Challenge
The 300 employees at this company’s facility called off from work through multiple channels, creating confusion.
Some employees would text, call, or email HR of their absence, others would notify their managers, while newer employees called the front desk.
In an attempt to stay organized, the company’s HR coordinator was spending over an hour every day following up with employees and making sure managers were notified.
The daily “phone tag” took valuable time away from more important tasks, like onboarding new employees.
“Our managers saw a lot of value in TeamSense right off the bat, because an unplanned absence could be detrimental to their project. With the instant text alerts, managers can make better, faster staffing decisions so the project can continue without a hitch.”
Discovering and implementing TeamSense
The HR coordinator was introduced to TeamSense through a referral. Despite evaluating other call-off solutions, the team was sold on TeamSense after seeing how the product bundled attendance and communication features into one convenient software solution.
The HR coordinator also appreciated the ability to call off with either text message or voice. It gave employees options in line with their communication preferences.
Furthermore, she recalled the implementation process as being “extremely smooth and simple.” In fact, she was able to onboard all 300 employees within a couple of weeks on her own.
“This was my first experience implementing software for a company, and I was able to do so all by myself! I’m really proud of that, but it also proves how simple and easy TeamSense is to use,” she said.
“Our workforce includes individuals from various age groups. We’ve noticed that older generations prefer to call, while our younger employees almost exclusively text. It’s great that TeamSense offers both call-off options for our employees.”
Solution
TeamSense improves call-offs and communication
While the defense company initially used TeamSense to standardize the call-off process, the HR team also uncovered additional benefits using the product’s broadcast messages and reporting capabilities.
Simplifying call-offs and keeping production on track
To call off, employees simply text a keyword to their dedicated TeamSense phone number, triggering a notification to both managers and HR at the same time. Thanks to the automated workflow, the HR coordinator no longer has to spend hours manually managing call-offs, saving over 5 hours a week.
The alerts offer instant visibility on who is out for the day, giving managers the ability to quickly shift staffing to keep production schedules on track.
Managers also learn more about their daily operations from the Attendance Insights Report. Before TeamSense, the HR coordinator would have to manually pull attendance reports from their HRIS and email them to managers.
With TeamSense, managers easily access a variety of different reports themselves without relying on HR. These reports include a daily attendance snapshot, plus absenteeism trends by department or day of the week.
With this new data and visibility, HR can now enforce the company’s attendance policy for the first time.
Communicating and connecting with a diverse workforce
The team got up and running with TeamSense’s text-based broadcast messages with a particular use case: reminding employees about a new 4-10 shift schedule.
In order to overcome language barriers across their diverse workforce and make sure everyone was equally informed, HR translated broadcast messages into Bengali, one of the primary languages spoken by their employees.
They’ve since expanded their use of broadcast messages to include a wider range of announcements, like holiday schedule reminders, benefits, company events, giveaways, and more.
“We used to do announcements via flyers, word of mouth, or email, but it’s been much more effective to text! We’re no longer hoping employees check their email or see one of our posters. Everyone just gets messages straight to their phone,” said the HR coordinator.
Because of how easy it was for employees to adopt text messaging, HR finally has a solution for connecting with their hourly teams in an immediate, consistent, and reliable way.
“TeamSense helped us simplify and streamline call-offs so we rarely have any issues when it comes to communicating who’s out for the day. It eliminated the hassle of trying to track people down in the event of a ‘no-call no-show’.”
Results
TeamSense has transformed call-offs and communication for this defense company, allowing them to enforce their attendance policies with accurate data and save hours of manual work.
With clear and fast call-off communication, managers have confidence that projects will run smoothly even when there are unplanned absences. With the help of broadcast messages and language translations, HR ensures that all employees are kept in the loop on important company announcements.
Next up, HR plans to explore new features in TeamSense, like Attendance Points. They also plan to broadcast benefits messages during their next open enrollment period.
