Empowering small businesses to succeed

Sling vs. When I Work: Key Features

The choice between Sling vs When I Work depends on your business needs.

Sling Key Features:

• Employee Scheduling: Offers an intuitive drag-and-drop scheduler that simplifies shift creation and allocation.
• Labor Cost Management: Tracks labour expenses in real-time to help managers stay within budget.
• Communication Hub: Built-in messaging system for efficient communication between team members and management.
• Task Management: Tools to assign and monitor tasks, ensuring they are completed effectively.

When I Work Key Features:

• Time & Attendance Tracking: Comprehensive tools for tracking employee hours, including clock-in/clock-out features accessible via mobile devices.
• Shift Swapping: Employees can manage their shifts, swap with others, or pick up open shifts easily.
• Advanced Integration: Direct integration with payroll systems like ADP to automate payroll processing.
• Customisable Reports: Create detailed reports to support strategic decision-making in workforce management.

Sling vs. When I Work: Similarities

• Employee Scheduling – Easily and quickly schedule and assign shifts.
• Shift Swapping – the ability to swap shifts between different employees.
• Time and Attendance – calculation of worked time and clarification of the fact of employee’s presence at the workplace.
• Team Communication – One common place to discuss shifts and work issues, which is more convenient and easier to manage.
• Payroll Integration – Ability to automatically calculate payroll for employees with different numbers of shifts and different types of shifts.
• Reporting and Analytics – Tools for employee and manager alerts, performance analytics, etc.
• Mobile Accessibility – Availability of a mobile app
• Task Management – Management of different types of tasks.
• Real-Time Updates on changes in schedules, messages, important announcements.
• Customisable Roles and Permissions for managers of different levels.

Sling vs. When I Work: The Differences

Features that are in When I Work and not in Sling:

• Compliance monitoring tools
• Geofencing and Location Tracking, which are needed to record whether a worker has actually arrived at the workplace and started working.
• Multi-Language Support for teams with people from different countries
• Employee Feedback and Surveys to gauge how satisfied employees are with their jobs and whether they find scheduling tools useful for their work
• Shift Bidding – the ability for multiple employees to choose the same shift by offering different terms and conditions
• Advanced Analytics
• Workforce Planning tool
• Automation and AI Tools that help you better track trends in employee performance.
• Compensation and Benefits Management tools.

Features that are in Sling and not in When I Work:

• Leave Management to make it easier to replace employees who are sick or on holiday
• Labor Cost Optimisation tools to help allocate workers in a way that minimises overtime that needs to be paid extra for
• Employee Self-Service, giving workers tools to manage their schedules in a limited way.

Sling vs. When I Work: Pros and Cons

Sling Pros:

• If you’re deciding between Sling vs When I Work, take into account the free plan offered by Sling for small teams.
• Easy to implement with user-friendly scheduling tools.
• Some important features like Labor Cost Optimisation tools
• There are special tools for restaurant and café owners

Sling Cons:

• Fewer features than When I Work, including lack of features for scheduling and future performance analytics

When I Work Pros:

• Customisable options for different business needs.
• Feature sets that are suitable for companies that are growing rapidly, including having offices in different countries.

When I Work Cons:

• Higher costs compared to Sling.
• Slightly more complex interface, due to more features to master

Sling vs. When I Work: Pricing

Sling has three plans, one is completely free (up to 50 users and with limited functionality). The other two cost £1.7 and £3.4 per month per user in 2024. The most expensive plan includes more analytics features.

When I Work also has three plans, with the cheapest costing $1.50 per month per user and the most expensive costing $5 per user. The company recommends using the most expensive plan for larger companies that need customisation and increased efficiency.

Both services offer a free trial for the first month.

5 Recommendations for Choosing Between Sling vs. When I Work

1. Assess the size of your business: Both services are suitable for small and medium-sized businesses, but larger companies are more likely to go with When I Work.
2. Decide if you need payroll tools. Comparing Sling vs When I Work, the latter has tighter integration with your payroll system.
3. Understand how much you need to control expenses: Sling has handy features for this.
4. Understand if an out-of-the-box solution is right for you: When I Work provides more customisation options.
5. Training and ease of use: if ease of use is a priority, Sling offers a simpler interface with minimal training requirements.

Ten Questions You Must Ask When Choosing Between Sling vs. When I Work

1. What size is my business?
2. How important is payroll integration to my work?
3. Do I need advanced labour cost tracking?
4. How much flexibility do I need to customise reports and schedules?
5. Will my team understand a more complex interface?
6. What is my budget for labour management tools?
7. Does the company need the scalability of the application, in case of active growth?
8. Do I want the ability to geo-track an employee’s availability at the check-in point?
9. Can my team afford longer training for new software?
10. Which platform has the support features that best meet our needs?

Sling vs. When I Work: Use Cases

Sling Use Cases:

• A farm grocery store with 10 employees. A free plan with a set of basic features would suit such a business. Its owner will minimise costs by getting the basic tools.
• Restaurant or hotel. The app is ideal for restaurants and cafes that need to manage employee schedules and communicate quickly between teams, as well as distribute shifts and restaurant areas among different employees.

When I Work Use Cases:

• Corporate Enterprises. Best for large corporations needing scalable scheduling, payroll integration, and a variety of reporting options.
• Healthcare Organisations. Effective for hospitals or clinics needing to manage complex shift schedules and ensure compliance across multiple locations.

Final Thoughts on Sling vs. When I Work: Which is Best for Business

The choice When I Work vs. Sling ultimately depends solely on what features you need. Sling is well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t want to spend extra time and expenses. It offers important features such as labour management and basic scheduling tools. On the other hand, When I Work is designed for larger organisations with more complex scheduling, payroll integration, and scalability requirements. It offers powerful customisation options, but at a higher cost.