Today’s workers have a wide range of priorities competing for their attention. Clever ways of setting your calendar can certainly help. But meetings, deadlines, and minutiae can overwhelm even the most organized among us. 

With more firms concerned with employee engagement and work-life balance, initiatives like compressed working weeks, flexible schedules, and remote work make the juggling act all the more complex. 

Fortunately, there are tools designed to help. If you’re trying to create a more productive work environment, scheduling software can be the answer. Here’s why modern companies invest in it:

1. Keeping everyone on the same page

Scheduling software cuts down on human error and improves the flow of communication. Switching to a centralized scheduling system lets team members ditch their messy manual methods of trying to keep a handle on where resources are.

With a digital scheduling solution, everyone in your organization can log into a dashboard and, at a glance, see what’s going on. With remote work on the rise, having the ability to sync employees across time zones and geographies is critical — another key benefit that scheduling tools provide. 

What’s more, a software system automates reminders. Should a meeting time change, it can notify staff of changes. This lightens team members’ mental load, and it decreases the amount of time wasted by missed meetings or canceled appointments. 

2. Driving efficiency 

Whatever the size of your team, keeping things running smoothly can be tough. There is almost always room to increase efficiency. 

With a mobile-optimized tool, you and your employees can check and create new appointments on the go. Analytics features can tell you which people you’re meeting with most. The “what gets measured, gets managed” adage is as true today as it was when Peter Drucker wrote it. 

Team members, not just leaders, need scheduling data to minimize fatigue. Fatigue impacts nearly 40% of U.S. workers and costs employers billions in lost productivity.

3. Enabling prioritization

One of the benefits of using a scheduling system is the ability to define and track priorities. This allows you to focus on those tasks that are more important or have near-term deadlines.

Labeling systems are a simple but effective solution. Labeling lets other team members know what’s important and encourages them to row in the same direction. 

A digital prioritization system also minimizes errors. Trying to keep track of things mentally can make you feel like you’re buried beneath a mountain of work with not enough time to get it all done. The more you stress, the further your quality of work is likely to fall. 

4. Creating a competitive advantage

Scheduling tools don’t sell products, but they can help you solve a lot of related problems. This includes internal issues as well as customer-facing problems.

Start with the customer experience. Nearly a third of customers say that they would leave a current service provider if a competitor offered online scheduling. This is particularly true of service companies, such as hair salons, therapists, and mechanics. 

The employee experience also benefits from scheduling software. Say you need to set up a one-on-one conversation with someone on your team. Scheduling software lays out the options, generates notifications, and lets either party switch with a few clicks. 

5. Saving money

Again, a scheduling software can’t stop you from swiping your card, but it can save you money in all sorts of quiet ways. 

Labor is many company’s biggest expense category. Scheduling software can help your team spend more time serving customers and less on things like scheduling meetings and sending time-off requests.

Consider, even implementing scheduling software saves a 100-person team half an hour per person per week, that’s 50 extra working hours. That’s more than a free week of labor. 

Scheduling software is powerful. Don’t underestimate how its small boosts to productivity add up to a big advantage.