6 Reasons You Should Leave Manual Scheduling and Spreadsheets Behind

It’s the end of the month, and you manage a franchise with thousands of hourly-workers spread across 50 locations. Which means it’s your job to make sure they all get paid the correct amount, right on time, by the end of the day. Plus, you have to make the new schedule. Does it seem like all your [free time](https://www.deputy.com/blog/time-management-tips-small-businesses) is eaten up by scheduling tasks? It’s time to ditch those manual spreadsheets and save yourself the headaches that are all too common in your world. Read on for six reasons you should leave manual scheduling and spreadsheets behind. **1\. You’re spending more time creating shift schedules than the number of hours you’re scheduling** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It’s Thursday night, long after you’re supposed to go home. You’ve already been working on it for six hours. And you want to call it a night, but you have to finish the upcoming scheduling. Manual spreadsheets require a lot of time — and patience. There’s a ton of data entry for starters. While you can try to automate things (like create a template), there’s so much back and forth to make it scalable. Then there’s the overtime calculations, the restrictions of when someone can and can’t work, and requested time off. Before you know it, you’re hours into updating the schedule but still nothing to show for it. **2\. Someone called in sick. Now what?** ----------------------------------------- Sheer panic, that’s what. Whether your employee is actually sick or if they’re simply [ditching for the day](https://www.deputy.com/blog/reasons-youve-ditched-work), it’s up to you to fix it. If all your employees are already scheduled, it leaves no room for shift changes. Even if you find coverage, there’s a domino effect, and manually entering all the changes is time-consuming. Take the headache out of last-minute changes and empower your staff to swap shifts with each other. And with the right [scheduling software](https://www.deputy.com/features/scheduling-software), the program automatically updates the change for you so you don’t have to worry about it. **3\. You missed your kid’s recital (again)** --------------------------------------------- When it comes to priorities, family comes first. But sometimes you lose track of time when you’re in the black vortex of spreadsheets. And when you’re creating schedules with manual spreadsheets, time seems to go out the door. Bad [time management](https://www.deputy.com/blog/staff-management-mistakes) can lead to lost money at work — and lost time with your family. **4\. You can’t find the schedule** ----------------------------------- You what? You lost the schedule? Isn’t it on your computer? What did you name that spreadsheet again? It might’ve been on your PC, if that’s where you were storing it — but what if you create schedules with paper and pencil? Even if you use your computer’s spreadsheet program, what if something happens to your computer? With an [advanced workforce management solution](https://www.deputy.com/workforce-management), your schedule is always available in the cloud no matter what computer you use to access it. **5\. You mixed up leave requests** ----------------------------------- It’s hard managing multiple employees’ [staff leave requests](https://www.deputy.com/blog/save-time-product-wrap-sept). Let’s say Becca and Sam have vacations coming up. In your haste to ensure all shifts have coverage, you gave Becca three days off mid-week, and Sam two days off on the weekend. Sam needs Tuesday through Thursday off and Becca has family coming next weekend. Carry the two…and that gets you…what? Let your workforce management solution do the hard work for you. Instead of trying to sort through multiple sticky notes or random pieces of paper, your system can take all of those requests and help you easily sort through them for seamless scheduling. **6\. You’re losing your best employees to companies that use scheduling technology** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Becca and Sam forgave you — you were able to fix that mishap and get those employees their vacation time. The problem is that this happens too often, and employees like Elizabeth and Valerie expect more. Other companies have offered them positions, and they’re both ready for a bit less stress in their work environment. You can boost overall team morale and efficiency by making the switch to a smart workforce management solution. **Slow and steady? How about fast and efficient?** -------------------------------------------------- Remember _The Tortoise and The Hare_? Slow and steady may win some races, but when it comes to your business’ spreadsheets, quite the opposite is true. In fact, manual spreadsheets simply can’t handle the amount of data generated from today’s businesses. And if you’re sharing the document, each user might not have the same version as you. A cloud-based scheduling software can solve these and many other issues you face. Tired of wrestling with schedules and overall employee time management? Maybe it’s time to consider a better workforce management solution. Sign up for a [free trial of Deputy](https://www.deputy.com/) and boost your efficiency and team morale in one fell “click.” [](https://www.deputy.com/)