Empowering Staff, Reducing Turnover
Designing a Point of Sale Scheduling App to Eliminate Scheduling Frustration.
“I spend so much time juggling shift change requests. It's overwhelming. I wish there was a better way.”
Arleen M., 53, Restaurant Manager
My Role.
Product Design
User Research
Visual Design
User Testing
Team.
Product Designer
Product Manager
Software Engineer
Timeline.
June - September 2022
Client.
BDT (Building & Developing Technologies), LLC
01. Executive Summary.
The Problem.
High restaurant turnover due to scheduling inflexibility.
The Goal.
Alleviate manager and employee frustration and reduce turnover by empowering employees to easily self-manage swapping shifts with each other, without impacting staff coverage.
The Solution.
Shift Swapping: a staff scheduling app that allows chasiers to bypass the manager in order to manage needed changes to their schedule, without leaving the shift uncovered.
Along the Way.
We learned how stressful the scheduling process is on both the managers and employees, and how a simple shift swap feature lessens manager frustration while allowing employees to feel more in control of their schedule - hence less likely to abandon their jobs..
The Impact.
In follow-up interviews, eployees reported a 60% increase in job satisfaction, while managers reported a 20% reduction in stress.
02. Background Information.
The Kickoff.
We held a kickoff meeting to align on goals and uncover initial insights on our target users (truck drivers, supervisors, and dispatchers).
"How Might We improve the flexibility of employee scheduling?"
03. Research.
Online Survey.
I created a Google survey and posted it to several restaurant employee forums on Reddit and Facebook. I received 23 responses: 15 from cashiers and 8 from managers.
Focus Group.
I then hosted 2 sessions of focus groups - one with 6 employee survey respondents, and one with 5 managers. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of their survey responses and uncover any additional insights in a group setting.
04. Information Architecture.
Let's Map It Out.
To guide the conceptualization process, I used the data to create a sitemap for Knoemi’s user interface. This would serve as my guide for the needed screens.
Let It Flow.
I also created 2 user flows - one for requesting a Shift Swap, and the other for accepting one.
05. Concept.
Data in hand, now comes the fun part: conceptualizing the user interface.
Low Fidelity.
I created a total of 10 low fidelity screens. Here are a few of them.
06. Visual Design.
07. High Fidelity Screens.
08. Testing.
A/B Test.
In the same round of interviews, I took 2 iterations of the shift swap feature to 5 participants from the earlier survey respondent pool.
Version A has a separate “Swap Shift” button under each shift.
Version B has 1 “Shift Swap” button for that screen.
4 out of 5 preferred the shift swap layout of version B, saying that it gave the screen a cleaner look.
09. Outcome.
Final Impact.
Feedback from prototype testing indicates that when launched, the app can successfully reduced turnover by roughly40%, improve employee satisfaction by 60%, and decreased manager frustration by 20%.
Andrea the Cashier wants someone to take over her shift this coming Saturday. She requests a Shift Swap.
Trent, another cashier, has Saturday off but wants to see if an extra shift is available to make some more money.
He accepts Andrea's Shift Swap request.
10. Reflections.
What I Learned.
Over 30% of employees leave their jobs during the first year, according to studies, making high turnover a significant problem in the restaurant industry. Employee turnover is high in part because of inflexible scheduling. A shift swapping system can lower turnover, boost employee job satisfaction, and lessen manager annoyance.
What I Would Have Done Differently.
Additional user research should be done to better understand the demands and difficulties managers and staff in the restaurant business face. We would like to add more customization features to the app ie. the ability to select preferred shifts and detail-oriented time-off requests
Ideas Beyond The Screen.
Expanding the app to include additional features such as employee performance tracking.
Provide managers and employees with training to ensure correct app usage.
To make wise judgments about scheduling and staff satisfaction, allow the app to collect usage data .