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]]>When using a scheduling workflow solution, the top-to-bottom process set-up and organization is vital. Not only must you ensure every shift is filled, but it must also be filled with the correct team member. You need to quickly see who is interested in taking on more hours, asking to take PTO, and getting close to overtime hours. You need an easy way to communicate with your entire team and ensure that your message has been received and read, without cluttering up inboxes and spending hours responding to one-off emails.
There are many different platforms on the market available for EMS and fire organizations today. It’s true that they all will have similarities, but no two are exactly the same. While each agency or department must make its selection based on its specific needs, below are seven of the most commonly used and asked-for tools for employee scheduling in the EMS and fire industries.
Allow employees to submit and view their current availability, while also giving them the ability to easily change it as needed from their smartphones, tablets, or computers. By doing this, you are not only improving accountability on the employee’s side but also increasing efficiency for managers. Once new availability schedules are submitted and approved, management can go in to contact and/or schedule available employees quickly.
Some EMS and fire employees work better with a routine. There are automatic/template scheduling features that allow management to go in and create a set schedule that will always have certain workers on certain days. This feature also allows management to create specific shifts and rotations based on cost centers and/or qualifications.
There will be situations in which a schedule will need to be changed at a moment’s notice. For example, someone has called out sick, and an open shift needs to be filled immediately, or a new hire is replacing someone on the shift for the rest of the month. In these situations, it is best for management to use the manual scheduling feature that allows them to go into published schedules and manually change the shift’s information. This can be editing items such as the shift start time, duration, assigned employee, and qualification requirement.
A trade shift feature allows employees to trade shifts between one another easily. This feature is helpful because it will only accept a trade between two qualified employees to work in a particular role (for example, a paramedic couldn’t trade with an EMT). In addition to trading shifts, the trade shift feature should also allow employees to give away shifts to qualified and available employees.
Management can either completely automate the approval process based on compliance issues such as overtime or require administrator approval before the swap occurs. Once approved, the new shift should automatically show up on the new employee’s calendar and be taken off of the original employee’s calendar.
The goal of any overtime scheduling feature is geared toward keeping overtime costs at a minimum. The overtime scheduling feature not only keeps a real-time running total of overtime but can also report on Planned vs. Actual hours to provide a current snapshot on hours. This helps you make important decisions for your organization and make changes to your schedule quickly as needed.
Shift bidding takes the stress out of filling open shifts. Managers can quickly blast out notifications through email or text messages regarding available shifts for employees to work. Once sent out, an employee will receive a notification with all the shift information and a link that will send management a note saying that the specific employee is interested in the shift.
When management returns to the bid, they will view all employees who would like to work on the shift and choose. Once a particular employee is selected, the scheduling software will notify the chosen employee and add the new shift to their schedule. It will also notify the employees who were not chosen for the shift.
Mobile scheduling software allows employees and managers to request and manage their time- off from their computer or on-the-go. In addition, the time off/vacation tool has a feature that can notify management when the time-off bank is about to go negative and refuse requests for anyone who has gone into negative hours. This feature helps both management and employees plan effectively and make requests and approvals a more straightforward conversation.
A powerful scheduling tool, designed to address EMS agencies and fire departments’ specific needs, can genuinely help take some of the pain out of managing your teams. A more straightforward interface – accessible from almost anywhere – paired with real transparency for each employee’s current needs, availability, and shift options, helps your entire staff feel more confident and informed. This improved communication and insight not only helps with managing your agency or department but ensures your team is always fully staffed and ready to serve the community.
Take a tour of the ESO Scheduling solution for EMS and fire now.
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]]>The post How EMS Employee Scheduling Software Saves You Time appeared first on ESO.
]]>Creating and managing employee shifts can feel complicated and daunting. From overtime to PTO, shift-swapping and payroll, it’s extremely important to be able to view accurate, updated information and make informed decisions. The following are three ways an EMS employee schedule generator can help change the way your agency spends its time.
Do you remember the old saying, “Money doesn’t grow on trees?” Well, it’s very true, especially in EMS agencies. As a growing agency, every penny counts and should be accounted for. Whether your agency runs on tax dollars or patient funds, staying on top of where your money is going is very important.
One of the most time-consuming, manual processes in the EMS industry is generating employee schedules. Your scheduler may know his or her way around Excel better than anyone in the agency, but with an automated system, they’re able to create an unlimited amount of shift rotations and easily assign employees to them.
