Employee app: everything your team needs in one app

Who is an app for employees interesting for?

An employee app delivers the most for teams that spend a lot of time on the road or on site. Think of:

• Installation and maintenance companies with field engineers.
• Cleaning companies with staff at different addresses.
• Transport and delivery companies.
• Hospitality and retail with changing shifts and part-timers.
• Care and welfare organisations with staff who work in clients' homes.

Does your team mainly work at a computer in the office? Then an intranet or internal web application often makes more sense. The choice depends on where your people are when they need information.

What features does a good employee app have?

You don't have to build everything at once. Choose the features that currently cost the most time or cause the most mistakes:

• Schedule and planning: who works when and where, with a notification when something changes.
• Job sheets: receive jobs, tick off work, take photos and get the customer's signature.
• Time tracking: record start and end times, linked directly to a project or customer.
• Checklists and forms: for example a safety check, handover report or cleaning round.
• News and announcements: important messages that don't get buried in a group chat.
• Documents and manuals: always the latest version in your pocket.
• Leave and sick reports: request time off or call in sick without phoning.

Job sheets and hours in particular often deliver a lot, because that data would otherwise be retyped by hand for invoices and payroll. Read what the planning behind the app can look like in custom planning software.

Here's what that looks like on a working day. In the morning, an engineer opens the app and sees his three jobs for the day, with address, contact person and what's wrong. On site, he ticks off the steps, takes photos of the result and has the customer sign on the screen. His hours are logged against the right job automatically. At the office, the job sheet is ready to invoice straight away, without anyone retyping a piece of paper or phoning to ask how long it took.

Off-the-shelf staff app or a custom employee app?

There are plenty of ready-made staff apps for scheduling, communication or time tracking. They're quick to set up and fine for many businesses. A custom employee app becomes interesting when:

• Your way of working differs from what standard packages offer, for example with your own job sheets or inspections.
• You use several separate apps and staff no longer know where to find what.
• The app needs to connect to your own planning, accounting or customer system.
• Per-user licence costs rise sharply as you grow.

A middle ground is a web app that staff add to their home screen. It doesn't have to go through the app store and works on any phone.

Does the app work without internet?

Staff in basements, warehouses or rural areas don't always have signal. An app that does nothing then causes frustration and lost data. So have your app built so that staff can fill in job sheets and take photos offline too. As soon as there's a connection again, everything is sent automatically. Also think about what happens when two people edit the same job sheet at the same time. The app must be able to resolve that neatly, without losing data. Read more about an offline app.

Privacy and phones: what to watch for

An employee app processes personal data of your own team. That calls for care:

• Personal phone or company phone? On a personal phone, the app must keep work and private life well separated.
• Only use location when it's really needed, for example when checking in and out at an address. Tracking staff continuously is rarely allowed under the GDPR (AVG in Dutch).
• Explain what data the app collects and why.
• Make sure a departing employee loses access immediately.
• Do you have a works council? It often has a right of consent for systems that can be used to monitor staff.

If you're unsure what's allowed in your situation, check with a lawyer or the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens). Read more about the technical side in apps and privacy.

How to get your team on board

An employee app only works if your team uses it. A few tips for the rollout:

• Involve a few staff members in the design. They know what's really needed on the shop floor.
• Keep the app simple. Big buttons, little typing, works with gloves on or dirty hands.
• Start with a small group and improve based on their experience.
• Stop the old way as soon as the app works. If paper forms are still allowed, paper will stick around.
• Explain what's in it for them: fewer phone calls, less admin after work.

Common mistakes with a staff app

• Designing the app from the office, without the people who use it every day.
• Wanting everything at once, so the app takes months and the team loses patience.
• Small buttons and lots of typing, which are unusable on the shop floor.
• No connection to planning or accounting, so the office still retypes the data.
• No agreements on management: who adds new staff and who removes former staff?

Having an employee app built by Violexa

At Violexa we build apps and web applications that match how your team really works. We start on the shop floor: which tasks cost time now, and what needs to happen with the data? Then we build the smallest app that solves it, and expand once it works.

A custom project starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT). Larger projects get a fixed price in writing up front.

Want to know what an employee app could do for your team? Book a free quickscan. In 30 minutes, online or on site, we look at how you work. Afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.

Frequently asked questions