Article Highlights
- The problem: Difficulty making informed scheduling decisions
- The solution: PowerTime, an emergency dispatch scheduling software
- The benefits: Monitor scheduling, access reports 24/7, and save resources
The problem: Lack of scheduling insights to make informed decisions
Scheduling at an emergency communications center is complex. Not only do ECC Directors have to ensure minimum staffing levels across all shifts, but you also need to maintain compliance with overtime policies and guarantee all employees are correctly compensated for their time. That’s why putting together an ECC schedule requires far more thought than simply filling empty shifts. And as part of your scheduling process, you must build, store, manage, and track important information, including telecommunicator overtime hours, PTO, and payroll details.
Manual processes make juggling these interrelated tasks all the more complicated. If you’re relying on manual scheduling, you can’t easily access this data in one place, so you waste valuable time referring to physical documentation or parsing through multiple systems to try and connect the dots about who worked when.
Additionally, a manual scheduling process means staff at your ECC don’t all have access to the same information, so schedule visibility and decision-making across the organization suffer as well. Not only does this poor communication and coordination make it challenging to ensure you’re fully staffed, but it also fosters a time-consuming and frustrating payroll process. Staff spend time manually tracking employee hours, which inevitably leads to errors and disgruntled employees. To make matters worse, these mistakes can increase liability risk at your ECC if staff are not adequately compensated for their time.
The solution: ECC scheduling software
You can overcome these challenges with PowerTime, a public safety scheduling software by PowerDMS. This public safety scheduling software tracks employee hours and scheduling data, enabling you to compile schedule reports in one platform. It also provides staff with 24/7 access to the most up-to-date ECC schedules, so everyone is always on the same page.
You can use PowerTime to access more than 200 different scheduling data reports that can be exported, sent, or printed depending on your agency’s unique needs. For example, rather than manually gathering payroll information from 911 schedules, simply pull an automated schedule report for each pay period, then export it into an external payroll system to ensure timely processing.
Plus, since you can store telecommunicator contact information, hire dates, IDs, and more within the system, PowerTime also makes it easy to compile an employee data report for internal scheduling processes. And to cultivate another layer of accountability with processes like payroll, staff can review their timesheets digitally for each pay period and alert you to any discrepancies. PowerTime also has audit trails that track scheduling activity, including PTO banks, requests, and approvals, for insight into your shift needs.
The benefits of public safety scheduling software
PowerDMS’s ECC scheduling software provides a clear picture of scheduling in your agency. Because you can easily collect data and access reports with this system, PowerTime facilitates informed decisions about what will improve your ECC schedules. ECC Directors can also rely on this system to monitor PTO activity and ensure you meet the minimum staffing levels required to maintain compliance.
PowerTime even streamlines payroll by providing easy access to all payroll and PTO information in one convenient location, at any time and from any device. This feature allows you to save significant time and effort, reducing a days-long payroll process to a simple review and click of a button. And with automated calculations and 24/7 access to real-time scheduling updates, staff can feel more confident in the accuracy of payroll and you can feel less worried about liability.
Get started
PowerDMS’s public safety dispatch scheduling software makes it easy to access the data that streamlines scheduling, payroll, and decision-making in your agency. Book a demo today to learn more about how PowerTime can improve your 911 schedule development.