SUCCESS STORY: West Atlantic Group
December 19, 2022
How Humanity Helped Facilitate the West Atlantic Group’s Merger and Growth with Effective Staff Scheduling
Excel couldn’t handle the need for increasingly detailed schedules
West Air Group initially used Excel to schedule 30 employees at a single location. After the merger with Atlantic, they started looking for other staff scheduling options. Anna Ingvert, who is in charge of line administration and scheduling for West Atlantic, recalls that the greatest obstacle was that Excel didn’t allow her to add all critical information that the schedules demanded.
She eventually developed a code system to help her incorporate shift and employee details, but the code system turned out to be so complex that the employees were having a hard time deciphering it.
Not only that, but the more data she entered into Excel, the longer it took to finalize the schedules. The spreadsheets responded very slowly and ended up crashing regularly due to the number of details included in each cell.
I then had to create another Excel sheet to explain all of the codes that I was using.
Easy and fast shift customization
When West Atlantic deployed Humanity in 2014, Ingvert was finally able to generate shifts that were as specific and detailed as she needed them to be. This was particularly valuable for scheduling engineers, who are often sent to different locations to repair and maintain aircrafts. Humanity makes it easier to notify employees about their working hours and locations.
“What I can say is that it takes me the same time to schedule 200 workers with Humanity as it took me to schedule 30 workers using Excel.”
Humanity also helps West Atlantic put together more accurate timesheets.
“Being able to see the exact working hours helps me a lot because I wasn’t able to do that in Excel. It also helps to get the staff paid more accurately,” Ingvert said.
…it takes me the same time to schedule 200 workers with Humanity as it took me to schedule 30 workers using Excel.
Giving HR a helping hand
The positive impact of deploying Humanity was noticed across the company, even beyond staff scheduling. For instance, leave management system used to be very complex, with sick leave and time off policies differing in countries where West Atlantic operates. Humanity’s reports dramatically simplify the process.
“The HR team used to have to write down all of the leave information on a piece of paper. Now we just print our leave reports from Humanity and send them to HR so that they have all necessary information on the leave types the employees have taken, so they can be paid accordingly,” Ingvert explained.
Staff using the app helps schedulers learn more about it
West Atlantic employees enjoy using Humanity because it’s easily accessible from any device — mobile app, tablet, and computer. Employees’ user experience also benefits Ingvert in ways that she didn’t expect when the company started using the platform.
You find out about new features in Humanity very often, especially with employees having questions for me. Then I have to go in and learn something new that helps me use Humanity more thoroughly.