FRANCHISING
business relationship — they ’ re just there to get their pay and probably go look for something better .”
Ostrega and his partners at WorkJam are attempting to create a solution that ’ s preferable for both employees and management . Dubbed an “ Employee Relationship Management ” platform , WorkJam ’ s goal is to look at areas of frustration on both sides of the situation and building a new scheduling program that takes the pressure off of managers while giving employees more control and agency over their schedules . “ When a manager creates a schedule , it ’ s not just a matter of sitting down and seeing where everybody sits — they have to take everybody ’ s availability , they have to make sure they ’ re giving everybody their fair share , there has to be a balance of hours ,” Ostrega explains . “ A Friday night shift is very different from a Monday morning shift , so you want to make sure that the right people are getting the right shifts and that you ’ re rewarding your seniority or rotating appropriately . There are also regulations like not working too many hours before you hit overtime . There ’ s not having
‘ clopenings .’ It ’ s very difficult for someone to figure out all of this and make that perfect schedule .”
WorkJam uses the availability preferences that employees submit themselves to help managers generate ideal schedules — but of course even the most perfect schedule is prone to changing , as life is ever unpredictable . This is where the platform shines for employees and their employers .
“ Employees can basically see their schedules , and then very easily choose to see if anyone would like to pick up a shift , trade a shift , cancel a shift and make changes and it will automatically get broadcast to one or multiple people on a team who can then choose to take over those shifts ,” says Ostrega — it ’ s an innovation that could dramatically alleviate one of the most stressful situations that hourly employees face . “ So many people who work in hourly jobs are afraid to say ‘ I can ’ t take a shift ,’ because they know that if they say it too many times they ’ ll get fired . But the reality is that everybody has lives . So what this does is take away that negative stigma of needing to make a change to your schedule , and makes it easy for
10 September 2015