Partner Q&A: Getting to know Shiftbase
DayoneHR has recently been working with our partners at Shiftbase, the employee scheduling and time tracking software used by internationally recognized businesses such as Marriott Hotels and Superdry premium clothing. Their user-friendly and customizable software is ideal for organizations across a wide range of sectors, including production, hospitality, retail, healthcare and more.
Based out of their HQ in the Netherlands, Shiftbase has over 3,400 satisfied customers worldwide and their software is offered in 8 languages. Recently, we caught up with their new Marketing Manager, Eveline Jacobse, to get to know Shiftbase a little better.
1. Please can you tell us about you and a bit more about Shiftbase?
I am Eveline Jacobse, the marketing manager at Shiftbase. I haven't been working here very long, but I can already tell you that I'm having a great time thanks to my amazing and friendly colleagues that I work closely with. I work a lot with my designer Justin and the product and sales managers, but also with our customers and marketing partners. It’s very interesting to work with so many different people and to be able to learn from everyone.
Every day is different here and every day we face new challenges. That's what makes working at Shiftbase so interesting. Especially for me, it is crucial that I empathize with the customer very well about what is most important for our potential clients. That's why I work closely with our sales department.
We have 8 developers who are working every day to further develop Shiftbase. When we develop new features, they are immediately available to all of our customers.
Besides work, I am a proud mother of my two children Myla and Noah, great lover of sushi and always in for a party with friends and family! I love working on interiors and painting the walls of my living room a different color twice a year. I love to travel all over the world, and now after 2 children I have some catching up to do!
2. What kind of challenges have you seen companies face with employee scheduling and time-sheet management?
Many companies still track their working hours in a spreadsheet; a time-consuming task that’s prone to errors and with which you can never have all the data you need in one report.
Every day, business leaders and employers struggle to find the time they need for the amount of work that awaits them. That’s why many businesses are constantly looking for new methods to help use their precious time in a more efficient and meaningful way. What we often hear is that companies are spending far too much time registering and processing the working hours of their employees. So either that time is being used at the expense of other important business activities, or they’re having to recruit additional staff to manage the work of employee time tracking and scheduling. The solution to this problem is closer than you might think. Working with a time registration system ensures a faster, cleaner, and more reliable way of working. By using our time registration software, you can quickly and easily create an employee schedule and get a grip on the expected costs.
3. How can companies benefit from a technology-led and flexible workforce management system?
Working with a flexible workforce system gives you a clear overview of the number of deployed workers and the number of hours worked. This allows you to quickly determine whether your company scores well in terms of wage costs and output. Thanks to this system, you can estimate the needs of your company in advance and adjust your workforce planning accordingly and ahead of time.
Because every workday for every employee is registered, you always have an overview of who’s currently in and who was present at any given time in the past. It also makes it easier to pay wages and other benefits and premiums, if applicable. The chance of mistakes due to human error is avoided thanks to this technology.
Shiftbase will not only provide benefits for you, but your employees will also quickly experience the added value. Their overtime is always correctly tracked and they can reschedule shifts themselves. This creates a culture of trust that is an enormous asset for the working atmosphere. Thanks to the digital time registration, employees know that every minute they have worked is counted and that their wages will always be paid correctly and on time.
Our flexible workforce management software can be integrated with existing technologies with our public API. For example, the software can connect perfectly to your cash register system and payroll.
Whether you employ ten people or you’re a much larger organisation with multiple sites, our software streamlines employee scheduling and timekeeping and helps you be more efficient with your staff costs.
With a workforce management system like Shiftbase, you can manage many HR admin tasks online through a single tool, including: employment contracts, holiday allowances, plus & minus hours and the personal information of your employees. Changes to employment contracts can be processed immediately, the overview of holiday allowances are easy to keep up with, and overtime can be calculated quickly. Also, all this data can be corrected as necessary within the system.
Our reporting tools can give you many great insights into your organisation. Use one of the many available reports to get an accurate view of the scheduled, worked or approved hours. Easily see what the labour costs are compared to the revenue, view how many hours have been worked by department/team, or find any other workforce scheduling information at your fingertips when required.
Moreover, hours can be tracked through a time registration system in our very own mobile app! The user-friendly app of Shiftbase allows your employees to check the latest schedule information anytime and anywhere on-the-go. Changes to the schedule are visible to everyone immediately from the app. Through push notifications, you can inform employees of important changes quickly and easily.
4. For all the integration nerds out there, what can you tell us about your API?
At Shiftbase we use the public API to power our web & mobile apps. This public API is the backbone of Shiftbase as a whole, which means that everything you see and use every day can be done through said API. By developing our applications with an API first mindset, we ensure that third parties can smoothly integrate with all of Shiftbase’s functionalities and datasets. Technology partnerships with AFAS Online, EasySecure, Formitable, Loket, Lightspeed and others will help you to get even more out of your Shiftbase experience.
5. Are you able to share a Shiftbase success story with us?
In February 2020, the Netherlands detected its first case of coronavirus. In the early days of the pandemic, the GGD (the Municipal Health Services of the Netherlands) set up a test-lane in the south of the country for people to be tested for COVID-19. But very quickly, more GGD test-lanes had to be added.
In the beginning, GGD used a well-constructed Excel file for planning and scheduling the coronavirus testing workforce in the region. In the initial phase with one test-lane, they were able to work well with the Excel file. But the sharp increase in coronavirus testing activities meant that many more people had to be hired to cope with demand, and therefore workforce planning in Excel became too laborious and error-prone. Essentially, the puzzle became too complex. The GGD wanted to make their workforce management much more streamlined, removing the necessity to manually edit various tabs in Excel.
After researching what other GGD regions were doing, and with the help of an external agency, they found a suitable system for their staff scheduling, time registration and leave: Shiftbase! Within a month of the decision, the software was fully installed and in use for 2,000 employees. Ramona Christiaan of GGD said that the benefits of the software were paying off very quickly, even amidst the hectic, changeable and unprecedented times of a global pandemic.
Here, even in a time of crisis, Shiftbase has once again proven to be a fast, flexible and professional workforce management solution with the very best service!
People queueing in their vehicles in test lanes to be tested for COVID-19.
6. Why would Shiftbase be the first choice for companies looking for a workforce management system?
The cool thing about Shiftbase is that it can be used in different industries. Whether it's for a daycare center or a manufacturing company, we can converge it so that everyone can work comfortably with it. Our smallest customer has 4 employees and our largest has more than 3,000. That's because our software is especially user-friendly.
Thanks to Shiftbase you can save 75% of the time needed to create an employee schedule. And compared with other employee scheduling systems, our customers can be up-and-running in no time. Another strength of Shiftbase, compared with other systems in the market, is that Shiftbase allows you to manage all absence types and access rights by yourself. There are fully customizable settings, managed by the employer.
In addition, multiple integrations are available, including our full-featured public REST API. You can also quickly and easily get acquainted without obligation with a free trial period of the Shiftbase software. All you need to do at the end of the trial period is decide if you want to continue using Shiftbase.
7. Can you share any of your plans for 2022 and beyond?
Currently we are experiencing international growth. Our short-term goal is to conquer the Dutch, Belgian and German markets. Then Europe in the next couple of years, with a focus on the UK, and after that we will see how much further we can expand.
If you think your organization could benefit from a workforce planning system like Shiftbase, then don’t hesitate to book a free demo of their system today!
And remember, DayoneHR is here to lead your HR tech transformation project, from assessing your business needs through to successful implementation of the selected product/s. You can contact us here to arrange a free consultation.