HotSchedules vs. When I Work

HotSchedules can be implemented in any organization that has to staff a store with varying hours. I have recommended this to my colleague who has 8 employees, yet he has seen great results with the shift swaps and availability tracking/time off requests. I do wish we could see some more attention to general staffing and training VS. the heavy emphasis on restaurant businesses. It feels HotSchedules has grown into many more areas and should work away from marketing so directly to restaurant businesses. Some training programs for other business would be a welcome sight.

Incentivized

I recommend When I Work to those companies that are looking for a way to manage work schedules and want to increase the productivity of all employees. This is an important platform that would bring excellent results to small, medium and large companies. This is a constant monitoring system which allows employees to complete their tasks in the indicated time, When I Work sends automated alerts when an employee is not complying with their tasks and this allows us to know exactly the productivity we are having in each one of the sectors. It is an excellent platform for planning and administration of working hours, it has a very easy-to-use UI that allows schedules to be easily managed. Without a doubt, When I Work would be a perfect implementation for any sector or company, since it has a lot of potential to collect exact data on compliance with working hours.

Incentivized

• All the information needed for your employees can all be found in one place. From the availability of an employee to their pay rate to their phone number. It's all just a click away. Before HotSchedules all of this information was kept in different places and the managers would need to open several documents and contact lists to find what they were looking for about a single employee.
• Control over how indepth you use the product. The possibilities of this service are seemingly endless. However if you are solely looking for a specific feature HotSchedules offers you have the ability to soley use that feature. HotSchedules can simply schedule, or it can automatically schedule, or you can assign a specific job to a specific person on a specific day. For us, we have employees who are doing a specific job/task one week and then they are needed for a different job/task the next week. HotSchedules allowed us to narrow down our options starting with department, moving to location, moving down to the job they would be preforming for that scheduled day.
• The ease of changing/releasing shifts. If an employee wants more hours they can go in and select shifts that are up for grabs or request to work on a specific day at a specific time. The opposite is also true. If an employee is worried they will have too many hours that week, they can release their shift and put it up for grabs by a different employee. And of course, all of this is fairly customizable to what you want your employees to have the ability to do, with or without your intervention and approval. In our case, if a shift lead releases a shift we only want other shift leads to be able to pick up the shift. HotSchedules allows us to do just that.

Incentivized

• When I Work allowed me to color-code each employee's schedule.
• When I Work allowed me to show who was "off" during what time of day. This was essential for morale, as our event included 16-18 hour days, and I wanted to show that everyone had down time each day.

Incentivized

• I find that the system of assigning jobs and rates is a little tedious, but understand the need for it.
• I'm not familiar enough with the copy and setting the next week's schedule, but it's not necessarily hard to use.
• The whole assigning welcome letter and with log in and password is difficult with the Spanish speakers even though you have a Spanish version.
• Many of our employees do not have email or smart phones, so I find that HotSchedules is not as useful to them or us.

Incentivized

• Customer service only available by chat or email. No phone- which is crazy, in my opinion. Slows down, getting things done.
• Understanding their charges is a pain. I still don't know what I am paying for.
• If you are being overcharged, they don't care; they keep you on billing for something in a group.

Incentivized

Ease of use, efficiently creating and posting staff schedules.

Incentivized

It's a powerful tool for employee management and intuitive to use.

Incentivized

6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.

Incentivized

While it's one of the better apps, my only complaint is the icon layout of the dash; mouseover sometimes doesn't work for my system.

Incentivized

Always cheerful, informative, and educated staff. Each person seems to want to find a way to help us with any issues or questions we have. I love that all the staff is friendly and in a good mood when you call, I have never had a rep be unhelpful or short tempered, or ever less than accommodating to our needs!

Incentivized

Every time I contact When I Work staff with an issue, someone is there with a quick solution to my problem. I love the chat feature. I can continue to work on other things while the When I Work representative assists me.

Incentivized

Make certain your team knows how to turn off alerts and utilise the system.

Incentivized

HotSchedules was the first to tie into a POS to control clocking in and out for employees compared to a canned product from major POS providers. HotSchedules is more widely used by hourly employees in the industry, so there is less of a training curve.

Incentivized

When I Work seemed a bit easier to implement for our team and employees. When I Work had all the things we needed without a lot of the bells and whistles that we wouldn't really utilize. When I Work was also a bit more affordable for our budget. Overall, it was the better choice.

Incentivized

• Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.

Incentivized

• Compared to what I've used before, When I Work allows you to interact with your staff more than other scheduling apps.
• Though I don't know the cost, I was told it was cheaper than it's counterparts.
• The app doesn't have all of the features as the full website, but it's pretty close.

Incentivized