ShiftPlanning has been used at our facility for one year now. We are a college campus environment. Thus, scheduling for student workers can be a great challenge due to their dropping and adding classes and potential to working multiple part-time jobs, and of course, due to the differing course load, each student takes on. In the past, we used excel in combination with a learning management system to communicate and maintain student worker scheduling. I am the scheduler for student workers in our area. We have around 8-10 student workers, give or take which part of the year we are scheduling for. We schedule our shifts in a non-linear method. We like the availability feature that ShiftPlanning has. It is a static "when I am not available" table that you or your workers can fill out. At this point I supply entries into these availability tables based on student class schedules and external employment. We do this to prevent students from falsifying availability. ShiftPlannning has a pre-generate schedule wizarding system. This allows managers to schedule weeks, or months ahead of time, based on their current availability. If you are a manager for a college campus, then you may want to consider only doing this once a month for summers, and once a semester for spring and fall. You will be changing availability frequently during the beginning of each semester, almost all summer, and also during finals week. Duplicating the schedule for each week is as easy as two or three button taps on your mouse. Once a schedule is more concrete then this is super easy. During the high volatile periods mentioned above, we highly recommend not scheduling ahead of time. Just do one or two weeks worth of scheduling and make sure to communicate to everyone that the schedule will have a high degree of change. We have also enjoyed the use of the ping feature and other notifications to communicate to students when they should be at work.
Pros
The strongest features of ShiftPlanning are the many methods for communicating when a worker is to work (general scheduling), when policy changes or other changes at work need to be quickly and easily assimilated to all employees (dashboard notifications), and when notifications need to be sent to just individuals (ping). All of this communication can be managed in ShiftPlanning. Workers can set up their cell phones to receive important notifications. Administrators can control which methods are mandatory and which communication methods are not. A worker can elect to be notified via email and/or text prior to their shift starting. Workers can access ShiftPlanning from any device since this a cloud-based service. Workers are able to make vacation requests ahead of time, even when there is nothing posted for the actual schedule yet. We would recommend a 2-week requirement for this type of request. Otherwise, student workers can request off via a trade shift or drop-shift option, if short notice is provided. All trades can be set to approval first by manager. It is super easy to setup different worker types by area, or by responsibilities. Thus, if you are budgeting out hours between different areas (positions) then you can easily view the subtotal for each while scheduling who should work when. It also gives you a clear distinction in schedule mode as to who can actually work during the designated times you are generating (i.e. 10 AM ' 12 PM, 1 PM ' 2 PM').
Cons
The only concern that we have is with tweaking the trade shift and trade drop feature. Workers who are shown as available for the entire shift don't have the option to select parts of a shift that they are actually available for. Important meetings or events outside of work cannot always be accounted for using the availability feature. The only way this can be done is to not use a static schedule and go to making a policy for weekly updates. Then making it the student worker's responsibility to maintain their own work availability. In our case, we want to stay with a static scheduling system to help reduce the sense of a changing hectic work schedule for our student workers. Thus, students will benefit by having the ability to select from a portion of a shift trade rather than having only the option to pick up all or none of the shift being made available.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Overall, Humanity is an effective way to organize employee scheduling. It is extremely easy to pick up and use, and it allows employees to have a greater freedom over their shifts through the ability to trade. Although this process is complicated at first, it definitely gets easier as you use it. The reminders are useful, and help with timeliness for shifts.
Pros
My favorite thing about Humanity is that it is incredibly easy to view and handle shifts without actually having to talk to a boss in-person. This streamlines this process, saving time for both supervisors and employees. Additionally, it has a simple and intuitive user interface and I was able to pick up most of the features without any in-depth training within several weeks. I also like that it automatically reminds you that you have a shift coming up a day before and an hour before the shift starts, thus making sure that employees are less likely to miss or be late to shifts.
