Manual vs. Electronic?  I think that's the question a lot of people ask these days in our electronic age.  I personally never ask that question because in my book, electronic is the only way to go.

I can tell you there is a vast difference in the Culver's in how they do their scheduling.  There are pros and cons to each scheduling system that is used.

I will start off by explaining the manual system that the Waukesha Culver's uses.  They use a paper notebook in which you can request any days off up to a year in advance.  The manager takes the notebook and reviews all the time off that is requested for the following week and puts together a schedule.  Then a manual schedule is posted the Tuesday before the next Monday-Sunday work week.  The cons of this are: it's very easy for someone to erase your entries from the manual notebook, you don't ever know if you are approved for vacation until that week and you have to call or come in to get your schedule.

The Mukwonago Culver's is a bit different.  You schedule your time off through an online system through the stores website.  Unfortunately, this system can only be accessed through internet explorer.  Therefore using Firefox or Google Chrome is not an option to bring up the schedule.  You can access the website 24/7 to make your requests and view your schedule. The good thing is that you can request days off up to 2 years ahead of time and no one can erase your entry because each person has their own unique log in and password.  You can view all of your time off requests on a single page.   A couple of downsides to this system:  once a request has been approved by management you do not have the permission required to delete it, the schedule gets posted late Friday on Friday nights two days before the actual work week and with every time off request you have to select a reason from the drop down menu's on the system.  The reason that can be a pain is that management uses that to determine whether or not to give you off or not.  Sometimes you just need to get creative.

The craziest amount of people I have seen ask off is for the upcoming Saturday, May 12th.  It happens to be Prom night for both Waukesha and Mukwonago.  18 staff members asked off for that day, including myself. There was talk that everyone might not get off.  You can imagine how many people were 'saying' they would quit if they didn't get off for that day.  I personally did not ask off for the whole day, however, I was granted the whole day.  The key is making sure that you don't call in for any shifts you are schedule for and to cover other people's shifts when they do call in.  That pretty much will guarantee you the time off when you need it.