I can’t work today.

Problem

If an employee is sick and cannot work their shift, they are required to get a manager’s approval. How do they reach a manager?

There is no longer a phone system in the stores. Employees do not have access to store schedules and do not know who is working. In most stores there are multiple leaders, so an employee could easily reach a manager who has the day off.

Objectives

• Make it easier for employees to reach a manager on-duty

• Give managers visibility (mobile access) without leaving the floor

• Track call out and the status

“a really huge issue is not knowing what manager is on duty... we think we've got a no call, no show. 4 hours later we find out they contacted the manager that was off.”

Call out request

A new Call Out Request feature enables the employee to create a message in the Schedule tool in the employee app. Managers who are working will be notified and can also see the call out request message and a status in the Leadership Engagement tool (LET).

Iterations and Insights

Rapid iterations were done with general managers and their concerns shaped the experience to something they were comfortable with.

• Leaders care about their employees. They do not want an automated process that removes this.

• Being too easy to call out may result in more call outs.

• “I like that all leaders would have a line of sight.”

• Important that employees understand a manager approval is still required.

“I love the idea, I just think it takes the human side of care for our employees out. When someone calls out or is late I reach out and see if they are ok.” - GM

For the employee experience the language was adjusted to reflect this is not automatically approved. An absence policy link and acknowledgment were added to prevent the perception of an easy call out.

Expanding on call outs

Posting an open shift to the billboard from a call out was positioned as a logical extension of the call out workflow. I conducted interviews with store leaders and mapped the journey of what happens after an employee calls out. I wanted to understand if leaders currently use the shift billboard. How do they actually fill call out shifts? What I found:

• Leaders rarely used the billboard for last-minute changes
• Call outs were usually handled by flexing current staff or texting managers in the market

Based on this data, I did share that the feature may not provide as much value. Alternatives to consider included store messaging capability for managers and enhancing the employees swap experience. Despite the findings, development continued on the “post to billboard” capability. This decision was influenced by broader roadmap goals and leadership alignment.

Impact

In addition to call out work, this partnership with the Leadership app team generated conversations about the possibilities of getting leaders (what seemed like long overdue) easier access to relevant workforce data out on the floor: approaching overtime alerts, missing punches, employee availability, employee location preferences and a daily view of store schedules.