An EMS employee schedule generator reduces the amount of time spent constructing and circulating employee schedules by doing the heavy lifting. Once shift rotations have been put into place, assigning employees to current and future shifts is easily completed with just a few clicks. Automating your current scheduling processes may seem daunting, but this simple adjustment can save time and money.
According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, more and more people are feeling tired and lonely at work. In fact, 50% of professionals – in jobs ranging from the nonprofit sector to the medical field – are burned out. By definition, “burnout is the exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation, usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.”
The last thing any agency wants their employees experiencing is burnout. Managing the stress levels of your employees can be a huge task to undertake, but it can improve the overall productivity of your agency. Mastering scheduling consistency while reducing employee workload is possible with the right tools.
For example, with the schedule generator, employees are able to access their upcoming shifts and plan ahead for PTO. This allows schedulers to generate and populate schedules, manage sick calls, and fill open shifts in one place. When an EMS employee schedule generator is implemented, scheduling becomes easy and intuitive.
The employee schedule generator not only fights burnout in your scheduler, but also helps your team achieve better work/life balance and feel more in control of their schedules. Updating live schedules has never been simpler to achieve in such a short period of time.
Another common issue with manual scheduling processes is managing employee overtime. Overtime costs agencies thousands of dollars every year when left unmonitored. Keeping up with an accurate account of employee overtime, sick time, and normal shift hours every pay period is nearly impossible for stations using manual processes.
By adopting an automated EMS employee schedule generator, the likelihood of over scheduling an employee greatly reduces. Notifications and alerts are set up to inform the scheduler of how many hours an employee has worked before a scheduling action can take place.
To ensure that your agency is making progress with capping overtime, schedule reports can be pulled and exported via Excel file to managers with one click. Schedule reports can be configured with filters to include various variables of time and attendance records. For example, you can easily view regular time versus overtime for each employee from every past pay period. Report views can also be separated by cost center, allowing each manager to see his or her unique scheduling history.
How is your agency managing time waste every day? Do you already have an automated scheduling system in place? Does it alert schedulers when employees who are near or over their regular hour limit are about to be scheduled? If not, then ESO Scheduling could be a huge asset to your team.
This web-based scheduling tool makes managing your workforce easier than ever with features such as:
EMS professionals already work under significant daily pressure; scheduling operations shouldn’t add to the burden. An accurate and real-time view into employee workload, and easier management of all the variables that play into it, improve job satisfaction, accountability, safety, and agency readiness.
Take a product tour of ESO Scheduling now.
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]]>The post 3 “Must Have” Scheduling Features for EMS Agencies appeared first on ESO.
]]>We’ve got a few “must have” features you should consider when selecting your EMS scheduling software that can help you narrow down the list of possibilities.
On the Go Connectivity
A web-based EMS scheduling software should be accessible by all employees anywhere and at any time. Look for software that works across all devices including desktops, laptops, tables and smartphones. You should be able to review schedules, access time clocks, request and manage time off and shift trades and more. It’s about being able to keep your scheduling needs at your fingertips.
Clear Cut Communication Channels
Schedules, notices and employee alerts can change at a moment’s notice. When selecting scheduling software, you’ll want to make sure that the one you choose has the right tools for communicating messages quickly and effectively to staff.
Look for in-app messaging that allows you to send messages to individual employees, groups and even messages by qualification (such as employees with the right credentials or least OT hours). Some scheduling software, such as ESO Scheduling allow employees to accept or decline workhour offers from within the software, making it easy to manage schedules and communicate on the fly.
Dynamic Reporting
Managing a schedule is only part of the process in ensuring the right personnel is in the right place at the right time. Reports can help you identify scheduling gaps, missing certifications and more.
Your software should offer reports that highlight shift swaps, scheduling overviews and more, all reportable by pay period, shift, employee and date. An “even better” — ensure the software allows you to export your reports in a variety of formats such as PDF and Excel.
A Good Fit for Your Needs
The scheduling power needed to run an emergency medical operation goes way beyond creating and implementing a shift schedule. Most generic scheduling solutions on the market today cannot fully support the processes of an EMS agency, especially if they are not web-based. Take a look at ESO Scheduling today to see how EMS-focused scheduling can help your agency maximize efficiency and save time.
