SMS Shift Bidding
Complete shift bidding over mobile devices using SMS and email messaging. ShiftBID gives you the ability to complete a full bidding cycle via SMS and email messaging. Build your shifts, create a bidding order, and start the bidding with notifications. It's a straightforward, out-of-the-box tool for doing shift bidding.
Union
Agreement compliance
US-based
Sales, support & dev
$10
Per employee/year
Notifications
Realtime notifications
ShiftBID notifies an employee when it's their turn to bid. They can also receive notifications when the bidding has begun, and reminders when there are only 24 hours left to bid in Ranked Bidding mode.
Modes
Three bidding modes
ShiftBID notifies an employee when it's their turn to bid. They can also receive notifications when the bidding has begun, and reminders when there are only 24 hours left to bid in Ranked Bidding mode.
Flexible
Employees can bid from anywhere
There are three modes (called scheduling styles) that determine the method by which bidding happens: Standard, Sprint, and Ranked.
Flexible
Automated seniority calculation
ShiftBID can calculate the seniority of all employees based on your criteria (hire date, user ID number, etc)
Exportable
Download CSV with results
Once bidding is complete, the administrators can download a complete CSV with all schedule information.
How it works
- Create a schedule framework
- Build a bidding order (usually done by seniority)
- Decide on a bidding mode
- Start bidding
- View final bid results
Benefits
- No app download required - We set this up to use SMS and email messaging, which can be opened in a standard smartphone browser. Employees do NOT need to download a native app.
- Quicker bidding cycles - SMS messages are immediate and drive attention. Open rates on SMS messages are much higher than other delivery mediums.
- Cost-effective - Billing for SMS messages is included in the cost of our software, up to an average annual SMS usage of 480 texts per employee across your organization (which may incur additional charges). Most organizations find this threshold more than sufficient for their needs.
Use Cases
Improving Fairness in Shift Allocation at Retail Chain
A national retail chain needs to allocate weekend and holiday shifts fairly across their workforce (which includes a large contingent of part-time workers). They want a system where employees can express their preferences while adhering to labor laws and potentially some form of rotation or limited seniority considerations.
Using ShiftBID, the administrator creates the weekend shift schedule. When the bidding window opens, employees receive an SMS notification that new shifts are available. They can then respond via SMS with a code or number corresponding to their preferred shifts (e.g., "BID 1, 3, 5"). ShiftBID collects these bids and, based on the configured bidding mode (e.g., Standard with some rotation rules), automatically assigns shifts. Employees receive a confirmation SMS about their awarded shifts.
Questions we get asked
When it's an employee's turn to bid, they receive a message stating they have a set number of hours to make their shift selection. There is a link to ShiftBID included in the text.
We set a 480 SMS message limit per employee, per year, across your organization. Additional texts will incur additional charges. Most organizations find this threshold to be way more than they need.