Good employee planning software is a must for any office, regardless of size. The issue, however, is finding out which system is right for your office. To that end, in this article, we will be comparing three of the biggest names in the employee planning software business–ShiftPlanning, WhenToWork, and FreshShifts.
ShiftPlanning’s primary selling point is it’s aesthetics–simply put, the software looks good, and shows up well on mobile devices and computers alike. It also offers the same basic features as other scheduling software, as well as a few unique ones, including payroll management. However, while that sounds nifty, it’s actually rather underwhelming: because of the amount of information that it requires, for most managers, processing payroll through shiftplanning isn’t any more convenient than traditional solutions. Pricing is another issue: even the smallest offices will be paying $22 (actually closer to $25 including billing fees) per month, with prices increasing at larger employee densities. While at the top end this isn’t terrible, paying $44 per month for software for 15 employees is absurd.
WhenToWork is a little better on pricing, with further gradations depending on employee numbers. They also avoid the set-up costs that ShiftPlanning charges. However, the fact that the prices are gradated does still mean that you get a poor deal at certain employee numbers, and their top end is actually significantly worse. They also have rather bare-bones software, with fewer options for mobile devices than either of the other two companies. It’s one unique feature–online shift trading–comes with a number of issues, such as a lack of transparency, that will make most managers disable it.
FreshShifts has no similar issues: it’s software, while not as flashy as ShiftPlanning’s, is much easier to navigate and use than either of the other two. It also offers the hands-down best price for small offices of the two: under five employees, FreshShifts is actually completely free! Larger offices pay $2 per employee per month, providing competitive scaling as well as a free first month to prospective clients. Finally, Freshsfits offers the best communication between managers and employees, allowing for automatic schedule posts, excellent mobile compatibility, and lots of options when it comes to tweaking schedules.
When it comes to software, practical applications compared to price is the most important metric to use. For this reasons, most offices will find FreshShifts the ideal employee scheduling software, in terms of both price and quality.