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]]>Biometric technology offers one of the most cost-effective, convenient, and secure forms of employee and staff identification available in the world today. A biometric time clock collects a physical identifier – such as a fingerprint, facial scan, or iris scan – and enters it into a system, automatically tracking a timestamp for the entry. As opposed to manual clocking in, punch time cards, or other traditional systems, biometric time clocks can increase security and accuracy, as well as save time and avoid errors.
Combining a biometric time clock with a strong EMS scheduling software enables your agency to run at optimal performance. Below are the top seven benefits of integrating an online time clock into your time and attendance processes.
One of the most highly regarded benefits of a biometric time clock is its ability to eliminate employee time theft. A biometric time clock can detect a user or fraudulent attempts within seconds with precision. It does not rely on any sort of security camera, pin number, badge, or fob, which are all significantly less accurate and secure options.
Integrating this tool with an EMS scheduling management tool allows agencies to create thresholds that require employees to give an explanation if they clocked in or out before the scheduled shift time. Each agency is allowed to use its discretion based on the reasoning on whether to accept the actual punch in/out time or keep it at the scheduled set time.
Biometric technology also facilitates automated processes. All the information on the online time clock is stored and reported through an automated system, eliminating the need to keep time and attendance manually. By doing this, you save the confusion and time from employees refuting incorrectly documented times, reduce the amount of staff needed to manage the data, and provide an accurate account of time and attendance data to the payroll department.
Implementing a biometric clock into current scheduling processes helps to effectively manage business processes, leading to an overall increase in productivity.
“Buddy punching” is when one employee punches in for another employee who is not really there, using his or her using ID access. Although buddy punching is illegal, employers continue to lose millions of dollars a year because of it.
A biometric time clock captures unique biological traits to detect an employee based on his or her specific makeup and cannot be duplicated or forged by anyone else. This eliminates giving coworkers the ability to clock in or out for another employee.
A direct return on investment (ROI) can be shown by investing in a biometric time clock. An ROI for an EMS agency can be seen through increased productivity, cost management, and time savings. An increase in productivity increases your employees’ confidence when it comes to the accuracy of their attendance and shift clock in and out times.
When employees feel like their time and money are secure, they are able to focus their attention on the tasks at work and perform at higher levels. A biometric clock also relieves HR Departments, Managers, and Supervisors of the time-consuming tasks related to tracking employee hours and ensures the highest form of data precision.
With an online time punch clock system, agencies can eliminate the costs occurred from mistakes made while manually inputting the data from physical time sheets. These times are given to payroll and directly affect the amount an employee makes on each paycheck. If the information is entered incorrectly, it can ultimately affect an employee’s time worked, overtime, sick, and vacation time.
Biometric time clocks are able to automatically record payroll hours, ensuring that payroll information is transmitted accurately every time. Implementing a biometric time clock can also give agencies the opportunity to reduce overhead or allocating resources to other areas of the organization.
One of the best features of a biometric clock is the audit trails. Everything that has to do with the clocking in and out of employees is recorded, tracked, and stored for future use. With biometric technology, there is no question of if the information is inaccurate based on human error. It also eliminates the risk of any type of favoritism or changes to the time sheets. When employees understand that they are solely responsible for their actions and performance at work – and will be held accountable for taking unscheduled breaks, lunches or time-off – productivity will greatly increase.
Biometric time clocks require no password, pin numbers, or cards, eliminating the chances of the identification being lost, stolen, or forgotten. This makes process of clocking in and out for shifts very simple for workers, as well as removing the possibility of upper management or HR taking time out of their day to replace lost or stolen badges. Other than the chance of an employee having a serious physical injury or disease, biometric technology stays consistent and permanent for the entire length of employment.
Biometric time clocks are known for being the secure, time-efficient, and cost-saving solution for clocking in and out. It gives your employees a peace of mind, allowing them to increase their productivity at work while also relieving some of the cumbersome responsibility of HR, supervisors, and management. While it may seem like an obvious choice for large EMS agencies, many of the benefits seen above will work for smaller organizations as well.
Need an extra layer of security with attendance for your EMS agency? The bioclock interface is an optional biometric solution that can be easily added to ESO Scheduling. It employs a USB fingerprint scanner and an internet-connected Windows application.
Come see how bioclock and ESO Scheduling can help your agency stay on time and work smarter.
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