Using Artificial Intelligence as a Scheduling Tool

In the business world, AI (artificial intelligence) is known for its profound potential to optimize business activities. According to Grand View Research, the global AI market size was worth $62 billion in 2020, and is expected to have an annual growth rate of 40.2% from 2021 to 2028, At Celayix, we’ve long known that the use of AI has enormous potential for software. Particularly for us, Artificial Intelligence is incredibly valuable for workforce management and employee scheduling.

How does AI Work?

Software with AI functionality has a wide range of benefits for you, as a scheduler or manager, and your organization. With AI-driven employee scheduling software, for example, you can automatically create fair and balanced schedules, every time. AI achieves this using historical data that is collected through machine learning. In more recent years, we have seen AI use deep learning to process image, video, text and audio data.

Machine learning is the concept of algorithms and statistical models used by computers to perform tasks without explicit instructions. Instead, it relies on patterns and inference. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model based on data. It then uses this data to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task. For example, with artificial intelligence in scheduling, AI will learn from a scheduler’s behaviour patterns. It will then analyze them and reach an evidence-based conclusion to create the schedule.

The important aspect here is the utilization of data. With scheduling software, AI functionality can analyze the historical data it’s been collecting since its implementation. Then, it uses this data to produce insights and efficiencies in the scheduling process.

AI Thrives on Complexity

Every business has its rules, and as a result, every schedule has its own complexities and intricacies. When it comes to setting schedules, there is a multitude of different factors in play. Employee experience, seniority, availability, certification, and the total number of hours are just a handful of them.

Unsurprisingly, every business wants to minimize overtime hours, while still ensuring the best employees are working. AI can take these factors into account while, notably, following business rules and applicable laws.

Business owners want scheduling efficiencies, but they also want to make sure they can trust their software. AI ensures that schedules follow all pre-determined business rules. AI will learn from your decision-making and optimize the schedule based on historical data. For example, if an employee shows a record of working shifts relating to a particular client, it may mean they are very suitable for that client. AI can discern this trend and include this in the scheduling process by suggesting this employee for any shifts related to that client.

Applications of AI in the Workplace

Workplaces use Artificial Intelligence for many purposes. It is seen in marketing, research, customer experience, recruiting, and of course, employee scheduling. While you might wonder how artificial intelligence can improve these processes, one common theme across all applications is that it improves productivity.

Businesses use Artificial Intelligence to identify patterns and trends within data. You can imagine how helpful this is in identifying valuable sales leads or highlighting peak demand and predicting consumer behaviour. In addition, we see executives use it to identify valuable information from large data sets, helping them make critical decisions driven by data. In the past, this analysis might have taken a considerable time, but artificial intelligence speeds up the process while also choosing the best data. Artificial intelligence’s automation also provides far more value to customers and employees than we’ve ever seen before. From chatbots to menial tasks, AI can save time and provide genuine happiness to all stakeholders in your business.

Artificial Intelligence in Employee Scheduling

Here at Celayix, our mission is to make employee scheduling easy. That mission is at the core of every feature we add to our software, and AI is no different. Aside from making scheduling easy, AI has a range of other benefits when it comes to scheduling too.

Data Management

As humans, we can’t collate massive amounts of data and make accurate, efficient decisions. At first, the amount of data we need to consider while scheduling doesn’t seem overwhelming. However, specific data points include availability, paid time off, vacation, contracted hours, overtime, qualifications, regular shift patterns and more, as mentioned above. When you consider this amount of data and how many employees you are scheduling, you can see how overwhelming it can become. Not only does Celayix AI efficiently manage this data, but it also uses it to make informed recommendations for your shifts & schedules.

Improve Schedule Quality

When using Celayix artificial intelligence to create schedules, it will always recommend best-fit employees. When Celayix AI suggests employees for a shift, it will not only show only those who are qualified for the shift but also give them ratings and rank them for best fit. Our AI Verify Schedule feature will also recommend improvements to shifts that you have already assigned as a final step to create the best possible schedule. You’ll never have to worry about scheduling conflicts again, and you will be able to replace absent employees with best-fit alternatives at the click of a button.

Reduce Time Spent Scheduling

As we mentioned above, sorting through and managing such large amounts of data is difficult and can be time-consuming. 54% of executives say that implementing AI in their workplace has increased productivity, which can be said for scheduling with AI too. Even before we developed our AI feature, we saved companies up to two weeks in scheduling time. Now that we have an AI-powered scheduler, creating schedules no longer has to be a mammoth task. Whether you’re using AI to create the schedule from scratch, or to verify your schedule is well-optimized, you will make big-time savings. This time can be invested elsewhere in the business, potentially improving your bottom line.

Video: Using Artificial Intelligence as a Scheduling Tool

Ensures Scheduling is fair and unbiased.

Scheduling bias can occur in an organization when a manager has a specific idea about how schedules should be made or who should work on certain shifts or locations. With the implementation of AI, predictive analytics can functionally eliminate scheduling bias. Predictive analytics is the practice of extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends. This is particularly valuable as it allows businesses to look ahead, anticipating and predicting behaviours and outcomes based on factual data, rather than intuition. In this way, AI will enable organizations to become proactive rather than reactive.

Artificial intelligence has enormous potential and it’s already impacting the world in ways we may not even notice. For businesses looking to streamline their employee scheduling processes, avoid the fear of change when looking to the future. Scheduling software that utilizes AI is a powerful workforce management tool in any environment.

Here at Celayix, we are the only workforce management solution that implements AI into the scheduling process. If you’d like to find out how we do this, our Solutions Advisors are always happy to answer any questions, or show you how it works in a free live demo.