Cons
The process of trading shifts is difficult, and especially difficult on the mobile app. Additionally, configuring availability hours takes a long time, however this only needs to be done once, unless availability changes regularly. The mobile app is also hard to navigate, as some of the icons can get confusing, however you won't need to do much more than clock in and out using the app - the rest can be done easily on a computer.
Hi, Roy,
We're glad Humanity has been so useful to your team. We're always striving to upgrade both desktop and mobile app user experience, so thank you for acknowledging our efforts and providing suggestions for improvement. If you have any specific proposals, you can send them to reviews@humanity.com, and for any difficulties you might experience, please feel free to reach out to our Support Team via Live Chat.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
We spent so much time just getting schedules done and then something would happen - some one is sick or their grandmother died - Then there was all the communication getting employees with the right skills to cover the shift -. I went looking for a scheduling software and got so much more. We use the dashboard and email features every day to keep staff aware of changes. Our business depends on everybody knowing 100s of ever changing details. We use the email and training functions to keep the staff current with policy changes, to learn new systems and to refresh knowledge when things seem to be slacking. Being able to send emails to specific groups let us communicate sensitive information securely to those who need to know. I recommend this to everyone I know who has to manage any size business.
Pros
Communication - quick and flexible. most of my 20 somethings have a phone, rarely use email and rely on apps for everything. The phone app still needs some work but it has been the end of excuses about schedules
the bulletin board keeps everyone communicating not just us to them but they communicate with each other.
Cons
Searching forward and back by months is awkward - google has the same issue with their calendars. I often need to go from a day view now to a day view months away. the path isn't intuitive
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
I manage a work study staff of 30+ students at a small college. Their work study job is not their first priority so availability, priorities, and their schedules are always changing. It's really nice to have a software to manage much of the administrative side of things. I upload the availability, spend an initial investment creating the schedule. If I have done my job correctly things pretty much run themselves throughout the rest of the semester.
Pros
Ease of updating availability for employees. Clearly seeing how many people can cover what shift. Ability for employees to drop, add, or trade shifts without me micro managing. Creating multiple classification of jobs to organize the different roles in the work place. Reporting makes it easy to submit to payroll.
Cons
The billing is a bit confusing. They bill based off of per user per month. With breaks and a rotating staff I often end up challenging the original bill I get. Customer service has always been good and responds quickly and makes changes.
Hello, Kevin,
Thank you for the extensive review! In such a dynamic work environment, we're glad our app can provide peace of mind with managing different roles and availabilities. As for our billing process, it is set up by default to accommodate the majority of organizations, but, of course, as you have been able to tell yourself, we are always open for discussion in such specific cases such as your own. Our support team is available to you 24/7 via Live Chat on our homepage or app dashboard.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
I enjoy using Humanity. It makes scheduling and planning very simple due to their great user interface. I can quickly check any upcoming shifts, and plan accordingly. I would recommend this shift planning service to anyone who needs one.
Pros
Humanity is a very easy to use program. To start off, the time availability function is very useful in scheduling. I was able to go day-by-day and show my hours of availability. This assures that you will not get scheduled on times you are not available.
Humanity also has a great layout that is simple and easy to use. It shows your upcoming shifts for the next Week, Two Weeks, and Month depending on your selection. It is a great way to visualize upcoming shifts.
Lastly, the shift trading function is invaluable. You can either drop a shift, which means that another employee has the option to pick it up, or trade. When you trade, Humanity automatically swaps your shifts. It is very easy to use and has great functionality.
Cons
One of my only qualms with Humanity is logging in. Often during log-in, it requires me to input my password a second or third time. I have a long password so this can get very infuriating at times when I know I input my password correctly. Other than than, Humanity has been a great program for me to use.
Hi,
Thank you for the extensive review. We work hard to make the interface user-friendly, so managing schedules is straightforward and seamless for the entire team. It's great to hear we succeeded in making shift scheduling more comfortable and enjoyable for you. We checked with our Product team about the login incidents you described, and we need more details to help you resolve the issue, so please contact our Support team via Live Chat or support@humanity.com.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
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