Automating the scheduling of employees increases productivity and allows organizations with hourly workforces to re-allocate resources to non-scheduling activities.
[citation needed] Such functionality can help organizations with issues like employee retention, compliance with labor laws, and other workforce management challenges.
[5] IBM manufactured and marketed a variety of unit record machines for creating, sorting, and tabulating punched cards, even after expanding into electronic computers in the late 1950s.
IBM developed punched card technology into a powerful tool for business data-processing and produced an extensive line of general purpose unit record machines.
Mohawk Data Sciences introduced a magnetic tape encoder in 1965, a system marketed as a keypunch replacement which was somewhat successful, but punched cards were still commonly used for data entry and programming until the mid-1980s when the combination of lower cost magnetic disk storage, and affordable interactive terminals on less expensive minicomputers made punched cards obsolete for this role as well.
[10] Algorithms are used within the employee scheduling software in order to determine not only who is working, but also the specific jobs and tasks required of the workers.
[2] These complexities thusly require that each and every workplace must optimize employee scheduling software based on their own unique set of rules, issues and needs.
[2] Due to constant change within work environments, new models and algorithms must be created in order to allow for flexibility as needs and demands arise.
For example, when a large number of new employees are hired, as in the total workforce is increased, the scheduling software likely will need to be updated in order to allow for such a change.