Page 11 - NSAA 2017 Fall Journal

Mt. Hood Meadows hasn’t rolled out the software as a Troskey said. “In just about every way, When I Work has
company-wide tool yet, but Troskey says that may be on the replaced the old chart-on-a-wall status quo.”
horizon. After the lift operations department embraced the
software, other departments followed suit, including the resort’s om Martinez, chief customer officer at When I Work,
ski school and parking and transit departments. Recently, the T says he grins every time he hears that his company’s
restaurants department started looking into using it too. product has replaced a printed schedule. “Our biggest com-
“I think it was the right way to go about it, rather than petitor isn’t any of the other scheduling software solutions
going out and buying some costly enterprise system and try- out there, it’s that old Excel chart printed out and posted in a
ing to impose it on everybody,” Troskey said. “To me it’s back room, where to get your schedule you either have to go
important not to be afraid to let those managers who are in and read it off the wall or call in and have someone read it
early adopters go ahead and try something like this on their to you,” he said.
own. There’s this mentality in our industry that something Martinez says it amazes him how many companies still
like employee scheduling software has to be a company-wide manually create schedules in a spreadsheet, which can be
system. I think you miss the boat if you don’t let a couple time consuming and frustrating for managers who must
savvy managers explore an idea like this to pilot it and find constantly tinker with the information to make sure every
out if it’s the right solution.” job is covered from day to day.
Brandt and Troskey still post schedules in a “For the employee, we’re making it easy for them to
conspicuous place in the staff room for each department, use [the software] and therefore making sure they’ll use it,
but say there has been near-total adoption of the new because buying a solution that employees don’t use or resist
system. There is still a printed schedule, and employees are using doesn’t get you anywhere,” Martinez said. “For manag-
still required to make an actual phone call to a manager ers, our emphasis is on reducing the amount of time it takes
when calling in sick, but almost everything now goes to plan out weekly or monthly schedules down to minutes
through the app. instead of hours by making the experience of managing a
“It’s just the reality that almost all of our staff now rely frequently changing schedule much easier, with a click-and-
on their smartphones for this kind of communication,” drag interface.”

FALL 2017 | NSAA JOURNAL | 9