Managing a shift-based contingent workforce presents unique challenges, particularly for high-volume, fluid workforces, managed service providers (MSPs) and staffing agencies. In this article, we look at key considerations when choosing vendor management software (VMS) to manage your shift-based workforce.
No matter what type of shift-based workers you use (warehouse, logistics, healthcare,, call centers) where shifts are used on different days and times, tracking varying schedules, pay rates, supplier markups, and compliance requirements can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools in place.
A robust vendor management system (VMS) designed with native shift functionality helps ensure these variables stay organized while providing a clear audit trail for payroll and billing.
Below are key considerations when selecting a VMS to manage your shift-based workforce:
1. Native Shift Functionality - No Third-Party Bolt-Ons
Real-time accuracy in shift scheduling is non-negotiable for light industrial and high-volume workforces, MSPs, and staffing agencies. When searching for a VMS, your priority should be to ensure that shift management is an inherent system feature. Many solutions claim to handle shift scheduling but rely on third-party bolt-ons. This often leads to complications such as poor user experiences, a lack of proper visibility, and an increased risk of errors.
By choosing a VMS with built-in shift capabilities, you can streamline how you create, manage, and track shifts in one centralized platform. This simplifies your workflows and gives you confidence that every schedule-related update is captured in real time.
The Conexis Difference: With Conexis VMS, shift scheduling, tracking, and reporting are seamlessly integrated, ensuring real-time updates and complete visibility over your workforce.
2. Unlimited and Customizable Shifts Across Multiple Locations
Many shift-based organizations operate across multiple facilities, each with unique scheduling demands and diverse operational needs. Your VMS should allow you to create unlimited shifts and define them precisely for each day and hour segment.
Whether you need early morning, late-night, split, universal, or rotating shifts, the ability to tailor shift structures at various business units or locations ensures that you’re aligning labor resources with each site’s requirements. A well-designed VMS will allow you to replicate or modify these shift templates quickly, reducing administrative overhead and making it more straightforward to accommodate fluctuating demands.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS enables businesses to configure schedules to the hour while replicating templates for fast deployment, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring labor resources align with each location’s needs.
3. Pay and Bill Rate Assignments for Each Shift
One of the most complex aspects of managing a shift-based workforce is calculating accurate pay and bill rates, especially when workers move between standard, overtime, and double-time pay brackets.
A comprehensive VMS should let you assign pay and bill rates to each unique shift. This capability helps maintain compliance with labor regulations and provides a transparent view of labor costs for your organization and any external staffing partners. By automating these calculations, you minimize the risk of payroll errors and ensure that workers are consistently paid at the correct rate.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS automates this process, ensuring correct rate applications based on predefined rules. This not only reduces payroll errors but also helps maintain compliance with labor laws and contract agreements, giving staffing agencies and MSPs complete confidence in their billing accuracy.
4. Seamless Integration with Time Clock Systems
Accurate time-tracking is the cornerstone of effective shift management. Look for a VMS that seamlessly integrates with your existing time clock or biometric systems. Once integrated, the system can automatically capture, validate, and map each worker’s hours to the correct shift.
This eliminates tedious manual data entry and reduces the likelihood of payroll discrepancies. Furthermore, these real-time integrations give managers instant visibility into who is clocked in, out, or running late, enabling rapid decision-making to fill scheduling gaps.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis VMS has several timeclock partners that are already integrated. We can supply, set up, and help you configure your timeclocks. Have your own clocks? Not a problem; Conexis can also pull the time feed from your clocks.
5. Multi-Cost Center Time Entry Within a Single Shift
Many shift-based organizations need workers to split their time across different departments or cost centers - even within the same shift. A modern VMS should support this scenario by allowing employees to designate the portion of their shift allocated to each cost center. This simplifies billing and invoicing and provides a more granular understanding of where labor resources are consumed.
Managers can then optimize staffing levels and budgets across the organization, ensuring every minute is correctly accounted for.
The Conexis Difference: Conexis knows that when you are managing shift workers, the need for cross charges is a daily occurrence. Charging multiple cost centers across multiple locations in the system is critical to avoid manual spreadsheets and inaccuracies. Conexis allows workers and administrators to apply cross charges easily.
Why Choosing a VMS with Native Shift Management Matters
Managing a shift-based contingent workforce becomes much easier when your Vendor management system manages work shifts. Key features should include integrated shift functionality, customizable scheduling, accurate pay-and-bill rates, seamless time-clock integrations, and support for multiple cost center allocations.
By focusing on these elements when selecting a VMS, you’ll significantly improve scheduling processes, lessen administrative burdens, and promote a more transparent, cost-effective operation.
Conexis VMS - Designed to support Shift-Work Environments
Unlike other VMS platforms that offer shift scheduling as an afterthought, Conexis VMS was designed with shift-based workforce management at its core. For light industrial workforces, MSPs, and staffing agencies, this means:
- Greater Efficiency: Manage all scheduling, pay rates, and compliance in one system.
- Fewer Payroll and Invoicing Errors: Automated calculations reduce administrative burden.
- Real-Time Workforce Visibility: Instant access to who is working, who is available, and where gaps exist.
- Scalability: Easily manage shift-based workforces across multiple locations and job types.
By selecting a VMS explicitly built for shift work, you can streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve workforce transparency. Conexis VMS provides the automation, accuracy, and flexibility you need to manage shift-based contingent workers with confidence.
Learn about how our VMS is designed to support Healthcare, Manufacturing & Light Industrial, Warehouse, Staffing Agencies and MSPs.
About Conexis VMS
Conexis VMS is the world’s most modern vendor management system, built on the latest technology and designed with the user in mind. Conexis stands out from other VMS solutions due to its unique functionality and features such as open APIs and flexible data solutions which allow our customers to create fast, easy, and cost-effective integrations, that can be done in under a week, compared to the legacy systems, which have to custom code each one.
We are also leading the industry with our white-gloves customer care, our pricing and our fast implementation. With our market-leading work shift, scheduling, timekeeping, and credentialing capabilities, Conexis is the only VMS that can handle all skill categories without clunky third-party add-ons. Learn more about our company and our award winning VMS Software.
Contact Us
Whether you are looking for a new VMS Solution, or just getting started, we are here to help. See how easy Conexis is to use by taking a quick 2 minute Self-Guided Tour. Contact Us for a Free No-Obligation Consultation to discuss your workforce challenges (and get immediate actionable insights) or Book a Personal Demo Today!
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