5 Features Every Online Schedule Management Tool Needs for Remote Workforces

Online schedule management platforms are used in many industries, including healthcare, education, and hospitality. During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote scheduling of personnel and students was necessary for managerial and administrative staff. Since the pandemic has ended, remote scheduling has become a favored option for many administrators as online scheduling platforms allow for increased time and financial efficiency – and it is often a necessary function for companies with remote workers in various locations. In the healthcare industry, scheduling is extremely important for efficiently operating multiple people across many departments.

One of the most important functions that healthcare institutes play is training doctoral and nursing practitioners. Healthcare and educational institutions need to be able to manage a significant amount of data to coordinate nurse practitioner clinical rotations, including a background check, student academic progress, and rotational progress for each student. Training doctors and nurses are essentially remote workforces for healthcare and educational institutions, and managing their schedules centrally and remotely is crucial for administrative staff.

Automated Scheduling Capability:

An online scheduling platform can allow for the scheduling of staff or students by manual input from administrators: however, having an automated scheduling capability can increase efficiency significantly. Using the example of nurse practitioner clinical rotations, educational institutes may work with multiple healthcare institutes. Similarly, single healthcare facilities may have to manage the schedules of nurse practitioners from many different educational institutions and manage a student background check, student rotation attendance log, and performance log for each student. Requiring administrative staff to manage the scheduling of many practitioners across multiple institutions is time-consuming, stressful, and likely to cause errors.

Mobile accessibility:

So much of peoples’ lives are contained in their mobile devices today. People are not often found without their mobile devices, which allow them to control and access their calendars, email accounts, appointments, or schedules. An online scheduling platform should allow users mobile access for maximum efficiency and convenience. Administrators can adjust schedules from wherever they happen to be working at a given time (and not necessarily be confined to their desks), and nurse practitioners or other training professionals can access and update their availability from any location. Mobile access to schedules also means that schedule changes, requirements, and availabilities can be communicated and filled out immediately. Once again, this makes filling schedules and attending to patients’ needs effective and efficient. Some systems may allow employees to clock in or out of shifts or log shifts worked through their mobile devices, and get supervisor sign-off online – this is a much more efficient system than getting physical documents signed when people are not working in the exact locations.

Leave management and shift flexibility features

For any company managing a large group of staff working at multiple locations through an online platform, having a feature that allows for leave requests to be submitted and granted or for shifts to be exchanged when necessary saves a lot of time. In the cases of nurse practitioner clinical rotations, where multiple institutions must keep track of time logs, having this information accessible on a centralized online platform is very useful. If practitioners can request leave from specific shifts or days, an online platform could let administrators know whether anybody else is available to cover the shift and how it might affect the system as a whole.

Compliance tracking

Online compliance tracking can save practitioners and administrators significant amounts of time and avoid costly mistakes, especially for clinical rotations, where compliance and due diligence have to be met. Ensuring that each student has a background check, student personal data is organized, academic records are up-to-date, and all graduation requirements have been met can be time-consuming when done manually and can cause many errors. An automated system can help keep all the necessary information in one place.

Practitioner communication and feedback

For practitioners, being able to provide feedback to health or educational institutions can be a crucial part of their experience. Being able to record feedback for their use can be an invaluable learning tool and could improve academic outcomes. Feedback on any concerns, issues, or positive experiences can help improve the experience for future practitioners and patients.