The workforce management solutions offered by Aladtec streamline communications, scheduling, record-keeping, payroll, training levels and much more. (Photo provided)

In the past, public safety agencies with more than 15–20 employees struggled to keep track of scheduling, certifications, licensing, requests for time off, shift trades, office forms and other workforce management processes manually — often with pencil and paper, a whiteboard or a spreadsheet accessible from a single computer terminal at a single location. Each process was highly inefficient and took a large amount of time. Mistakes were easily made.

Running a public safety agency means focusing on serving the public, not spending several hours a week scheduling staff, filling out forms or trying to find relevant paperwork.

The workforce management solutions developed by Aladtec streamline the mundane aspects of public safety management by automating routine tasks, organizing valuable information and basically eliminating the pain points associated with many administrative duties. And in step with 21st century technology, Aladtec’s online employee scheduling and workforce management system is completely mobile. It is accessible 24/7 from anywhere, on any computer, smartphone or other mobile device with an Internet connection.

Captain Rob Brown, of the Goffstown, N.H., Police Department, heads up an agency that, like many, at one time kept track of employees’ shift schedule on an Excel spreadsheet.

“It was very time-consuming, and we had no paging or immediate contacting capabilities. Aladtec’s paging feature is a huge plus. We also like the repeat rotation feature for advanced scheduling,” he said. “Our officers know what the coverage is and what is needed months and months in advance, so they can determine if and when they need to request time off.

“We really like the fact that we can access the schedule remotely since Aladtec is an online system,” Brown added. “The crew can see who has what for shifts or detail assignments and request swaps from home or anywhere.”

Employee requests are updated immediately on the administrators’ home page, where a dashboard of pending trades, signup requests, requests for time off, upcoming shift schedules and agency events are posted immediately — along with current online discussions. With this prominent array of information, not only are administrators apprised of pending change requests in real time, but they can approve or deny them in an instant and the shift schedule is always accurate and up to date.

Because it manages such a large number of employee issues and saves a tremendous amount of time, Aladtec customers say the system pays for itself quickly.

“As an organization, I estimate we’re saving about 100 hours a month. Aladtec is really a one-stop shop,” said Landon Churchill, an engineer/EMT with Colorado River Fire Rescue, Rifle, Colo. “The online time-off and trade requests are amazing and very popular with the full-time staff. The mobile functionality makes it accessible to everyone, all the time, which is perfect for our volunteer and part-time staff. The forms feature is great and we use it for many documents such as time cards, vehicle maintenance, daily checks, award nominations and more. The staff loves not having to use paper forms anymore. Aladtec is amazing, compounded by the genuinely great people working there.”

Shift trades are made easily and in real time with Aladtec. Employees can access the schedule on any mobile device, and administrators are in the loop every step of the way. (Photo provided)

Since entering the world as a scheduling software solution, Aladtec has matured into a complete workforce management system capable of simplifying the responsibilities of administrators in the most challenging agencies. The company offers a flexible member database to track employee data, from training and continuing education to certifications and licenses. The Form Configurator feature allows users to create, submit, review and store any form they need within the Aladtec system. This is not only a green initiative, but by keeping forms online, they are quickly and easily accessible for whomever needs them.

But the benefits of switching to Aladtec go far beyond improving staff scheduling and maintaining online forms. It has a number of other well-integrated tools.

ADVANCED REPORTING FEATURES — Create and save your own custom reports and payroll exports from a wide variety of options and filters.

200 GB FREE ONLINE FILE STORAGE — Upload and share electronic files such as training materials, spreadsheets, forms, videos, photos, etc.

TIME CLOCK (with or without fingerprint scanner) — Use the optional time clock to track employees and easily compare scheduled time to actual worked time.

DISCUSSIONS — Conduct online discussions with your staff to review policies, conduct surveys, get feedback, etc.

PAYROLL INTEGRATION — Custom payroll exports are available for nearly any payroll service, including ADP, Paychex, Paycom, Intuit, CompuPay, Sage, Centerpoint, PeopleSoft, CheckMark, PayChoice, SSI, WinPay, Munis and more. The fully editable home page can be customized for your agency, and access controls mean that security and restrictions based on rank and title are always maintained.

Since every agency is unique and requires its own variation of workforce management, the Aladtec system can accommodate endless variations of complex reporting, employee record-keeping and schedule rotation requirements. Regardless of how unique each agency is, the one thing they have in common is a mandate to save money. Aladtec accomplishes this by controlling overtime.

“We’ve been able to cut our overtime costs by about $10,000 per month (around 30 percent) since we began using Aladtec,” shared Matt Leicester, former EMS captain, Johnston County EMS, Smithfield, N.C.

Providence College EMS in Rhode Island experienced an immediate change in overtime after adopting Aladtec’s workforce management solution. “For the first time ever, I was able to run an entire month’s schedule with no scheduled OT. This saved us about 25 hours in overtime,” indicated Koren Kanadanian, director of emergency management at the college.

Aladtec is purchased as an annual subscription based on the number of employees in the system. This makes it affordable for even small volunteer agencies. Additionally, subscription-based software is much easier to budget for than the large capital expenditure required for some systems. Aladtec provides training, tech support, system optimization and upgrades for customers at no additional cost.

“I chose Aladtec because I really like the functions of the system; and it’s really user friendly. It’s a subscription-based system with no additional or hidden fees, and their customer support is awesome. This made the system an easy sell to our administrative team. Over the course of a year, I suspect we will save the equivalent of one full-time salaried position and allow that staff member to complete other administrative tasks,” explained Douglas E. Bitner, assistant chief, Holy Spirit EMS — South Division, Camp Hill, Pa.

Founded in 2005, Aladtec has become the leader in online public safety workforce management software. Nearly 100,000 people throughout North America rely on the system at over 1,600 organizations.

“We are very fortunate and honored to be a vendor for the public safety sector,” shared David Feyereisen, cofounder and CEO at Aladtec Inc., River Falls, Wis. “We created our system to automate daily administrative processes and to reduce the error-prone aspects of crew scheduling and workforce management, allowing our customers to focus on their priority — the communities they serve.”