Does Santa Use Celayix?
These questions are not new: How does Santa build all those toys? How does he deliver all of them in one night?
One newer question that has recently come to be asked is the rumor of whether or not Santa uses Celayix to help manage his schedule. Recently, we were asked by one of our customers if it’s true that Santa’s workshop uses Celayix to help them with their elves scheduling. We want to adamantly say that Celayix Software cannot confirm that our software is used in the Santa’s workshop. What we can say is that we do have a key client who has many employees way, way up north and has a hard deadline for the production of “assets” which we cannot confirm are toys.
This blog is not meant to focus on who this client could be, but rather get an understanding of the challenges they faced and how Celayix helped them overcome them. If by any chance we accidentally use the word elf in the place of employee, please ignore our mistake.
Here are list of the main challenges our customer faced and how they used Celayix to overcome them:
- Needed to ensure that employees with specific toy building expertise are used to fill shifts.
- Most of the employees have been working there for a very, very long time. Their boss does not have the time to spend scheduling and therefore preferred to have them pick their own shifts. Celayix enabled self-scheduling which allowed employees to simply self-select the shifts they want subject to their qualifications.
- If another team is behind schedule, others may be required to step in. If the schedule is changed, our customer wanted the ability to notify affected employees of the change.
- Ensuring that time-off requests and availability are included was important as most elves were looking to take off early in the calendar year. They need to ensure the production schedule was managed as their delivery date could not be adjusted.
Although this is a unique northern location that can’t be found on any specific map, the features that Celayix has available for them although not currently being used are:
- Geo-fencing was not an issue since this is an isolated location and everyone was housed onsite.
- This company operates where there are no specific overtime rules, pay rates or days worked rules although if this does happen in the future, Celayix will be able to support them.
In addition, over the years that Celayix has been implemented, we have seen other departments start to use it; including scheduling in something they call their “flying reindeer department,” although we are not specifically sure what this code name could refers to.
So, as can be seen by this blog, this customer was able to implement Celayix and is continually able to meet their delivery schedule. Please remember that this blog is not meant to confirm whether or not Santa’s workshop uses Celayix and any implication that Santa is our client was purely accidental.
