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‘House of Cards’ Scheduling Nightmare Fell Apart Before It Was Finished – Week After Week 

The employees were sick of it. The administrators were tired of it. Scheduling at their Pennsylvania casino had become a weekly grind that pretty much no one liked.  

It was taking the admin team seven hours every week just to create the schedule. Everything had to be manually entered into their old computer scheduling system. You had to randomly pick an assignment for each person, enter the data, and then build it out like a house of cards. Then, go post it on the bulletin board. 

Remember bulletin boards? Do you like scheduling on a bulletin board? If so, do you also like heating up your food in a firepit? 

Just as microwaves made leftovers a thing of beauty, so has Casino Schedule Ease’s assignment-based online scheduling system transformed the logistical mess and scheduling nightmare that had left the administrators and the team members at this Pennsylvania casino frustrated week after week. 

It was a house of cards because once the schedule was released, the admin team had to wait in dread for what they knew was coming: The flood of change requests. With over 200 dealers on their payroll, it was inevitable that dozens would come into the office requesting changes, shift swaps, EOs, and other adjustments. Every single week. 

All requests were done by paper or in person, or both.  

Then, the admin had to go back to the drawing board (literally), make a semi-educated guess about if each change was possible and what else it would affect, rework the whole schedule, and then re-release it. 

You can see why this took seven hours every week. That’s practically one-fifth of a normal full work week, devoted to creating one week’s schedule. 

The admin team decided they needed a better way to do scheduling. They’d heard about online scheduling, but with so many options out there and a steep learning curve for each, how do you choose? 

Seeking a Better Way – Online Casino Scheduling

In 2015, they got their answer at the G2E Conference. They knew they wanted online scheduling. What they didn’t know at the time was that a company existed that created online scheduling systems exclusively for casinos. Schedule Ease understood the unique needs facing their casino. 

They were dealing with too much. 

• Too much paper in the form of change requests and all the record keeping
• Too much drama and uncertainty around the approval process
• Too much angst around their ‘attendance points’ process 

Their casino uses a points system to track how often employees fail to uphold their scheduled time slots. Employees were constantly coming in to ask, “How many points do I have?”, because too many points led to various disciplinary actions. 

After speaking with the team from Casino Schedule Ease, the casino managers believed they had found their solution. 

4 Hours of Logistical Headaches Eliminated – Every Week 

Since implementing Casino Schedule Ease, the admin team at this Pennsylvania casino estimates they have saved about four hours of work every week. That’s over 200 hours per year.  

How was so much time saved? The admin team has been especially happy with the following attributes of Casino Schedule Ease: 

Automated Scheduling 

Before, it was all manual entry. Now, the system auto-generates a schedule. All the administrators have to do is tweak it in a few places and then send it out online, where every employee can access it from anywhere on their mobile devices. No more bulletin boards.  

Memos Keep Employees Informed 

Now, the schedule is done three weeks ahead of time. Dealers were very happy knowing their schedules so far in advance. 

With memos, the admin team can communicate effectively with hundreds of employees all at once – and know they saw the message. 

They know this because the memo feature requires employees to click on the message before getting past it to see their schedule online. This way, the admin has a record of every employee who has seen the memo.  

When Covid hit, and every week saw changes to policy and health procedures, the memo feature quickly became a life-saver. They were able to keep all their team members informed of the constant changes. It works better than emails because it is directly linked to their schedules. But the system also allows for sending out emails, and this casino does both so they can be absolutely certain everyone has seen the message. 

Employees Know Their Attendance Points 

Remember how before, employees were always coming in asking how many attendance points they have? Now, they never have to ask because it’s on their online portal. They can see their points, why and when they got them, and when they will drop off their record. 

People don’t mind being held accountable when the system of accountability is fair and transparent. With this feature, everyone knows where they stand and what it will take to improve their record.

Change Requests Are So Much Easier 

Now, the effect on the rest of the schedule for any change request is easy to see, and it is much easier to swap shifts and approve or reject changes. Employees find out very quickly if their request has been approved, and they don’t have to be at work to get the answer. It’s liberating.

Managing schedule changes, including EOs, requires far less bureaucracy than before. 

Responsive Customer Service 

Casino Schedule Ease doesn’t farm out their customer service to other countries. You talk to the experts every time, and without having to wait for days to get answers. 

As with any big new system, it took a few weeks for this casino’s admin team to master it and get all their questions answered. But once they got it down, they were able to train future admin team members without much trouble. 

And, they appreciate Casino Schedule Ease’s willingness to adapt the system to the needs of its users. They respond to the requests and suggestions from actual users.  

Planning for Unique Scheduling Events is a Cinch

Schedules change on holidays and for special events. Sometimes you need an extra crop of dealers for a day, or need more of them to come in earlier than usual. The new system makes this super easy. You just change a few settings on the days in question, and the automated schedule reflects the adjustments.  

EO Tracking Is Simpler – No More Arguments

This casino uses paper time cards for clocking in and out. Sometimes employees request an EO but then forget to clock out. With Casino Schedule Ease, the system makes it clear when the person left, whether they clock out or not. 

Arguments and questions about when a person actually left are thus eliminated. 

Assigning Dealers According to Their Strengths

Some dealers are best at certain games, while others are pretty good at more of them. With Casino Schedule Ease’s skill-based assignment option, they can be sure their dealers are scheduled at the tables that match their strengths. 

Can You Access Your Scheduling System from Anywhere?

When casinos went purely online during the height of Covid, this Pennsylvania casino’s Table Games Administrator was so relieved they had Casino Schedule Ease, because they were able to continue creating and managing schedules as if nothing had changed. Even though things had changed in just about every way.

The system is accessible online for admin and staff, and this proved to be a lifesaver. They already loved the system, but it proved its value in many new ways during that stressful year. 

Is your casino still wrestling with many of the scheduling nightmare you just read about?  

• Still gritting your teeth making manual schedules?  
• Getting interrupted by constant change requests and questions from team members?  
• Struggling to just create a schedule, let alone one that everyone is happy with?  

Casino Schedule Ease was made for casinos. It was designed for your business. We don’t serve warehouses or construction workers or stadium employees or typical offices. We are not all things to all businesses.

We serve casinos, because we understand their unique scheduling challenges. 

You can try Casino Schedule Ease by clicking the button below. 

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Focus keyword: scheduling nightmare 

Page Title: Rescued From A Scheduling Nightmare – Pennsylvania Casino 

Meta: Pennsylvania casino was manually entering all their data – every week. It was a scheduling nightmare. See the problems it created, and how they solved them

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