Absence Management
Helping schools & districts across the US manage staff absences, and find replacement cover quickly with our very own SaaS solution.
Research, Prototyping, SaaS • 2023/ 24
Helping schools & districts across the US manage staff absences, and find replacement cover quickly with our very own SaaS solution.
Research, Prototyping, SaaS • 2023/ 24
Imagine a school with hundreds of staff, or a district with hundreds of schools. You're responsible for managing absences and finding cover each day, sometimes across multiple sites. It’s hard work, often relying on spreadsheets and physical planners just to stay afloat.
It got us thinking… With this process being described as a puzzle they have to fit together, how could we make life easier for schools? Not only could we help them track absences, but we could also look for opportunities to automate the process of finding cover and getting teachers into classrooms faster.
Working closely with the PM and Engineers on my team, I got to learn the ins and outs of how different schools manage absences, getting a real look at the steps they take each morning to figure out who’s out for the day, which classes need cover, and who’s available to cover.
After speaking to many administrators, I noticed a few common problems:
The process is very manual, often requiring admins to log on at 5AM to see which absences have rolled in. They’d then check their planners and begin trying to find cover.
No way of managing this data in a shared space; everything is tucked away in their head meaning there’s no way to standardise the process, especially in districts for example.
No central place for finding external subs, or using their own staff to fill in for absent colleagues. This led to a risk of communications breaking down.
Their own dedicated dashboard where schools could see exactly what absence activity was happening in their school, days or even weeks in advance.
A daily summary email that we send in the morning, showing any new absences that came in after hours; giving admins full clarity on what needs to be done for the day.
Customisable rules such as policy management, cover match scheduling and time-sheeting for schools & districts.
We later introduced an automated solution by capturing your staff members schedules, and making cover match suggestions based on who’s out and who’s free periods align.
It was incredibly rewarding getting to know how different people manage their day-to-day tasks. Hearing about their problems and pain points first-hand, and working closely with these schools to find solutions that would make their lives easier was great!
We rolled out the first version of absence management in 2023, gathering interest from many schools and piloting new improvements with them throughout.
In Q4 2024, Cover Match was rolled out to a group of pilot schools. I actually moved to another product team within Zen shortly after, but I continue to hear about the positive feedback rolling in as well as new contracts being signed with different districts.
As the latest pilot launch continues to gather feedback, more iterations and areas of opportunity are being worked on as Zen pushes to make this a market-leading solution in the US (and maybe the UK, too 👀).
