Managing a shift-based contingent workforce presents unique challenges, particularly for high-volume, fluid workforces, managed service providers (MSPs) and staffing agencies. In this article, we look at ways that a VMS can help you manage your shift-based workers and features to consider when choosing vendor management software (VMS) for your organization.
No matter what type of shift-based workers you use (warehouse, logistics, healthcare, call centers) where shifts are used on different days and times, tracking varying schedules, pay rates, supplier markups, and compliance requirements can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools in place.
A robust vendor management system (VMS) designed with native shift functionality helps ensure these variables stay organized while providing a clear audit trail for payroll and billing.
Below are key considerations when selecting a VMS to manage your shift-based workforce:
Real-time accuracy in shift scheduling is non-negotiable for light industrial and high-volume workforces, MSPs, and staffing agencies. When searching for a VMS, your priority should be to ensure that shift management is an inherent system feature. Many solutions claim to handle shift scheduling but rely on third-party bolt-ons. This often leads to complications such as poor user experiences, a lack of proper visibility, and an increased risk of errors.
By choosing a VMS with built-in shift capabilities, you can streamline how you create, manage, and track shifts in one centralized platform. This simplifies your workflows and gives you confidence that every schedule-related update is captured in real time.
The Conexis Difference: With Conexis VMS, shift scheduling, tracking, and reporting are seamlessly integrated, ensuring real-time updates and complete visibility over your workforce.
Many shift-based organizations operate across multiple facilities, each with unique scheduling demands and diverse operational needs. Your VMS should allow you to create unlimited shifts and define them precisely for each day and hour segment.
Whether you need early morning, late-night, split, universal, or rotating shifts, the ability to tailor shift structures at various business units or locations ensures that you’re aligning labor resources with each site’s requirements. A well-designed VMS will allow you to replicate or modify these shift templates quickly, reducing administrative overhead and making it more straightforward to accommodate fluctuating demands.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS enables businesses to configure schedules to the hour while replicating templates for fast deployment, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring labor resources align with each location’s needs.
One of the most complex aspects of managing a shift-based workforce is calculating accurate pay and bill rates, especially when workers move between standard, overtime, and double-time pay brackets.
A comprehensive VMS should let you assign pay and bill rates to each unique shift. This capability helps maintain compliance with labor regulations and provides a transparent view of labor costs for your organization and any external staffing partners. By automating these calculations, you minimize the risk of payroll errors and ensure that workers are consistently paid at the correct rate.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS automates this process, ensuring correct rate applications based on predefined rules. This not only reduces payroll errors but also helps maintain compliance with labor laws and contract agreements, giving staffing agencies and MSPs complete confidence in their billing accuracy.
Accurate time-tracking is the cornerstone of effective shift management. Look for a VMS that seamlessly integrates with your existing time clock or biometric systems. Once integrated, the system can automatically capture, validate, and map each worker’s hours to the correct shift.
This eliminates tedious manual data entry and reduces the likelihood of payroll discrepancies. Furthermore, these real-time integrations give managers instant visibility into who is clocked in, out, or running late, enabling rapid decision-making to fill scheduling gaps.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS has several timeclock partners that are already integrated. We can supply, set up, and help you configure your timeclocks. Have your own clocks? Not a problem; Conexis can also pull the time feed from your clocks.
Many shift-based organizations need workers to split their time across different departments or cost centers - even within the same shift. A modern VMS should support this scenario by allowing employees to designate the portion of their shift allocated to each cost center. This simplifies billing and invoicing and provides a more granular understanding of where labor resources are consumed.
Managers can then optimize staffing levels and budgets across the organization, ensuring every minute is correctly accounted for.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis knows that when you are managing shift workers, the need for cross charges is a daily occurrence. Charging multiple cost centers across multiple locations in the system is critical to avoid manual spreadsheets and inaccuracies. Conexis allows workers and administrators to apply cross charges easily.
Managing a shift-based contingent workforce becomes much easier when your Vendor management system manages work shifts. Key features should include integrated shift functionality, customizable scheduling, accurate pay-and-bill rates, seamless time-clock integrations, and support for multiple cost center allocations.
By focusing on these elements when selecting a VMS, you’ll significantly improve scheduling processes, lessen administrative burdens, and promote a more transparent, cost-effective operation.
Unlike other VMS platforms that offer shift scheduling as an afterthought, Conexis VMS was designed with shift-based workforce management at its core. For light industrial workforces, MSPs, and staffing agencies, this means:
By selecting a VMS explicitly built for shift work, you can streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve workforce transparency.
Light Industrial workers make up over 60% of the Conexis population. Conexis has developed VMS functionality specifically to support high volume worker environments such as digital site rosters, easy time clock integrations and native shift functionality. Our clients love us because Conexis enables them to do their job faster and get better quality workers, who stay through their assignments more often.
Learn about our expertise in: Manufacturing & Light Industrial, Warehouse & Logistics
When your workers fail to show up or leave their jobs early, it dramatically increases your expenses, diminishes business efficiency and jeopardizes your entire customer experience. Conexis VMS deeply understands the intricacies and challenges associated with managing a contingent workforce. That’s why we built our easy-to-use Vendor Management System (VMS).
Conexis VMS clients tell us that after implementing Conexis their no-shows and turnover have dropped by over 50%.
Conexis not only integrates with your warehouse time clock system, but we can also supply the system. Regardless of the time clock system that your business uses, Conexis VMS has worked with, and integrates easily with, most time clock systems on the market today.
Read more at: Launching a Time Clock System? 5 Must-Know Tips!
No matter what type of shift-based workers you use (warehouse, logistics, healthcare, call centers) where shifts are used on different days and times, tracking varying schedules, pay rates, supplier markups, and compliance requirements can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools in place.
Conexis is a robust vendor management system (VMS) designed with native shift functionality helps ensure these variables stay organized while providing a clear audit trail for payroll and billing.
Learn more about the Benefits of a Vendor Management System and what to look for when choosing the best VMS for your organization. Download our Free VMS Buyer's Guide here:
Conexis is an award-winning Vendor Management System built for companies that want the power of enterprise software without the complexity or cost.
Leveraging the latest technology, Conexis delivers the expertise, reliability and security of enterprise systems, while offering the flexibility, user friendliness and tailored, personal service you require. Learn more about our Company and why organizations Choose Conexis VMS.
Whether you are looking to Switch your VMS, or just Getting Started, we are here to help. Contact Us for a Free No-Obligation Consultation, See how Easy Conexis is to use by taking a quick 2 minute Self-Guided Online Demo, or Book a Personal Demo Today!
Additional Information on the Benefits of a VMS:
What is a VMS? | VMS Benefits | Free VMS Education Center | Why Choose Conexis VMS
Cost Savings: How you can save 20% on your contingent workforce costs
Reducing Risk: 5 Ways to reduce contingent workforce risk with a VMS
Co-Employment: How a VMS Shields you from Risk Improving Compliance: 10 Ways a VMS helps improve contingent workforce compliance
Managing Shift-Workers: 5 Ways a VMS helps you manage shift-based workers
Improving Invoicing: 5 Ways a VMS streamlines and improves invoicing
Increasing Visibility: 5 ways a VMS gives you visibility into your contingent workforce program
Measuring Staffing Agency Performance: How a VMS improves staffing agency performance
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