Workforce Management Software for Universities

University operations rely on teams with different shift patterns and staffing requirements, from estates and maintenance to catering, security and accommodation. ShopWorks makes it easy to manage them all from one platform.

Build rotas from scratch, copy previous schedules or use reusable templates for recurring shift patterns. Manage permanent, casual and seasonal workers with the correct contract rules, quickly fill open shifts during busy periods, and identify compliance issues before rotas are published.

University workforce demand changes throughout the academic year. Student arrivals, accommodation occupancy, conferences, open days, graduation and seasonal campus activity all influence staffing requirements across estates, catering, security and facilities.

ShopWorks AI Forecasting analyses historical workforce data alongside operational demand drivers to predict future staffing requirements at 15-minute, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly intervals. Managers can plan with greater confidence, control labour costs and ensure the right people are in the right place when demand changes. If your university already uses its own forecasting data, it can be imported directly into ShopWorks.

Knowing how busy your campus will be is only part of the picture. ShopWorks AI Labour Demand Forecasting turns predicted demand into the staffing levels needed to support it, helping managers understand how many people are required, where they are needed and when.

Choose the planning approach that best fits each department, whether the priority is controlling labour costs, maintaining service levels or matching established staffing patterns. Labour demand is shaped by academic calendars, student arrivals, conferences, graduation and seasonal campus activity before feeding directly into AI-Assisted Scheduling.

Building rotas across a complex university operation by hand can be slow and inconsistent. ShopWorks AI-Assisted Scheduling uses the labour demand curve to create rotas based on more than 100 variables and 300 configurations, with compliance built into the process.

Managers remain in control. The AI proposes the rota, while department leads review, adjust and publish it. Rotas can be created estate-wide for shared services such as security and cleaning, or for a specific residence, restaurant or events venue. Bias is removed by design, helping allocate hours fairly and defensibly across casual and student workers. The result is a faster, more consistent scheduling process that scales with your operation.

University operations leaders need workforce insights as they happen, not at month-end. ShopWorks Advanced Workforce Analytics provides real-time, interactive dashboards covering labour hours and costs, performance, clock-in and clock-out activity, attendance, entitlement utilisation, absence trends and employee attendance analysis.

Finance teams can track labour spend against budget while the week is still in progress, while departmental managers gain visibility across catering, accommodation, estates, security and facilities. Bespoke dashboards allow you to analyse workforce data by department, contract type, campus or any other reporting structure, giving every stakeholder the insights they need to make informed decisions.

Universities rely on accurate reporting to support payroll, finance, HR, compliance and audit. ShopWorks includes more than 40 pre-built reports covering departments, payroll, audit, time off, KPIs, training and more, with bespoke reporting available to meet your organisation’s specific requirements.

Payroll teams receive clean, payroll-ready worked-time data. Finance gains accurate department cost reporting, HR can monitor entitlements and absence, and audit teams have a complete attendance trail. Every report is generated from the same trusted workforce data, eliminating manual reconciliation and giving every department a consistent view of what was scheduled and what was worked.

University operations face predictable staffing pressures throughout the year, from student arrivals and graduation to conferences and peak campus activity. ShopWorks brings holiday, sickness, parental leave, bereavement and time off in lieu into one place, making absence management simpler for managers and HR teams.

AI-powered holiday allocation helps distribute annual leave fairly while protecting cover during busy periods. Automated approval workflows apply your leave policies consistently, reducing administration and ensuring managers only need to review exceptions. Employees can view their leave balances and submit requests through the employee app, helping reduce routine HR queries and giving everyone greater visibility of their entitlement.

Recruiting and retaining hourly-paid and casual workers across catering, accommodation, security, estates and facilities can be challenging. On-Demand Pay gives eligible employees access to a portion of their earned wages before payday through the employee app, alongside an integrated payroll savings option.

For universities, it provides a valuable benefit that can help attract and retain frontline staff without changing existing payroll processes. Employees gain greater financial flexibility, while payroll savings gives those who prefer to build financial resilience an easy way to save directly from their pay.