the needs document.
This is a considerable waste of time and energy when this type of software is already developed and readily available. All a company has to do is do research online for employee scheduling software and find out which one best fits their requirements. There is a huge amount and range in the scheduling software available on the market, ranging from low cost and basic to expensive and very advanced.
What further adds to the comment that you should not waste your time making your own employee scheduling software is that these programs come with a whole host of options built in to cater to individual company situations and requirements. Most managers are not aware that these scheduling software programs would cost a lot less than developing one yourself because they already have lots of options in them and no outside consultants or software engineers are needed for the design or implementation of the software. Valuable time and money is saved as the hours that would have been put into the research for, and purchase of, scheduling software already on the market would be far less than the time that would be consumed in developing the same.
The employee scheduling software that is readily available and on the market is powerful and flexible and comes with features which can be added if needed. Instead of going through the hassles of developing software in-house to match the (perceived) individual company requirements, it is much simpler to purchase an off-the-shelf package and alter it by adding or removing options or modules.
The right employee scheduling software is necessary for proper organization of the employees. It helps coordinate their work within the business. The software must be powerful enough to handle the time and attendance requirements of each employee and the organization as a whole. Proper implementation of the software is also important. Professionally developed time and attendance software with employee scheduling is what every company should consider and not even think about developing it themselves.
