Startup Idea: Automated Employee Scheduling System for Small Businesses

Startup idea to develop an automated scheduling system designed to aid small business owners. The software should efficiently generate and manage employee schedules, taking into consideration factors such as high-traffic hours, employee availability, and special events. The objective of the software is to ease the administrative burden for entrepreneurs allowing them more time to focus on their business operations.

I am the owner and main builder for a small leather goods company that has grown from a single person to about 20 employees. During this time, I have noticed I have spent less time building and making goods, my craft, and more time at the computer generating a schedule for my employees.

This has lead to less time not only doing what I love to do, but less time teaching, training, and guiding my employees to make good choices and be happy with their work. I recently, in the past three months, lost two employees due to poor scheduling and development.

In a perfect world, I would have software that would allow me to enter in data as far as when the most hours of work are needed, slow hours, special events like trade shows, etc. and would auto populate a schedule based on that data. It would also take into consideration schedule availability of my employees. The software would be able to do this within minutes, compared to the hours I spend each week sorting schedules.

I understand that the system would most likely leave gaps, and I could easily fill those. The software would also allow me to adjust times to fit our needs and make a great schedule. I would love to do this for a month out that way I can spend at most a single day each month working on scheduling, and the rest of the time in my workshop getting my hands dirty. No, not yet. It sounds too good to be true.

Submitter: Sure. JR (view contact info)