Newsroom - Media

The challenge

In 2016, Berlin Newsroom GmbH took over overall publishing responsibility for the Berliner Zeitung and Berliner Kurier as their service provider. As a result, the company now produces print versions of both newspapers across all digital channels, formats, and innovative products. Although new working environments and forms of collaboration were created, this posed problems in terms of staff scheduling:

• Mapping different teams as well as their staffing requirements for both newspapers
• The need for functional software per the company's data protection and IT guidelines
• Everything had to be laid out for editors, journalists, assistants, graphic designers, layout designers, and freelance employees

"I can immediately see, at a glance, how the teams are staffed and where there are bottlenecks. It's also a significant advantage that I can reschedule quickly and go through the planning processes more swiftly." - Jan Schmidt, Newsroom Manager

The problem

Scheduling had previously been done using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, in addition to other tools. In the event of last-minute absences and shift changes, it became necessary to conduct telephone calls with employees to coordinate the work. Once this problem was solved, a new one emerged. Schedulers, again, had to notify all employees of changes made to printed schedules. Newsroom searched for a solution that simplified the scheduling of shifts and the respective communication surrounding it.

The solution

Since 2017, Newsroom has relied on shyftplan's cloud-based software solution to coordinate the shifts of approximately 150 employees. This software complies with the company's data protection and IT guidelines and allows for different teams, personnel requirements, and shifts to be mapped. There is no need for time-consuming arrangements, and each employee can respond to notifications directly and in real-time as needed. This saves time; smaller teams of five to six people can organize themselves, and no outside help is required.

The result

Thanks to the high software transparency, planning managers now have several advantages. Many employees can now work across teams because with shyftplan, they can see what department they're in, what shift they're working, and who else is scheduled to work.

In addition to real-time absence management, shyftplan offered many other advantages for Newsroom such as:

• High transparency within shift assignments, which promotes employee self-determination and simplifies processes
• Unscheduled shifts are not lost, as employees can also retroactively apply for worked shifts
• Clear absence management enables timely and simple coordination in real time

To learn how shyftplan helped Newsroom GmbH go digital with their scheduling, read through our whitepaper.