In Depth Competitor Research

Staff Management - Tapp Online Portal

Tapp offer Topshop employees an in browser system to access their rotas and shifts. This process was observed as a partner works there. Unfortunately there are some issues with this. The system is simply a collection of jpegs and pngs designed to be printed off. Because of this, they appear blurry when employees screenshot the copy of the rota for later reference. The browser system results in multiple pages being open when a link to a particular rota is pressed. This is confusing and results in misunderstandings with shifts, not to mention their tiny font and full rota. Restraint is essential here as each individual employee only needs to see their own shifts.

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Money Management - Paypal

Money Handling on Paypal is simple and hassle free, however very personal. It would help to offer a business element to the mobile money application. There is a sense of security with the Fingerprint ID which could definitely be utilised. The hierarchy on Paypal's mobile app is very clever. Money Transfers are priority, as well as Activity and balance. This is a hierarchy we could definitely implement.

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Payroll and Rotas - Microsoft Excel

We decided to analyse the potential and accessibility of Microsoft Excel in terms of shift management and rota building, based on the practices of Levi's Newcastle where one of us works part time. Often their rotas take a full shift to complete, meaning the manager is pre-occupied upstairs when he could be used elsewhere. This is down to the fact the rota needs to be typed out individually. His knowledge of Excel formulae is not good enough to link boxes together. For example, it is his responsibility to minus 1 hour for a lunch if a shift exceeds 6 hours. If he forgets this, an employee is underpaid, which is a massive problem. The chance of human error is massive. Their is little verifications and validation. What's more, the physical copy of the rota causes huge confusion. Shift swaps are srcibbled on multiple copies of the rota, so the manager has to chase up staff to confirm these. Also, there is no way of accessing one live rota, which would be much easier on a screen. It could be colour coded, which saves any low quality images like the above from causing any further confusion.

#LOBBAN