Summary
Highlights
The project, "The Employee Shift Scheduling and Attendance Tracker," was developed by Team 41 Code Connoisseurs for Zanya Night Lounge. Zanya, a popular entertainment venue with 32 staff members, faced critical issues including an outdated manual workforce management system, leading to scheduling conflicts, inaccurate paper-based attendance, informal leave/shift request handling, and a lack of real-time updates. These inefficiencies resulted in financial and operational risks and employee dissatisfaction.
The manager's dashboard provides a summary of daily shifts and pending leave requests. The manager can create new events, specifying dates, times, expected attendance, and required roles (e.g., bartenders, waiters, bouncers). The system also identifies potential employees for events, including stand-by staff who can automatically fill in for scheduled employees who take leave or miss shifts.
The manager reviews and approves or rejects leave requests. The system provides recommendations based on factors like event schedules and available standby employees. For instance, a leave request was approved due to no scheduled events and available standby staff, while another was rejected because the employee was crucial for an upcoming event. The system also helps manage employee retention by allowing managers to adjust pay rates while staying within budget, as demonstrated with Sarah Johnson, a key employee.
The automated scheduling system operates monthly, considering past shifts, approved leave, role-based staffing, and fair rotation to create balanced schedules and place unscheduled employees on standby. The payroll management feature allows managers to monitor weekly budgets and adjust employee rates. The system forecasts budget impact of rate changes and tracks budget changes over time, automatically adjusting if previous weeks were over budget. Detailed payment reports for employees are also available.
The manager receives real-time notifications, such as missed shifts, and can take disciplinary action or message employees directly. The system provides comprehensive employee reports, including attendance (daily shift completion, attendance rate), leave history (types and duration of leave), shift swap history (who they swapped with, most frequent days), and payroll reports. These reports help managers identify inconsistencies and address performance issues.
Managers can create overtime QR codes for employees to scan, specifying roles and duration, with the system ensuring compliance with labor laws. Employees use a mobile app to log in, view their schedules, clock in/out using QR codes, request shift swaps with colleagues, and request leave (e.g., sick leave with notes and documentation). They also receive notifications and can download their payslips directly from the app.
Employees can cancel shifts within a specified timeframe, providing reasons and notifying managers. Managers receive these notifications and can approve or deny shift cancellations based on the provided reasons and supporting documentation (e.g., a sick note). This allows for efficient management of unexpected absences while maintaining operational continuity.
The system resolves key issues by automating scheduling, attendance, and payroll processes, enforcing accuracy with QR code clock-ins and real-time updates, simplifying shift swaps and leave requests through a centralized digital platform, and improving communication and shift visibility. This solution eliminates manual inefficiencies, reduces errors, enhances workforce coordination, and allows staff to focus on delivering a high-quality experience.