The “secure scheduling” law up for vote in Seattle, if passed, will impact retail and quick-serve food and drink businesses that employ at least 500 employees and 40 or more locations. So what will this mean for schedulers who plan, set, and distribute schedules to employees? Some of the main regulations that have been reported to be included in the Seattle “secure scheduling” law involve:
- Keeping records for three years
- Employers required to post work schedules two weeks in advance
- Pay additional “predictability pay” when employers make changes to the posted schedule
- Giving available hours to existing part-time employees before hiring new workers
- Documentation of employees’ requests for schedule changes and the employers’ responses
- Good faith estimates on number of hours the employee can expect to work
As a scheduler, there are a lot of items you need to be aware of and make sure you’re following so your employee schedule not only covers all your locations with the appropriate amount of staff for peak hours, but now you will also need to comply with local law.
If you are using a spreadsheet, pen and paper, or a simple scheduling calendar/program to create and distribute employee schedules you may have been able to slide by up until now. Many predict that the Seattle “secure scheduling” law will pass Monday September 19 (view Seattle City Council live stream, archive, and upcoming council calendar here).
If the law passes, relying upon an old method of scheduling can be risky and lead to costly errors. Why waste time worrying, paying extra in “predictability pay”, or managing the cumbersome burden of emailing employees manually to send future schedules and attempting to archive communications by hand?
Snap Schedule Can Be Your Right Hand Tool!
Snap Schedule employee scheduling software is a full-featured program that can assist schedulers in making sure they are adequately staffed, while also helping to ensure companies are complying with the new Seattle “secure scheduling” law and all the regulations that will be set.
How can Snap Schedule make your scheduling life breathable, if not easy, if the “secure schedule” law is passed? Simple.
- Snap Schedule stores past schedules, employee requests, and communications automatically. All records are archived and easily reported. The reporting section of the software is robust and within seconds will give you a detailed report of the employee, schedule, or history that you need. Keeping records for a minimum of three years will be automatically taken care of with Snap Schedule so you won’t have to.
- Posting schedules to employees two weeks in advance is stress-free. Snap Schedule is available online. You can allow employees access to the online schedule, or easily send the schedule directly through email to your employees ensuring they get the schedule in the required time frame.
- Efficiently manage the new “predictability pay” compensation. Snap Schedule allows employees to swap shifts easily. Management can give employees’ access to bid on open shifts. Allow your employees to post their available shift and have their coworkers bid for their shift. Or schedulers can easily mass communicate with available employees about a shift opening to request coverage. If these two methods fail to get the shift filled with an available employee, all employee information is stored in Snap Schedule and schedulers can access the records of employees’ information on their profile. When it is time to fill a last minute change due to an employee calling out, you can simply drag and drop a new employee into the open shift. If there is a problem the system will flag you. Simply drag and drop to find the best-qualified employee from the available list of employees.
- Snap Schedule helps ensuring you are offering the available shifts to part-time employees before hiring new workers. Easily view available employees while assigning shifts to upcoming schedules. If a problem arises, schedulers will be flagged. When no part-time employees are available to handle the workload, Snap Schedule reports provide detailed and timely hours and costs information for schedulers to determine if hiring a new employee is the correct course of action.
- Documenting communications from employees’ and the schedulers’/employers’ responses is done automatically with Snap Schedule so you won’t waste time archiving in your company email.
- Making “good faith” estimates for how many hours an employee can expect to work can be smoother and more accurate with Snap Schedule. With Snap Schedule, schedulers can plan out future schedules by copying old schedules and make adjustments for various “what-if” scenarios. View the shifts employees are assigned to and Snap Schedule automatically computes the hours and costs for the scheduling interval. Within the new law, the “good faith” estimation of hours has been reported to require employers to provide employees with these estimates at the time of hire, on an annual basis, and if any significant changes occur. Snap Schedule reminders will help ensuring that disclosure of changes will be done to remain compliant with the law.
Should the Seattle “secure schedule” law pass it will be imperative that employers use modern scheduling tools to help them ensure that they are operating within the regulations of the new law. Get a free trial of Snap Schedule to see how it can make managing your employee scheduling simple and help you prepare for Seattle “secure scheduling” law changes.