Case Study: Library Staff Shelving Away Scheduling Issues

The Challenge

St. Mary’s University College is a thriving liberal arts institution in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. At the heart of this bustling hub of knowledge is a library that comprises of more than 30,000 volumes, 7 library reference workstations, 44 computer lab workstations, and an audio-visual station. The library houses one of the most comprehensive medieval studies literature collections in Western Canada with an emphasis on institutional history. This vast collection includes primary source material and several scholarly articles on a wide range of medieval literature in Latin, Celtic languages, medieval philosophy and art history. The library also serves as a convenient location where students gather for group study sessions and discuss course curriculum.
The library, a vital part of St. Mary’s University College, follows the College’s academic schedule. It is open longer during the Fall/Winter terms (12 hours a day Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on Friday, and 4 hours on the weekend) than it is during the Spring/Summer sessions (8 hours a week Monday through Friday) in order to accommodate student academic schedules and needs. Consequently, some part-time employees whose services would have been necessary in the fall and winter are not scheduled to work during the lighter hours of spring and summer, making employee shift scheduling vary depending on the season. As the Head of Library Access Services, Colleen Rowe is not only responsible for ensuring the library is proper staffed, but is also accountable for the library’s operating budget. The library has the flexibility of scheduling part-time staff to match workload demands, making it difficult for Colleen to know how many part-time employees can be scheduled with the amount of money left in the budget for the month. After searching for the perfect software to replace the cumbersome and time-consuming Excel scheduling spreadsheets, Colleen found Snap Schedule.

The Solution

Snap Schedule employee scheduling software helps Colleen keep track of and implement the necessary changes in employee scheduling. Snap Schedule’s user friendly interface makes it easier than ever for Colleen to create and implement employee scheduling for the entire season in no time. “I can generally create one schedule and have it rotate throughout the entire term. Employees that are scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays tend to work those same days and the same hours each week. All I have to do is spend just a short amount of time at the beginning of the term in order to generate employee schedules for other terms.” Snap Schedule’s ability to cycle past schedule patterns makes it easy and convenient for Colleen to create one scheduling template and have it replicated for other terms. With Snap Schedule software, “Scheduling practically takes no time.”

“Snap Schedule is very easy to use and a perfect match for the library scheduling needs. When I used Excel spreadsheets, I generally spent a couple of days to plan schedules for the entire term. Snap Schedule really has helped me cut down the amount of time spent on scheduling. “

Colleen’s responsibilities are also eased by Snap Schedule’s comprehensive labour cost control and reporting features. “Our main issue with scheduling prior to Snap Schedule was maximizing our budget. But now, Snap Schedule helps me easily create schedules and also helps me accurately manage staffing budgets – something that I was unable to do before with Excel spreadsheets.”

Prior to Snap Schedule, Colleen was forced to use Excel to try and manage library schedules and finances. Although an adequate solution for creating basic schedules, Excel was ineffective at helping to maximize finances and budgets, a vital component of scheduling. “I used to have to make rough estimates of how many hours each employee had already worked, and try and guess how many more hours we could schedule with the amount of money left in the budget.” With spreadsheets, Colleen found it difficult to budget her finances accurately for the seasons and would often have either too many employees scheduled to work and not enough allotted funds in the budget, or have scheduled an inadequate number of staff and have unused money left over.

Now with Snap Schedule, Colleen can quickly access the work hour and labour cost reports of past schedules and use that data to plan future schedules and accurately calculate the allotted remaining amount of money in the library budget. Snap Schedule eliminates the guesswork in employee scheduling and maximizes the benefits. The reporting feature of Snap Schedule also provides Colleen with valuable data such as how many hours each employee has worked, or various employee sick leaves and absences, which allows her to verify employee payroll and ensure its accuracy. With Snap Schedule, Colleen can easily plan employee work schedules ahead of time and maximize the library budget, ensuring that the library is running smoothly and efficiently.