If you own or operate a small business, you know how difficult it can be incredibly difficult to find the right software to manage employees. Most employee management software is geared toward medium and large businesses. This means that they have a lot of features, and a much bigger price tag, than you need.
To help you find the best employee management software for your small business, here are the things that you probably need to better manage your employees.
Time and Attendance
The primary focus of workforce management software is to track time and attendance. Often times, this is all that a small business needs. You don’t require all of the additional functionality that big businesses need because you simply don’t have enough employees to require that kind of tracking. Small businesses need a simple workforce management application that is easy to implement and manage.
Labor Costing
It is nearly impossible to overstate how much time you can save with labor costing. As a small business, you have to be a lot more cautious about drains on time and resources. A good labor costing application gives you the tools to track tasks and costs. A great labor costing tool gives you a way to track, project, and invest in the things that are working well or determine how to improve tasks that are similar. If you see two similar tasks that are taking a significantly different amount of time to finish, you can find out why, then find a solution to speed up the one that is taking longer.
Scheduling
For some industries, one of the hardest things to do is to schedule staff. This is particularly true in service industries where shifts are constantly changing. You are more likely to hire young workers, like students, which means having to manage some incredibly varied schedules. A great staff scheduling application simplifies this process by helping you duplicate schedules when it makes sense and work with constantly shifting employee schedules. When an employee calls in sick, you can more quickly identify a suitable replacement based on criteria you set, such as availability and seniority. You can establish when an employee is considered available based on factors, such as hours worked (to avoid having to pay overtime) or how close it is to their next shift.
Absences
One of the hardest things for small businesses to contend with are absences. Often times absences cannot be avoided, but sometimes employees will get in the habit of calling in because they just don’t feel like it. A good absence management program ensures that you can track absences. It gives you a focused look into who is less reliable or tends to put pressure on the business by frequently calling out at the last minute, or simply not showing up for work.
Future Growth
While you want a relatively simple solution, you also want software that is scalable. As your business grows, you don’t want to have to buy an entirely new software tool to track employees because that is both costly and a hassle for your employees. By purchasing something that can be scaled to your growing business, you ensure that you don’t have to retrain staff or spend a lot of money to get a new system up and running. A scalable solution now means that you can upgrade your features and functionality later, keeping the core software intact.