Nearly a decade ago, during a quiet Thanksgiving walk through Toronto, our founder passed a large retail store and noticed something odd: a group of employees standing outside, rattling the locked front doors. At first glance, it looked like a customer misunderstanding, but as he approached, he realized the people outside weren’t shoppers, but actual employees scheduled to work that day.
The problem is that they couldn’t get in and had no way to reach anyone inside since they didn’t have their manager’s phone number or email.
The sad reality is that there was no system in place for quick, organization-wide communication... not even for something as critical as a missed shift on a holiday.
That moment became one of the early catalysts for integrating real-time communication features directly into WorkAxle because no WFM solution is complete if employees and managers can’t connect when it matters.
Today, our platform makes it easy for anyone in the organization to reach out to the right person with absolutely no personal contact info required. A quick name search inside the app is all it takes to open a direct line. Also, push notifications alert managers immediately with clear indication of a shift-related request needing attention.
If those employees had access to a tool like this, a potentially chaotic situation could have been resolved in seconds.
This clip walks through:
- Why communication gaps are still one of the most overlooked WFM issues
- How missed shifts often reflect larger breakdowns in coordination
- What it looks like when WFM communication is built into the core platform, not bolted on as an afterthought
Watch the story and see how a single missed connection helped shape a better way to communicate at scale.