Shift Filling - 2021 Year in Review

In a previous blog post, we discussed some of the critical elements to optimization around filling vacant shifts, such as strategic communications, advance planning, and infusing personalization in the process. By incorporating these elements into an end-to-end, holistic automation approach, organizations can maximize their return on investment. Employees involved in the scheduling process are freed up to focus on more strategic value-added activities.

Our customers leveraged Andgo’s end-to-end shift filling workflow automation to fill 1.3 million shifts in 2021 alone!

2021 certainly provided some unique challenges for schedulers, particularly in healthcare. Several Andgo customers deployed its shift filling automation to rapidly mobilize the staffing resources required to meet the urgent demands of COVID-19 vaccination clinics. One customer, in particular, Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), was able to fill over 58,000 shifts by more than 4,000 employees during the vaccine effort, taking average shift filling time from 28 minutes to 4 minutes (an 86% reduction). 

In our customer’s words:

“Sometimes, we’d get shipments of the vaccine with very little notice. Saskatchewan residents needed healthcare employees to be there to administer those vaccines right away, and I can’t imagine how we would’ve done this manually in that time frame.”

“Utilizing Andgo allowed us to schedule employees across the province for our COVID immunization staff clinics, using a minimal amount of staff. It not only allowed us to fill thousands of shifts per week but also enabled us to be proactive in knowing our staffing deficiencies in advance.”

“Great team, great support and innovative solutions for workforce scheduling. Their [Andgo’s] product has enabled incredible efficiencies and cost savings as a result.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to impact workforces in virtually every industry, the importance of scheduling automation tools is only on the rise in 2022. The need for efficient shift filling capabilities has become essential for any enterprise scheduling office. Andgo is committed to even further optimizing our intelligent workflow automation suite to meet the evolving needs of our customers. We are energized and excited to help solve this critical challenge facing employers in 2022!

How Andgo Helps

Automate the entire process of filling vacant shifts with Andgo Systems Intelligent Workflow Automation Suite! Automatically communicate vacant immediate & future shift details to eligible employees – fill more shifts faster, with the right people. Transform complex scheduling processes into auditable, transparent workflows that eliminate manual involvement and repetitive mundane tasks.

Andgo Systems offers a full suite of tools that span the employee scheduling lifecycle, leveraging and extending the tools already found in the scheduling system of record, eliminating clicking through procedure sets call lists, and selecting notification criteria.

Andgo’s product suite includes:

• Smart Call - go beyond simply automating shift callouts, addressing all tasks in the process, from dynamically building call lists, routing communications, and monitoring responses. Vacant shift details are communicated transparently to eligible employees via SMS text, email, and phone per the employee’s notification preferences. Employees can bid simply by responding to a text message or phone call.

• Shift Prebooking - streamline the process of filling future vacancies. Employees gain the luxury of applying for available shifts as they are known, providing them planning capabilities re: what works best for them and their work-life balance. The organization benefits by filling more shifts in advance, reducing the burden on scheduling teams to fill as many immediate need shifts.

• Quick Dial - a streamlined incoming phone system for reporting, recording, and routing unplanned employee absences to scheduling teams via the dashboard, automatically organized by priority and category.

These products are supported by centralized decision support guidelines to reference staffing levels vs. baselines just in time when processing shifts. Andgo’s schedule integration capabilities serve to further close the loop on the path of created shift to filled shift. Reduce manual entries and sync all changes with the scheduling system of record automatically.